Our Paris: Sketches from Memory [Hardcover]

Edmund White (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 24, 1995

With 30 drawings by Hubert Sorin.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

White's stunning achievements as a novelist, short story writer (most recently, Skinned Alive, LJ 6/15/95), and journalist are now augmented by a charming, funny, telling series of vignettes of the Paris neighborhood where he and his lover, Hubert Sorin, lived. Through White's keen observations and Sorin's charming illustrations, the everyday becomes extraordinary, whether it is a walk with their dog or a description of an ordinary Parisian church. Blending the past and the present, with pungent asides into people's character, White's writing has never been finer. Sorin, an architect by training, died of AIDS in 1994, so we shall never see the full fruition of his obvious talent for comic illustration. Recommended for all collections.?David Azzolina, Univ. of Pennsylvania Libs., Philadelphia
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Paris is Paris; ain't no place else like it! Esteemed American writer Edmund White has called the City of Light home for years, and he and his late lover, French architect and illustrator Hubert Sorin, collaborated on this perfectly charming ode to la vie parisienne, fortunately completed before Sorin succumbed to AIDS. In resonant text and arresting drawings, they introduce us to the inhabitants of their certainly not upscale but decidedly not monochromatic neighborhood. From their concierge, Madame Denise, to a local couturier, Azzedine Alaia, eccentricity reigns supreme in the streets of Chatelet, captured so fondly in the pages of this little book. Our Paris becomes our Paris. Brad Hooper

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 121 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1st edition (October 24, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679441662
• ISBN-13: 978-0679441663
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,300,767 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Grand Deception, May 9, 2000

By 

Timothy Hulsey (Charlottesville, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Our Paris: Sketches from Memory (Hardcover)

I love deceptive books.

Example: _Our Paris_, by Edmund White and Hubert Sorin, is ostensibly a series of short essays, written and illustrated in a fairly direct style, pertaining to life in the city. But in a stunning, disarming preface, White alerts us to the real subtext: his partner's slow death from AIDS. It's this subtext that transforms the book from a pleasant travelogue to a devastating account of loss.

Lurking beneath the book's shimmering surfaces, and within its numerous lacunae, is the emotional life of a couple threatened by the fast-approaching specter of death. An attentive reading of White's text and Hubert Sorin's illustrations reveals the mauvaise foi, the daily negotiations, the implicit contract of domestic denial that enables an endangered couple to keep death at bay for just a little longer.

_Our Paris_ looks slight, as if it were merely a pleasant evening's worth of travel anecdotes and gossip. But if you take yourself into this book's confidence, it will reveal unexpected secrets.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Parisian anecdotes told with American-style intimacy, January 29, 2003

By 

K. Gehrmann "KG" (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Our Paris: Sketches from Memory (Hardcover)

I picked up this little book for a return flight from Paris to LA. It looked like perfect plane reading -- short, gossipy, topical. And although it lived up to each of those expectations, the devastation implicit in the book (and explicit at the end) hit hard. The book is not easily forgettable -- and probably no less memorable for the passengers and crew of American Airlines flight 45 who watched me become a sniffling, tear-stained disaster.

It's very intimate, shockingly un-French. White and Sorin invite you into their lives. You feel as if you're at a dinner party listening to them recount(even bicker a little about) their recent mundane adventures. But this intimacy also means that you feel very close to the heartbreaking loss that is the real subject of the book.

It's a beautiful, touching book. The illustrations complement the text (or the text complements the illustrations) perfectly. But if you want to avoid the mess entirely, try The Flaneur.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Paris, the French, love, and travel -- and eventual loss., January 18, 1998

By 

Eileen Galen (USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Our Paris: Sketches from Memory (Hardcover)

This is a sweet collection of short pieces, quirky and personal, about a tiny Parisian neighborhood, Paris itself, the French, lots of friends, and a great dog named Fred. Most of all: about Edmund White and his lover Hubert Sorin. Economical yet enjoyably gossipy, kind-hearted, opinionated, informative. Achingly sad, though, because Hubert is dying of AIDS, and in fact does die at the book's end. Definitely worth reading -- especially for fans of Edmund White. Engagingly illustrated by Sorin, who was trained in architecture and took up drawing when he became ill.