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

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

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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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?One has the impression, reading The Flâneur, of having fallen into the hands of a highly distractible, somewhat eccentric poet and professor who is determined to show you a Paris you wouldn?t otherwise see?Edmund White tells such a good story that I?m ready to listen to anything he wants to talk about.??New York Times Book Review
A flâneur is a stroller, a loiterer, someone who ambles through city streets in search of adventure and fulfillment. Edmund White, who lived in Paris for sixteen years, wanders through the streets and avenues and along the quays, into parts of Paris virtually unknown to visitors and indeed to many Parisians. In the hands of the learned White, a walk through Paris is both a tour of its lush, sometimes prurient history and an evocation of the city?s spirit. The Flâneur leads us to bookshops and boutiques, monuments and palaces, giving us a glimpse into the inner human drama. Along the way we learn everything from the latest debates among French lawmakers to the juicy details of Colette?s life.

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Annoyed By Most Travel Books?

Edmund White gives a very different "travel book" in FLANEUR: A STROLL THROUGH THE PARADOXES OF PARIS. If you don't delight in books that compare prices of hotels and restaurants or books in which the author traces the difficulty of restoring and furbishing a fabulous villa all while beguiling and amusing the locals then White's book will offer you a refreshing alternative.

Sixteen-year resident, White, offers a view of Paris that is at once personal and historical. It is more accurately described as a memoir of Paris rather than a standard travel book. One feels as though a friend is offering a leisurely tour of the city showing you his favorite places and telling stories offering insight and historical tidbits not dragging you through a checklist as an impersonal tourist. The changes in neighborhoods and the histories he describes particularly those of expatriate Americans in Paris are all insightful. White's tone is erudite and conversational without being tedious or condescending. The term flaneur is key in the title. The pace of the book is strolling but always interesting. It seems to have no direction but the end result is both illuminating and satisfying. Most remarkably it offers an enjoyable read whether one is immediately traveling to Paris or armchair traveling or whether one is living in a villa in Europe or a small apartment in the States.

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Cruising Paris

Of course this isn't really about cruising. If it were it would be awfully boring, and this book is anything but boring. Even so, there is nothing quite so pleasurable as a stroll down almost any street in the French capital. Edmund white, who lived there for a long time, offers a distillation of his experience in this delightful little book. Reading it is almost as good as being there. Second best. Whie writes elegantly and intelligently. The part I most enjoyed, and from which I learned most, is about the Camondo Museum and the tragedy of the family that built and owned it. After reading this book I went to visit it and it turned out to be all White says it is. Delightful. But the book contains other wonderful descriptions of people and places as well. Highly recommended.

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Step back in time

I bought this book while holidaying in the Marais in the summer of 2005. I read it on my return to Sydney as a means of returning to the backstreets of Paris as I also remember it.

If you've been to Paris much of this book will seem familiar. If you haven't, It's the closest you'll come to enjoying the pleasures of this most magnificent city.

Much like Paris itself, this book is brilliant.

A Different Look at Paris

White, Edmund. "The Flaneur: A Stroll through the Paradoxes of Paris", Bloomsbury, 2007.

A Different Look of Paris

Amos Lassen

Edmund White is a wonderful writer as he has proven many times and he gives us a great travel book in "The Flaneur". White gives us a look at Paris that is both personal and historical and is really more of a memoir than anything else. I felt as if White was my friend and taking me on a stroll around the city and showing me his favorite places and telling me stories of his own life there. He is erudite and conversational and never did I feel I was being given a tour of Paris. The fact that the book meanders without any direction is a plus as this makes it comfortable.
The book is only 211 pages long and there is a great deal of information in it. White writes of the avant garde of the Left Bank which is just a fading memory and what a pity! White concentrates on the minorities of the city--the Arabs, the Jews, and the Blacks. It is an insider's guide and we learn of the idiosyncrasies, the flavor, the history and the charm of the City of Light. A flaneur is a rambler who wanders aimlessly through the back ways of the city just to observe and reflect and this is what we do with White. A flaneur comments on all that he sees and hears and knows about the areas of Paris that he chooses to comment on. White lived in Paris for 16 years so there is no doubt that he knows the city. White's distillation of his own years In Paris is what makes this book so interesting and fun.

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This is the book to bring to Paris

Before leaving home one should read "Paris, The Biography of a City" by Colin Jones and when the trip is over, digest your visit with "Paris" by Julian Green.

"The Flaneur," however, is the best of the three and the one you will want with you as you wander the streets. At first blush the book appears to be intellectual flaneurie, but in fact the sections are broken down into fairly regimented units. They are roughly: Americans in Paris, the African American expereince, Jewish Paris, Gay Paris, Royalist Paris, all seen through a historical lens with lots of breezy, anecdotal filler. Plenty of history to round out the edges too. Ironically, it will leave readers a full agenda of places to visit as opposed to just "aimlessly wandering" which the actual flaneurs are want to do. Worth if for the descriptions of the less popular museums alone.

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

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