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My Week for Paris
Apr. 15th, 2014 11:44 amI ended up reading three books about Paris and Parisian artists up through World War 1. And one science fiction novel.
Twilight of the Belle Epoque: The Paris of Picasso, Stravinsky, Proust, Renault, Marie Curie, Gertrude Stein, and Their Friends Through the Great War by Mary McAuliffe. A fascinating look at Paris and Parisians during a time of artistic, cultural, and scientific ferment. Each chapter covers a year between 1900 and 1920. Characters enter and exit, all their lives intertwining, feuds and love lives stopping and starting. I never knew Marie Curie and Albert Einstein met and went hiking together. I never knew how influential Gertrude Stein was. The war years are sad, but the chapters did give me a firmer grasp of how World War 1 affected the French. I liked that she stayed focused on Paris. The city itself is a character in the book. She did some very careful research and the approach is quite scholarly. It’s well worth reading.
Paris at the End of the World: How the City of Lights Soared in Its Darkest Hour, 1914-1918 by John Baxter. It’s a somewhat interesting read but not at all what it is billed to be. The story focuses as much on the search for his search for his grandfather’s history as it does on Paris. The sections on Paris are less about the war and more about people’s sex lives, focusing on prostitutes and gay men. Salacious is the word for it. It was odd reading this one right after Twilight of the Belle Epoque because they are so different. I hardly recognized some of the same incidents, they were described so differently. Many of the illustrations are from the tabloids of the time. I haven’t read any of the author’s other books. This book makes me think I haven’t missed much.
Liberty’s Torch by Elizabeth Mitchell. An interesting book about how the Statue of Liberty came to America. It’s an icon now but it’s surprising how many people were indifferent or hostile to the project. The opening chapters focused on Bartholdi’s history, including his mother’s influence, his trip to Egypt and his involvement in the disastrous Prussian conflict. He conceived the project and then spent years in fundraising and trying to get the support of influential people. Joseph Pulitzer spearheaded New York fundraising efforts, Gustave Eiffel created the skeleton, Victor Hugo supported the project. Emma Lazarus wrote her famous poem as part of a fundraising effort. It’s very well researched but the stories about the fundraising got a little repetitious. It did make the point that projects unpopular at the time can go on to be roaring successes. And that difficulty in execution is no bar to success.
Transhuman by Ben Bova. My fiction book of the week. This is an excellent combination of speculative fiction and suspense. A biologist working on gene manipulation thinks he’s discovered a cure for cancer. The government and the corporation funding the research want to control it. A little girl’s life depends on it. It’s well written and worth reading.
Twilight of the Belle Epoque: The Paris of Picasso, Stravinsky, Proust, Renault, Marie Curie, Gertrude Stein, and Their Friends Through the Great War by Mary McAuliffe. A fascinating look at Paris and Parisians during a time of artistic, cultural, and scientific ferment. Each chapter covers a year between 1900 and 1920. Characters enter and exit, all their lives intertwining, feuds and love lives stopping and starting. I never knew Marie Curie and Albert Einstein met and went hiking together. I never knew how influential Gertrude Stein was. The war years are sad, but the chapters did give me a firmer grasp of how World War 1 affected the French. I liked that she stayed focused on Paris. The city itself is a character in the book. She did some very careful research and the approach is quite scholarly. It’s well worth reading.
Paris at the End of the World: How the City of Lights Soared in Its Darkest Hour, 1914-1918 by John Baxter. It’s a somewhat interesting read but not at all what it is billed to be. The story focuses as much on the search for his search for his grandfather’s history as it does on Paris. The sections on Paris are less about the war and more about people’s sex lives, focusing on prostitutes and gay men. Salacious is the word for it. It was odd reading this one right after Twilight of the Belle Epoque because they are so different. I hardly recognized some of the same incidents, they were described so differently. Many of the illustrations are from the tabloids of the time. I haven’t read any of the author’s other books. This book makes me think I haven’t missed much.
Liberty’s Torch by Elizabeth Mitchell. An interesting book about how the Statue of Liberty came to America. It’s an icon now but it’s surprising how many people were indifferent or hostile to the project. The opening chapters focused on Bartholdi’s history, including his mother’s influence, his trip to Egypt and his involvement in the disastrous Prussian conflict. He conceived the project and then spent years in fundraising and trying to get the support of influential people. Joseph Pulitzer spearheaded New York fundraising efforts, Gustave Eiffel created the skeleton, Victor Hugo supported the project. Emma Lazarus wrote her famous poem as part of a fundraising effort. It’s very well researched but the stories about the fundraising got a little repetitious. It did make the point that projects unpopular at the time can go on to be roaring successes. And that difficulty in execution is no bar to success.
Transhuman by Ben Bova. My fiction book of the week. This is an excellent combination of speculative fiction and suspense. A biologist working on gene manipulation thinks he’s discovered a cure for cancer. The government and the corporation funding the research want to control it. A little girl’s life depends on it. It’s well written and worth reading.
