Parisians
An Adventure History of Paris
By Graham Robb
(W. W. Norton & Company, Hardcover, 9780393067248, 475pp.)
Publication Date: April 2010
Other Editions of This Title: Paperback, Compact Disc, Compact Disc, MP3 CD
Categories: Europe - France
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Description
This is the Paris you never knew. From the Revolution to the present, Graham Robb has distilled a series of astonishing true narratives, all stranger than fiction, of the lives of the great, the near-great, and the forgotten. A young artillery lieutenant, strolling through the Palais-Royal, observes disapprovingly the courtesans plying their trade. A particular woman catches his eye; nature takes its course. Later that night Napoleon Bonaparte writes a meticulous account of his first sexual encounter. A well-dressed woman, fleeing the Louvre, takes a wrong turn and loses her way in the nameless streets of the Left Bank. For want of a map--there were no reliable ones at the time--Marie-Antoinette will go to the guillotine. Baudelaire, the photographer Marville, Baron Haussmann, the real-life Mimi of La Boheme, Proust, Adolf Hitler touring the occupied capital in the company of his generals, Charles de Gaulle (who is suspected of having faked an assassination attempt in Notre Dame)--these and many more are Robb's cast of characters, and the settings range from the quarries and catacombs beneath the streets to the grand monuments to the appalling suburbs ringing the city today. The result is a resonant, intimate history with the power of a great novel.
Sunday, Jul 4, 2010
In Graham Robb's new book, Parisians, An Adventure History of Paris, the past comes to you in thundering whispers and haunting asides. You never know, by name, who is speaking; it's history as a great masked ball of revelation. None of the book is fiction, but it reads like the most thrilling of novels. Guest Host Jacki Lyden talks with Robb about his new book. More at NPR.org
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