Paris Stories (Everyman's Library Pocket Classics Series)

This is a beautiful book, hard cover with a nice dust jacket and a cloth marker attached to a binding. It’s also a nice size at 5 X 7-½”.Looking within there are many stories the earliest dated at 1534, the newest at 1991.I’m not quite sure what my expectations were, but having read a prior work that was a bunch of Paris stories, this book is more political and maybe literature oriented. I recognize some of the names, but found some stories, too hard to read such as Francois Rabelais: From Gargantua & Patagruel (too old English) and Laurence Sterne: From a Sentimental Journey through France & Italy (kind of convoluted).Some were pretty brutal such as one by Restif de la Bretonne: From Nuits de Paris.Others were okay: Victor Hugo, Gustave Flaubert.I’m sure the English Literature majors are gasping at this, how dare I say, okay, or hard to read, but I’m an average reader; that in many ways is representing the average reader. The English majors know all the names and the sections of their famous works mentioned in the Table of Contents, I do not.For the stories that were approachable, they were brief (as expected), some gave you a brief flavor of an overall story, others were poorly chosen in that the story didn’t stand alone well. Overall, I would say the book was okay. Had I not received this book to review, I may well have put it down unfinished.One thing I found frustrating with a story, based in 1924, when there was some restructuring of the city streets a good portion of the story was referring to street names and the alleys that would be lost when some roads were combined and restructured. The whole story was about the underground activities in those soon to be extinct alleys, but so much of the text was devoted to street names, that I wished I had a map. Even if I did know Paris, I would not know it prior to 1924. Mind you, the book written that it was excerpted from does not think of this being read in the far future, but the editors for this piece did. But it did at least gave me a sense of the back alleys and their notoriety at the time.Ironically one story I found fascinating was a story about fixing the sewers in Paris. Apparently they had a tendency to overflow...Ew. But the story was interesting and at least gave me the sense of Paris. I guess that is what I found frustrating about many of these stories. Included in a book called Paris Stories I expected to get a sense of place and many of these could be set anywhere in Europe as they were more about the people and politics than the place.

This collection of vignettes, pulled from various authors ranging from 1534 to 1991, attempts to show the breadth of Parisian humanity, the revolutionaries, the aristocracy , the lovers, the perverts, the artists and washerwomen, the prostitutes and bohemians. Since it samples so many different writers, from so many different epochs, you can expect nothing BUT the unexpected. I love the book, since I'm not well versed in French Literature. Outside of Proust, Moliere, and Rimbaud, I'm lost. Speaking of Proust, I'm surprised, well shocked actually, that the editors would not include an excerpt of "Remembrance of Things Past". Especially since nobody has ever captured the crowning heights of late 19th century Parisian Salon society, to say nothing of the hidden strata of invert society, the way Proust does in his work. I was tempted to downgrade to four stars in recognition of Proust's omission, but I'm just too fascinated by all the selections that are included. You'll recognize the majority of names, such as Rabelais, Balzac, Hugo, Zola, Fitzgerald, and Barry Miles. Rabelais' description of the major who speaks horrible Latin, in the farce "Gargantua and Pantagruel", is hysterical. Balzac's bawdy tales of Prostitutes titillates. Hugo's description of the Parisian sewers is a symbolic history lesson of the city. The De Goncourt brother's JOURNALS name drops Turgenev and Flaubert, as you get glimpses of the Parisian art world. Zola paints a heartbreaking portrait of a washerwoman and a roofer, as he attempts to woe her in the sleaziest of bars. Huysmans brings us to the Folies Bergere , when it was the STUDIO 54 of Parisian night life, as he reveals the entertainment, and the people entertained. Barry Miles writes of the Beat Hotel, when Ginsberg, Burroughs and Corso were working in Paris. A film was based on this. Cortazar tells us the story of a photographer, and the secrets hidden within a photo, in BLOW UP. A film was based on this too. On and on it goes - you won't be bored.Each story can be read in about an hour, some are a little shorter, some a bit longer. I'll normally finish a selection, over a cup of tea after I get up. The book itself is hard back, well bound, including a red ribbon book mark so you don't lose your place. For centuries, Paris was the center of European culture and arts. IT was also the birthplace of the French revolution, and the spiritual mother of the American Revolution as well. With so much social and artistic history saturating those streets, you're sure to learn something from these pages. Considering the passions of the French, don't expect to learn these things thru a pedantic, dry prose. Most of all, these writers are fun to read. That surprised me most of all.

Livro de excelente qualidade, tanto em conteúdo como em acabamento!Histórias (ou melhor, contos ou trechos de romances) muito interessante!Em relação ao acabamento... o melhor possível! Para colecionadores, o fato de as páginas serem costuradas é um diferencial muito relevante! A qualidade do papel é muito agradável aos olhos na hora da leitura!

A good selection of stories. Everyman never lets you down