I set myself a challenge to find something inspiringly Parisian for International Women’s Day. I walked along the Seine in the sun, heading for The National Library of France, intending to cross the river via the Passerelle Simone de Beauvoir (which seemed appropriate) - and there I found it.
Over Simone’s footbridge looms President Mitterand’s stunning, controversial legacy - four giant towers constructed to look like open books, enclosing a patch of forest. Sunk deep between the towers, the tiny forest seems unnervingly ancient. You shiver as you look down into the shadows of overgrown birches and pines, expecting to glimpse something primeval there.
Mother Earth turned renegade, bursting through the city at the heart of a giant library.
Fantastic.
Fantastic.
It reminds me of The Library episode in Doctor Who, said my daughter, where the library is a whole planet and you’ve got to watch the shadows...
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