Manual of Saint Germain-des-pres by Boris Vian [Paperback]

Boris Vian (Author), Georges Dudognon (Photographer), Paul Knobloch (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 18, 2005

The Manual of St-Germain-des-Prés is a “guide” to the legendary creative and intellectual playground of mid-20th-century Paris. With boundless energy and a delicious sense of humor, Boris Vian takes readers on a star-studded romp through the underground culture of jazz clubs, Left Bank cafés, surrealist and existentialist literature, and the various eccentrics and artists that made up this legendary scene.
Paris in the ‘50s was an incredible place and time: With the end of the war, everything seemed possible. The list of luminaries Vian ran with, and who are captured here in previously unpublished photographs, includes Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Juliette Gréco, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jean Genet, Jacques Prévert, and Jean Cocteau.
“Vian has been canonized by a whole generation of revolutionary young people…this fantasy of perishing purity is an affirmation of youth and innocence, laced with the biting humor of Jacques Prévert and Ionesco.”
― Newsweek

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Boris Vian’s (1920—1959) work ranges from the best-selling sex-and-violence thrillers under the name of Vernon Sullivan to the beautiful, surreal novels he wrote under his own name, L'Arrache coeur (Heartsnatcher), L'Herbe rouge, and his masterpiece L'Ecume des jours (Foam of the Daze). After his death he became a hero to the '68 student revolution in France, where his literary fame grew. He is a cult hero in England and America.
Georges Dudognon (1922—2001) haunted the St-Germain-des-Prés of postwar Paris, choosing photography as his way of recording the exuberance of the times.

Product Details

• Paperback: 190 pages
• Publisher: Rizzoli (October 18, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0847826589
• ISBN-13: 978-0847826582
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,409,783 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Curious and delightful artifact of postwar bohemian Paris, April 6, 2006

By 

CK Dexter Haven (Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Manual of Saint Germain-des-pres by Boris Vian (Paperback)

A silly, very tongue-in-cheek user's guide and hymn to 1940's Paris' ground zero for jazz, artists, existentialists, hipsters, wanna-be's, stars, and hangers-on: the neighborhood of St Germain des Pres. Written by a Germanopratin and one of France's most unique postwar novelists, it's riddled throughout with big, beautiful period photos of locales, principal denizens, and famous slummers (Sidney Bechet, Prevert, Sartre and Beauvoir, Juliette Greco, even Garbo, Faulkner and Orson Welles, to name a few). The real attraction is the photos, but the content is pretty entertaining--part ethnography of a strange nocturnal and extinct species of Parisian scenester (both mocking and affectionate), part screed against the popular press' charicature of the neighborhood's inhabitants and habitues, it's funny, fascinating, and full of curious information. Did you know, for example, that the stereotypical existentialist's uniform included brightly colored Converse allstars and a plaid shirt unbuttoned to the navel?

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars History as it happened, August 12, 2006

By 

Russell Drake (new york, ny USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Manual of Saint Germain-des-pres by Boris Vian (Paperback)

There is coverage of Paris in the 1890's, and Paris in the 1920's, but coverage of the 40's and 50's, the era of the existentialists, is pretty sparse. To the media, existentialists meant both real philosophers, like Sartre and Camus, and, to make lurid copy, anyone who hung out in the infamous jazz and poetry cellar-clubs of St. Germain. Vian's book, however, is devoid of media-hype. It is, as the editor says, "a snapshot of history as it happens."
I happened to be there for some of it, like hanging at the Cafe de Flore that Sartre and de Beauvoir had established as the current literary scene; while across the street at Le Lipp I found a vestige of an older one: a dude who was still a surrealist. And I hung at Chez Inez, with jazz musicians and ex-pats from Harlem, a club owned by a zanzy black American woman; and at bars with people like Orson Welles' ex-girlfriend, and Juliette Grecko, who played in Cocteau's Orpheus and claimed she almost married Miles Davis.
For me, too naive to realize it, it was a time like none other. Fortunately, Boris Vian nailed it down.

5.0 out of 5 stars Groovin' in St Germain, March 19, 2007

By 

W. Cote "Bohemian Bum" (Santa Fe, NM USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Manual of Saint Germain-des-pres by Boris Vian (Paperback)

Capturing the verve, vitality and creativity of St Germain at it's richest peak, this book seduces, subjects and forces one to submit to all that St Germain was in its artistic heydey! Take me back, take me back!!!