I had enjoyed the book “New York”, by this same author, and had hoped to enjoy this book as much, but I am sad to admit I was disappointed. Although it is fact filled, the tale woven by the author seemed a bit contrived, way too long and contained far too much extraneous detail. We learn about several families whose lives continue to intersect over more than 5 centuries, from the mid 1400’s to 1968. Often, because the story moves back and forth in time, sometimes without warning, it is hard to remember them all, and even sometimes, harder to place which character is being featured.
Essentially, for me, the tale introduced and largely followed these families: the Gascons, the Le Sourds, the Le Cynges and the Blanchards. The historic rise of Paris, from decadence to the modern cultural center it has become today, is told over more than 800 pages. I listened to the audio, and if truth be told, it is a perfect cure for insomnia. I fell asleep several times as I listened. It just got too tedious after awhile. It took fully one third of the book before all of the characters and their connection to each other became clear enough for me to completely follow the thread of the story. Perhaps it should have been a series of books, each featuring a century or so, rather than one book trying to cover it all. It often felt like a subject was incomplete, possibly needed more detail, while others rambled on excessively. Of course, I did have to keep reminding myself that it was not history, but rather historic fiction. I just felt that the tapestry of the narrative was not knitted together as coherently as it could have been.
However, all of the important moments of Paris history are covered, even though the fictional story sometimes overpowered the reality. We learn of the courtesans, the brothels, the monarchies, the influence of the church, the Protestant massacre, the storming of the Bastille, the construction of the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, the building of Notre Dame, Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley’s visit to Paris, Jean D’Arc, Richelieu, Robespierre, Monet and Chagall, Hugo and Zola, Hitler, Anti-Semitism, the Vel d’Hiv roundup, Viet Nam, Napoleon and Josephine, the aristocracy and the hoi polloi, the socialists and the communists, Hemingway, Ben Franklin, Lindbergh, Picasso, the Dreyfus affair, Luther Calvin, Rodin, Versailles, the Bois de Boulogne, The French Resistance, etc. I could go on and on. There were so many people and events covered, one can understand why the tale became overwhelming at times. Then, to make it more confusing, the author jumped from century to century, back and forth, without warning, as well. For me, the most interesting part of the book was the story elaborating the French resistance during WWII.
On the whole, I think the author simply tried to weave too many pieces of the city’s background together, without really developing all that many of them. Except for the building of the Eiffel Tower which introduced the reader to many of the characters, and the details surrounding the events leading up to and including both World Wars, the book sometimes felt sketchy. I felt almost as if the author had prepared a list of events he wished to include and then constructed a narrative around them, perhaps less concerned with the accurate history than the creation of the tale needed to introduce it.
The international scene emerged on the Paris stage and Paris grew into an international, cultural center for musicians, artists and writers. Anyone who was anyone wanted to be there, if not for the ambience, then for the decadence. For every loose women and unscrupulous man there was a brilliant author, artist, musician and thinker waiting in the wings. Innovation had its birthplace. Over the five centuries featured, culture, technology, politics, finance and industry, advanced at breakneck speed. Rodin’s “Thinker” embodied the mood in Paris.
It is said if we don’t learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it, and it would seem with current events today, in 2014, we have learned very little. There is still distrust and strife, hunger and poverty around the world, and warfare is everywhere one looks. Will there ever be peace?