The Flaneur: A Stroll Through the Paradoxes of Paris | Edmund White

The Flaneur: A Stroll Through the Paradoxes of Paris | Edmund White | Look! Look! I'm homosexual!

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The Flaneur: A Str...

	The Flaneur: A Stroll Through the Paradoxes of Paris Edmund White Bloomsbury USA, 2008 - 224 pages average customer review:based on 25 reviews view larger image
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Less White, More Paris s'il vous plait

If you're looking to escape into the city of Paris, forget this book. The author never quite manages to leave himself out of the picture for long and fails, unlike the best essayists, to tease larger truths from small observations. Why he needed to leap from a discussion of small museums to a lengthy discourse on his homosexuality is a mystery. The book disappointed.

Look! Look! I'm homosexual!

Why does White feel compelled to spoil what would otherwise be an entertaining little book in order to tell us he is a homosexual and where he goes to find male prostitutes?

a missed opportunity

White is an excellent, insightful writer. A book by him talking about the Parisian tradition of the flaneur, first explored by Walter Benjamin in his essay "Paris, the capital of the 19th century" would have been welcome: it would have updated Benjamin's work (now about 70 years old) and it would have brought a fresh American perspective to it. This isn't quite it. There are some relevant passages in this short book, but White is far mosre interested in the other visitors to Paris than in the city as an entity. Mention of the city's singular places rarely rises above guide-book standard. A shame.

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, page 4, 5

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