Paris Noir: The Secret History of a City
- New
- Mint Condition
- Dispatch same day for order received before 12 noon
- Guaranteed packaging
- No quibbles returns
<- Read More Buy Now for [wpramaprice asin=”1903517486″] (Best Price)
3 CommentsReply |
|
Fantastic History,
The previous reviewer was annoyed that this was not a conventional history. He was right, it isn’t. The word ‘history’ in the title is probably misleading if you’re looking for a history book. This is not history as a presentation of supposed facts but history as a story of stories – the kind of stories and local history that normally don’t make it into a history book. This is Paris Noir, the underside of Paris during the occupation – the Paris of back street bars, shady hotels and marginal characters scraping a living by whatever means available. Outrageous? Yes. The stories told are outrageous, realistic, fantastic, absurd and supernatural. Paris Noir is more in keeping with the fictional styles of Celine, Cendrars and de Maupassant, that is, digressive and elliptical. The whole has more than a resemblance to the Surreal novels of Aragon’s Paris Peasant and Breton’s Nadja. It is a very unusual book, in fact, a unique gem. If you are prosaically minded and like your histories predictable and told in a predictable style this is not the book for you. And if this book was funded by the Arts Council then what a wonderful use of their funds. More of the same please.
Was this review helpful to you?Â
|Save your money,
This is a repellent little collection of pseudo-paranormal anecdotes which might have been written anywhere. It conveys little beyond the physical privations and squalor of a poor district of an occupied city – probably any occupied city. The laudatory comments on the publisher’s blurb from Queneau and Sorin are simply narcissistic nonsense. Add to this general lack of merit in the book the fact that it appears to have been translated by a machine (the insensitivity to English as she is effectively writ is quite staggering) and sub-edited by a hasty illiterate and you have a pretty worthless example of book-making. And these efforts are subsidised by The Arts Council! How outrageous.
Was this review helpful to you?Â
|Paris Noir,
 Â
Jacques Yonnet was wounded and taken prisoner in 1940. Known to be a radical journalist, he escaped, returned to Paris, and gravitated to the 5th arrondissement on the Left Bank.
About ten years later he published his only book. Based on his recollections and notes it is set at the time when Paris was occupied. The book is anecdotal in style. It introduces us to a very strange array of characters, many identified by false names, living on their wits at the edge of society. Their common bond is a hatred of authority particularly as represented by the French police and, by extension, the Gestapo.
As Yonnet becomes accepted by them so our knowledge grows, and with it our sense of their humanity. Some seem to have almost supernatural powers, the Gypsy for example. Others know the history of certain streets and this provides a fascinating aspect of the book. As the author’s preferred title Rue des Maléfices implies, magic, witchcraft and exorcism feature. Yonnet’s own activity in the Resistance is mentioned and described. Of course we cannot distiguish between fact and fiction, but in this context that is not at all unusual.
The translator’s notes are particularly helpful, and having a map of Paris handy when reading is a good idea.
The Paris depicted seems to be miles away from the Saint-Germain haunts of Sartre, despite it being only a fairly short walk away! One American writer closely associated with the area was Elliot Paul who lived in the Rue de la Huchette between the wars.
If the reader is already interested in Paris and its history, then Paris Noir is worth the price for that alone. An interest in that unique period of the Occupation will also suffice. But I should add that if the potential reader is looking for a serious history of Paris, or even a gripping novel about the Resistance, then they should look elsewhere.
Was this review helpful to you?Â
|