Written in 1942-43, this book explores France and French culture at a time when France seemed cut off. The book is obsessed with the pleasures of life at a time when nearly all pleasures were forbidden. It proclaims its faith in the unity and continuity of Western culture in its moment of greatest crisis in the war years. Connnolly assumed the name of Palinurus - Aeneas' pilot - to suggest the core of melancholy which lies at the heart of this book. A lament for a vanishing world, this book is also a spiritual odyssey, a meditation on literature, love, nature and religion and a collection of aphorisms and epigrams. By the author of The Rock Pool, Enemies of Promise and The Evening Colonnade.