Available:*
Shelf Number | Material Type | Copy | Shelf Location | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 944.361 ROB | Recreational Reading | 1 | Standard shelving location | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
Taking us from 1750 to the new millennium, this title is both history and travel guide, yet also part memoir, and part mystery. It introduces us to some of the inhabitants in Paris: some famous, some not - and some infamous.
Author Notes
Graham Robb's two previous books, "Victor Hugo" & "Balzac," were "New York Times" Notable Books. He lives in Oxford, England.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
With the same exhilarating sense of historical adventure and narrative elegance he brought to The Discovery of France, Robb's new book might be called The Discovery of Paris. Through a series of chronological episodes, Robb relates little-known events in the city's history, each featuring a fascinating figure, some well-known (Napoleon or the great criminal-turned-sleuth Vidocq), some less so (Henry Murger, the struggling writer whose Latin Quarter vignettes became La Vie de BohEme). Each figure discovers or reveals an unknown Paris. In the 1770s Charles-Axel Guillaumot explored the ancient quarries beneath the city and built the catacombs there; a little-noticed carved panel at Notre-Dame is at the heart of a 1937 episode involving espionage, alchemy, and a future nuclear inferno. The most thrilling chapter tells the supposedly true tale (the original records are lost) behind The Count of Monte Cristo; only the tale of actress and singer Juliette Greco framed as a shooting script fails to entice. With his profound knowledge of Paris, its treasures and squalor, its heroes and victims, Robb reveals a city of not only lights but darkness, which, though discovered, remains unknowable and alluring. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
In 1787, an obscure French artillery officer, awkward in manner and dress, wanders Parisian streets and has a brief encounter with a prostitute before returning to his modest lodgings. He is Napoleon Bonaparte. An architect examines the subterranean environs of Paris in the late eighteenth century and realizes that large portions of the city are in danger of collapsing into sinkholes. He is Charles-Axel Guillaumot, the Man who Saved Paris. On an evening in 1791, a foreign born woman and her guide explore Parisian streets on a clandestine search for an escape route from the city for herself and her family. She is Marie-Antoinette, and her confusion leads to delay, exposure, and death for the king and queen. Robb, a biographer who lives in Britain, has written extensively on France and has a long-term love affair with Paris. In this unique and thoroughly enjoyable work, he has presented aspects of both the geography and history of Paris through a series of vignettes built around the personal experiences of historical figures. He combines the genres of tourist guide and urban history.--Freeman, Jay Copyright 2010 Booklist
Library Journal Review
To Whitbread Book Award-winning biographer Robb (Victor Hugo), Paris is clearly "a miraculous creation where even the quietest street is crowded with adventures." Serious Francophiles who share his point of view may enjoy this quirky journey through time and space. Part history, part travelog, part "Ripley's Believe It or Not!," this creative historical geography takes us on a tour of Paris via a series of chronologically arranged vignettes stretching from the eve of the Revolution of 1789 to the present. Through the use of rich imagery, masterly attention to detail, and basically good storytelling, the book records a series of moments and meetings when characters both obscure and famous interacted with key landmarks like the Palais Royal, Notre Dame, or Place de la Concorde. Robb artfully re-creates the drama and turmoil of key events like the bloody horrors of the Commune, De Gaulle's triumphant 1944 entry into Paris, or the tumultuous student demonstrations of May 1968. This is not history as such but a creative montage of how history, individuals, and geography intersected at key moments in Paris. The results may interest those who share "the pleasure of thinking about Paris." Verdict For serious Francophiles or large, specialized collections in French history and culture.-Marie Marmo Mullaney, Caldwell Coll., N.J. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.