Paris, Paris: Journey into the City of Light - Softcover

Downie, David

3.9

1,357 ratings by Goodreads

9780976925101: Paris, Paris: Journey into the City of Light

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0976925109 ISBN 13: 9780976925101

Publisher: Transatlantic Pr, 2005

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

Like all great cities and yet unlike any other Paris is alive and fluttering, it changes with the light, buffeted by Seine-basin breezes. This place called Paris is at once the imaginary land of literature and film, a distant view through shifting, misty lenses, and a vibrant contemporary city where a kaleidoscope of millions seems bent on the grand conspiracy of enjoying life. Paris, Paris: Journey into the City of Light paints a portrait in thirty perennial essays of the world’s favorite city.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

From the Publisher:

In his introduction, David Downie provides a tantalizing foretaste of this engaging, critically acclaimed book. "Paris is the kind of city butterfly catchers have trouble netting, tacking down and studying," he assures readers. "Like all great cities and yet unlike any other, Paris is alive and fluttering, it changes with the light, buffeted by Seine-basin breezes. This place called Paris is at once the city of literature and film, an imagined land, a distant view through shifting, misty lenses, the leftover tang of Jean-Paul Sartre’s cigarettes clinging to the mirrored walls of a Saint-Germain-des-Pres caf�, and the city where I and over two million others pay taxes, re-heel shoes, and shop for cabbages or cleaning fluids." Packed with detail, Downie’s essays "evoke the soul and the substance of the city with a critic’s intelligence and a lover’s heart" (Donald George, Global Travel Editor, Lonely Planet). Celebrated travel writer Jan Morris seems to agree, calling Paris, Paris "Perhaps the most evocative American book about Paris since A Movable Feast." Readers expecting the usual puffery will be disappointed. As noted author John Baxter points out, "Lifting the curtain (in some cases before the people inside expect it) is very much what this book is about... The chic Place de Vosges, for instance. What’s it really like to live in those 17th century h�tels particuli�rs and to look down on the caf�s under the colonnade where movie stars take coffee and fashion models prowl? Well, for some, not much fun, since many tenants inherited their homes generations back, and can’t or won’t renovate. Persuading one to invite him in, Downie describes being ‘led from floor to sagging floor by the pavilion’s unwashed, unshaved, ornery owner, who scowled out of the broken windowpanes and cursed his inheritance. You think it’s beautiful, he shouted over and over, you like the view? I hate it here. I hate it!’" Happily Downie’s abiding love for the French capital wins out, despite the occasional tongue-in-cheek jab. "[He] lives in Paris, like wine in a glass," comments prize-winning short story writer Mavis Gallant, who has called Paris home since 1950. "Paris, Paris is his quirky, personal, independent view of the city, its history and its people. Residents will recognize a place they can vouch for and not the clich�s so frequently conjured up to match the legends. Visitors and newcomers are bound to find Paris, Paris reliable company as they discover the city’s beauties and pleasures and its problems too." Paris, Paris is that rare object nowadays: a book of literate travel essays illustrated with striking B&W photographs. Known for her photography work in the books of Sophia Loren, Marcella Hazan, Anne Willan and many other celebrities and cooks, Alison Harris is also a passionate chronicler in B&W of Paris’ streets. As Diane Johnson sees it, "Paris must be the most photographed place in the world, from Doisneau to Cartier-Bresson. These beautiful studies by Alison Harris extend that literature with a powerful formal talent. Her camera’s loving dissection of details that the busy traveler might not notice for himself, makes of this book a splendid object in itself, a sort of bibliophilic gem."

From the Author:

I hope these quirky, independent, skeptical, irreverent essays avoid the trap of the traveling curmudgeon. "Perhaps because I came to Paris expecting no favors, with few illusions, and a generous dose of curiosity," I write in my introduction, "I have yet to feel the betrayal some visitors and transitory residents distill into vague resentment. Paris has no monopoly on grumpy waiters, horizontal pollution, or enraged drivers, nor, in my experience, do the elusive, mythical Parisians focus their supposed disdain on any one nationality. I’ve been privileged to hunt for Paris in many places, with many people, including the occasional Parisian, for nearly twenty years, and these essays are part of my catch. My vision of the city still blurs from Paris to Paris in my daily pursuit of fluttering wings. Happily, I don’t want to pin them down and anyway, Paris always manages to fly away." I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed researching and writing them, a labor of love that took me nearly 10 years.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.