SOURCE: “Myths and Ironies of the Occupation: Marcel Aymé's ‘Traversee de Paris,’” in Myth and Its Legacy in European Literature, edited by Neil Thomas and Francoise Le Saux, University of Durham, 1996, pp. 49–61.

In the following essay, Lloyd analyzes Aymé's story “Traversée de Paris” for its insight into the German occupation of Paris during World War II.

L'homme n'est qu'un animal mythologique.

—Michel Tournier¹

Myth, says Michel Tournier, is ‘une histoire fondamentale’, and humanity is defined by its capacity to mythologise, its receptivity ‘au bruissement d'histoires, au kaléidoscope d'images’ which it perceives from cradle to grave. Myth unites story, history and the urge to express some basic truth about humanity. Like Tournier, Marcel Aymé (1902–1967) was a compelling storyteller, whose fictions pleasingly combine the fabulist's art with moral and historical reflexion on his age. With their richly atmospheric evocation of period and place, their grimly humorous...