Reflections From The World...

Gaston Bachelard in his study in 1961. Photo by Bernard Pascucci/INA/Getty

In 1961, Bachelard was interviewed, aged almost 80, at home in his tiny claustrophobic study in Paris. He sits snugly, seemingly shoe-horned into the only available space, between teetering heaps of books piled floor to ceiling, folios to slim pamphlets, the philosopher incarnate, down to his effulgent Socratic beard and unruly white hair. ”Life,” he tells his awed interviewer lightly, ”is about thinking and then getting on with living.”