Every section of the novel save the Coda comes from a previously published source. See the main bibliography for more information on the sources published as books. For detailed information see Intertextual Assemblage in Robbe-Grillet: From Topology to the Golden Triangle by Bruce Morrissette.
Incipit. First section (up to « j'écris maintenant le mot CONSTRUCTION, peinture en trompe-l'œil, construction imaginaire par laquelle je nomme les ruines d'une future divinité. ») of Traces suspectes en surface.
Premiere espace: Construction d'un temple en ruines à la déesse Vanadé. First seven chapters of Construction d'un temple en ruine à la déesse Vanadé. Note that ruines is plural in Topologie and singular in the original work. Each section has the name of the corresponding chapter of the original work.
Deuxième espace: Répétitions à mouvement ascendant pour une demure immobile. From Morissette (p. 79): « Text first published as "Le Demeure immobile de David Hamilton" in the periodical Zoom, No. 5 (Dec. 1970), and as an extension of Instantés in the postface to Robbe-Grillet's La Maison de rendez-vous (Paris: 10/18, 1972), pp. 297-310. » "David Hamilton" in the original becomes "David H." in Topologie.
Troisième espace: Construction d'un temple en ruines (suite et fin). Final three chapters (again using the names in the original work) of Construction d'un temple en ruine à la déesse Vanadé.
Quatrième espace: Rêveries des mineures séquestrées entre fenêtre et miroir.
I Vagabondage mièvre en attendant. Text of Rêves des jeunes filles.
II Deuxième cycle initiatique. Text of Les Demoiselles d'Hamilton.
Cinquième espace: Le criminel déjà sur mes propres traces.
I Retour raturé. Second section of Traces suspectes en surface, from « C'est le matin. C'est le soir. Je me rappelle. » to « L'image des œufs, une fois de plus... Et, tout de suite après, c'est l'explosion, dan la carté blanche éblouissante, comme un soleil glacé rayonnant derrière les arbres. »
II Cérémonie rituel. From Morissette (p. 79): this text « was commissioned by the Japanese liquor company Suntory and appeared widely in Japanese nespapers, sometime prior to 1975. » Also (p. 30): « It was commissioned with the single restriction that the author refer somewhere to the drinking of an alcoholic beverage, not necessary the Scotch whiskey in which the company specializes. » Robbe-Grillet quotes from Michelet's La Sorcière (the "Fiancée de Corinthe" story told at the end of the opening section "La Mort des dieux"): « Elle boit de sa lèvre pâle le sombre vin couleur de sang. »
III Paysage avec cri. Third section of Traces suspectes en surface, from « De l'autre côte, la fenêtre » to « réunissant entre elles par instant les longues vaguelettes qui peu à peu gagnent du terrain. ».
IV Rétrospective des fouilles. Fourth and final section of Traces suspectes en surface, from « De l'autre côte, un enfant regarde au-dehors » to the end.
V Un autel à double fond. Chapter I of La Belle captive. The other three chapters are used in Souvenirs.
Coda. Previously unpublished.
A lost city, which would have housed in the same territory several successive civilizations – repetitive or contradictory – each depositing its strata (its particular topography, its history punctuated by natural cataclysms or massacres, its sacred texts, its array of utensils and of signs), gives rise here to a sort of vertical cross-section in which different systems of traces reveal the specific space of each age. But the fragments overlap, interpenetrate, mutually destroy each other...
Theaters, prisons, harems, temples and brothels seem however to the archaeologist, who advances step by step in this moving maze with its sudden transformations, to contain (to hide, or on the contrary, most often, to stage) the same secret crime: the ceremonial and intricate murder of a prostitute, barely nubile, of which the memory – or ritual reproduction – leaves suspicious traces on the investigator's steps.
Thus the child who looks back already recognizes – in his still fresh imprints – the sexual fantasies drawn for him by the wholesome society in its school books, books of art, or history, or religion, which all recount to him in their own devious way, tirelessly, the same desire.