In Balzac’s vast Human Comedy, a body of ninety-one completed novels and stories, he endeavoured to create a complete picture of contemporary French society and manners. Within this work is a loving ode to Paris and an incomparable introduction to the first capital of the modern world.
To this ageless city he makes a declaration of love in an accumulation of finely observed detail – the cafés, landmarks, avenues, parks – and captures the populace in countless meticulously drawn portraits: its lawyers, grisettes, journalists, concierges, usurers, salesmen, speculators.
Balzac gathered the elements of this Paris by sauntering through it. ‘To saunter is a science,’ he writes, ‘it is the gastronomy of the eye. To take a walk is to vegetate; to saunter is to live.’ Eric Hazan follows in Balzac’s footsteps, criss-crossing the city in the novelist’s outsize boots, running between printers, publishers, coffee merchants, mistresses and friends, stopping for a moment, struck by a detail that would be fixed in Balzac’s photographic memory.
More than a tour of the city, Balzac’s Paris is an attempt to measure the soul of a city as recovered in its finest literature.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
June 25, 2024 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9781839767289
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9781839767289
- File size: 2633 KB
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Accessibility
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Languages
- English
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