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Overview
Exploring Paris arm in arm with Balzac, nineteenth-century France's most famous novelist and observer
In Balzac's vast Human Comedy, a body of ninety-one completed novels and stories, he endeavoured to create a complete picture of contemporary French society and manners. Within this work is a loving ode to Paris and an incomparable introduction to the first capital of the modern world.
To this ageless city he makes a declaration of love in an accumulation of finely observed detail - the cafés, landmarks, avenues, parks - and captures the populace in countless meticulously drawn portraits: its lawyers, grisettes, journalists, concierges, usurers, salesmen, speculators.
Balzac gathered the elements of this Paris by sauntering through it. 'To saunter is a science,' he writes, 'it is the gastronomy of the eye. To take a walk is to vegetate; to saunter is to live.' Eric Hazan follows in Balzac's footsteps, criss-crossing the city in the novelist's outsize boots, running between printers, publishers, coffee merchants, mistresses and friends, stopping for a moment, struck by a detail that would be fixed in Balzac's photographic memory.
More than a tour of the city, Balzac's Paris is an attempt to measure the soul of a city as recovered in its finest literature.
In Balzac's vast Human Comedy, a body of ninety-one completed novels and stories, he endeavoured to create a complete picture of contemporary French society and manners. Within this work is a loving ode to Paris and an incomparable introduction to the first capital of the modern world.
To this ageless city he makes a declaration of love in an accumulation of finely observed detail - the cafés, landmarks, avenues, parks - and captures the populace in countless meticulously drawn portraits: its lawyers, grisettes, journalists, concierges, usurers, salesmen, speculators.
Balzac gathered the elements of this Paris by sauntering through it. 'To saunter is a science,' he writes, 'it is the gastronomy of the eye. To take a walk is to vegetate; to saunter is to live.' Eric Hazan follows in Balzac's footsteps, criss-crossing the city in the novelist's outsize boots, running between printers, publishers, coffee merchants, mistresses and friends, stopping for a moment, struck by a detail that would be fixed in Balzac's photographic memory.
More than a tour of the city, Balzac's Paris is an attempt to measure the soul of a city as recovered in its finest literature.
| ISBN-13 | 9781839767258 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10 | 1839767251 |
| Weight | 0.65 Pounds |
| Dimensions | 5.75 x 0.73 x 8.55 In |
| List Price | $24.95 |
| Format | Hardcover |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Pages | 208 pages |
| Publisher | Verso |
| Published On | 2024-06-25 |
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