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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
In 1995 Gopnik was offered the plush assignment of writing the "Paris Journals" for the New Yorker. He spent five years in Paris with his wife, Martha, and son, Luke, writing dispatches now collected here along with previously unpublished journal entries. A self-described "comic-sentimental essayist," Gopnik chose the romance of Paris in its particulars as his subject. Gopnik falls in unabashed love with what he calls Paris's commonplace civilization--the cafés, the little shops, the ancient carousel in the park, and the small, intricate experiences that happen in such settings. But Paris can also be a difficult city to love, particularly its pompous and abstract official culture with its parallel paper universe. The tension between these two sides of Paris and the country's general brooding over the decline of French dominance in the face of globalization (haute couture, cooking, and sex, as well as the economy, are running deficits) form the subtexts for these finely wrought and witty essays. With his emphasis on the micro in the macro, Gopnik describes trying to get a Thanksgiving turkey delivered during a general strike and his struggle to find an apartment during a government scandal over favoritism in housing allocations. The essays alternate between reports of national and local events and accounts of expatriate family life, with an emphasis on "the trinity of late-century bourgeois obsessions: children and cooking and spectator sports, including the spectator sport of shopping." Gopnik describes some truly delicious moments, from the rites of Parisian haute couture, to the "occupation" of a local brasserie in protest of its purchase by a restaurant tycoon, to the birth of his daughter with the aid of a doctor in black jeans and a black silk shirt, open at the front. Gopnik makes terrific use of his status as an observer on the fringes of fashionable society to draw some deft comparisons between Paris and New York ("It is as if all American appliances dreamed of being cars while all French appliances dreamed of being telephones") and do some incisive philosophizing on the nature of both. This is masterful reportage with a winning infusion of intelligence, intimacy, and charm. --Lesley Reed
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Publishers Weekly
In this collection of 23 essays and journal entries, many of which were originally published in the New Yorker, Gopnik chronicles the time he spent in Paris between 1995 and 2000. Although his subjects are broadDglobal capitalism, American economic hegemony, France's declining role in the worldDhe approaches each one via the tiny, personal details of his life as a married expatriate with a small child. In one essay, he deftly reveals the dynamics of France's 1995 general strike by recounting his ordeal buying a Thanksgiving turkey from the localDstrikingDr tisseur. In "The Rules of the Sport," he explores the maddening, hilarious intricacies of French bureaucracy by way of a so-called New York-style gym, where his efforts to become a member encounter a wall of meetings, physical examinations and paperwork. Many of the entries, such as "The Fall of French Cooking," focus on how Paris is coping with the loss of its cultural might, and look at others of the inexorable changes brought on by global capitalism. "The Balzar Wars" describes a mini-revolt staged by a group of Parisians (including the author) when their local, family-owned brasserie is purchased by a restaurant tycoon. Throughout, Gopnik is unabashedly sentimental about Paris, yet he never loses the objectivity of his outsider's eye. His "macro in the micro" style sometimes seems a convenient excuse to write about himself, but elegantly woven together with the larger issues facing France, those personal observations beautifully convey a vision of Paris and its prideful, abstract-thinking, endlessly fascinating inhabitants. Although the core readership for this book will most likely be loyal New Yorker subscribers, its thoughtful, funny portrayal of French life give it broad appeal to Francophiles unfamiliar with Gopnik's work. (Oct.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
Not long after we moved to Paris, in the fall of 1995, my wife, Martha, and I saw, in the window of a shop on the rue Saint-Sulpice, a nineteenth-century engraving, done in the manner, though I'm now inclined to think not from the hand, of Daumier. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
theory checker, distant error, winter circus, paper universe, des logements, heightened emotional state Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, Luxembourg Gardens, Deux Magots, Flo Group, Alice Waters, Left Bank, Eiffel Tower, Chez Panisse, Polo Grounds, Luke Auden, Palais Royal, Saint Laurent, Lorenzo Valentin, World Cup, Christy Mathewson, City of Paris, Pierre Cardin, Bill Gates, Brasserie Lipp, Cape Cod, Cressida Taylor, Institut de France, Les Halles, Looney Tunes, Los Angeles New!
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Surprise Me!
Not long after we moved to Paris, in the fall of 1995, my wife, Martha, and I saw, in the window of a shop on the rue Saint-Sulpice, a nineteenth-century engraving, done in the manner, though I'm now inclined to think not from the hand, of Daumier. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
theory checker, distant error, winter circus, paper universe, des logements, heightened emotional state Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, Luxembourg Gardens, Deux Magots, Flo Group, Alice Waters, Left Bank, Eiffel Tower, Chez Panisse, Polo Grounds, Luke Auden, Palais Royal, Saint Laurent, Lorenzo Valentin, World Cup, Christy Mathewson, City of Paris, Pierre Cardin, Bill Gates, Brasserie Lipp, Cape Cod, Cressida Taylor, Institut de France, Les Halles, Looney Tunes, Los Angeles New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 26
books:
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39
books
cite this book:
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- An American in Paris by Gershwin on page 207, and Back Matter
- Collected Stories by Gabriel Garcia Marquez in Back Matter
- The Red Balloon by Albert Lamorisse on page 3
- Claudia Schiffer by Karl Lagerfeld on page 142
- The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle on page 187
See all 26 books this book cites
- Ella in Europe: An American Dog's International Adventures by Michael Konik on 6 pages
- Europe's Macadam, America's Tar: How America Really Compares to "Old Europe" by Alan Goldfein on page 75, page 185, and Back Matter
- Food Quality and Consumer Value by Monika J.A. Schröder on page 93, and Back Matter
- Paris For Dummies by Cheryl A. Pientka on page 29, and page 148
- Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time: A Memoir by David Goodwillie on page 123, and page 337
See all 39 books citing this book
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