Rating: 
Summary: Pretentious
Review: Like much of Edmund White's work, this seems mostly an exercise in impressing the reader with White's erudition and sophistication rather than a serious piece of work.Edmund White's writing would be so much better if at some point in his life he had managed to get over himself.
Rating: 
Summary: Cruising Paris
Review: Of course this isn't really about cruising. If it were it would be awfully boring, and this book is anything but boring. Even so, there is nothing quite so pleasurable as a stroll down almost any street in the French capital. Edmund white, who lived there for a long time, offers a distillation of his experience in this delightful little book. Reading it is almost as good as being there. Second best. Whie writes elegantly and intelligently. The part I most enjoyed, and from which I learned most, is about the Camondo Museum and the tragedy of the family that built and owned it. After reading this book I went to visit it and it turned out to be all White says it is. Delightful. But the book contains other wonderful descriptions of people and places as well. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Not A Pleasant Read
Review: One does not expect PARIS FOR DUMMIES from Edmund White, but surely he could have written something a little less pretentious than this. If White is attempting to produce a work that ambles, he is certainly successful. One just wishes that he didn't get so bogged down with French phrases that he doesn't bother to translate. Perhaps he is of the opinion that all literate people speak fluent French. (Isn't that what some native Parisians think as well?) Well, this only mildly literate chap doesn't. There are interesting tidbits here and there, but you have to dig for them. For example, I found the section on Josephine Baker both amusing and enlightening. And if White selected the photograph used for the cover, he did a fine job. But this is not a book of photographs of Paris after all. White has a large list of books for further reading. If he read all of these, it's a shame that the result is no better. I noted that he suggests a novel of his as one for further reading. I wonder if a book about another city, Barcelona, for example, would be so dense, so full of Spanish phrases and almost unreadable. I would hope not. I doubt that this little book will find its way into many travelers' bags.
Rating:
Summary: The Flaneur: A Stroll Through the Paradoxes of Paris
Review: The first title in an occasional series, The Writer & The City in which some of the world's finest novelists reveal the secrets of the city they know best. Edmund White, who lived in Paris for sixteen years, wanders through the streets & avenues & along the quays, taking us into parts of Paris virtually unknown to visitors & indeed to many Parisians.
Rating: 
Summary: Charming
Review: The layers of history White unearths in his wanderings are fasinating. Observations on Colette and Josephine Baker show a real understanding of the richness of culture. But his musing on modern Paris bring to light a truth uncompromised by a romantic view of the City of Lights. The fact that the current Paris art scene lacks star quality, or that Paris is just as damp as London, shows that although White loves his topic, he's not above sharing some of it's meager qualities as well. This is a lovely book, even in it's design, and would be a nice edition to a coffeetable, inviting guests to thumb through ramdom snatchings of Paris life.
Rating:
Summary: The Limits of Flanerie
Review: The only time I've been in Paris was for six weeks - I never ate in a restaurant and went to one museum (not the Louvre), although I went to all the parks in Paris. You might say I am a flaneuse, and in this light, Edmund White's book was very useful, even though ultimately unsatisfying, as perhaps flanerie itself is. However, it is a serious book, as is flanerie. It has a wonderful bibilography, stimulated my curiosity, both intellectual and practical, and made me realize that if I want to understand and eliminate racism (and I do), then I'd better understand Americans, black and white in Paris, as well as colonialism, both European and American. It also made me and helped me to think about artists and intellectuals in relation to social movements. In other words, it made me a better flaneuse.
Rating:
Summary: Paris and its un(der)acknowledged minorities
Review: There is a lot of information packed into the 211 small (4"x7") pages of the first volume in Bloomsbury's series "The Writer and the City." The book feels (to this reader) like something done on assignment, like being back working for Time-Life books, as White was before publishing his first novel. That is, it seems more dutiful than inspired. . . and painfully politically correct. Or, is it, perhaps, painfully American to focus on minorities? White accedes that the Left Bank avant-garde is a fading memory.
What is vibrant is the Arab (North African) and West African slums, away from the historic center. White asserts that "the only way France can continue to function as a beacon of civilization, as anything more than a custodian of its great heritage, is by embracing the international, hybridized culture that is already thriving within the city limits" (albeit at the far reaches of those limits). White says this, but he appears to know very little about the Arabo-French or Afro-French hybrids. Similarly, the chapter on Jews in Paris has a lengthy exposition of the Dreyfus Affair, but nothing about contemporary Parisian Jewish culture. Insofar as there is a primary thesis in the book, it is that French universalism accepts individuals but not groups. Both Jews and African Americans overestimated their assimilation, and generations of smug French people have congratulated themselves on an illusory--or at least misleading--absence of prejudice in particularly invidious contrast to American racism. White does not note the extent to which modern nationalism arose in places overrun by Napoleon's armies (and later colonial conquests) protesting French claims to be dispensing freedom by abrogating local customs and forcing Enlightenment teachings on priest (etc.)-ridden, backward inferiors. "The paradox of the French spirit, which is boldly outspoken about individual experience but against all comunitarianism based on that experience, is best reflected in its literature," White writes. And his book is primarily about writers. In addition to Parisian Jews and African Americans White discourses at some length about Baudelaire and Colette, documentary photographer Eugene Atget and about (or, rather, against) the painter Gustave Moreau, about the two main brands of royalists, and more briefly about Oscar Wilde after his release from English prison. The book concludes with a sixteen page tour of literature about Paris that is useful, but less personal than the similar romp through the Proust literature at the end of White's tighter and more illuminating short biography of Marcel Proust. Although I am manifestly less than enthralled with the book I want to reiterate that there is a lot of interesting information and discerning interpretation in it. It strikes me as rather soul-less, but still a text that is not without its pleasures.
Rating:
Summary: Fun little frolic
Review: This book is a meandering discussion of both the ideal of Paris and its geography. White has lived for over 15 years in Paris, and he provides an introduction of sorts to the city for Americans with an intellectual bent. The book can't really serve as a guide book or book with city walks, since there are no directions or street names, and certainly no itineraries. As White explains, a flaneur is someone who just wanders around, allowing himself to be drawn in the direction of anything of interest. Thus, White strolls with us through several Paris districts, commenting at length on artists or authors who lived there. Along the way, we find entire chapters on African Americans in Paris, gays in Paris, and Jews in Paris. The book assumes a certain familiarity with both the city itself and Parisian people. If you're a complete newcomer, you may find parts of the book somewhat confusing. But if you're an American who has spent at least several weeks in the city, you may find this book to be a delightful diversion.
Rating:
Summary: Fun little frolic
Review: This book is a meandering discussion of both the ideal of Paris and its geography. White has lived for over 15 years in Paris, and he provides an introduction of sorts to the city for Americans with an intellectual bent. The book can't really serve as a guide book or book with city walks, since there are no directions or street names, and certainly no itineraries. As White explains, a flaneur is someone who just wanders around, allowing himself to be drawn in the direction of anything of interest. Thus, White strolls with us through several Paris districts, commenting at length on artists or authors who lived there. Along the way, we find entire chapters on African Americans in Paris, gays in Paris, and Jews in Paris. The book assumes a certain familiarity with both the city itself and Parisian people. If you're a complete newcomer, you may find parts of the book somewhat confusing. But if you're an American who has spent at least several weeks in the city, you may find this book to be a delightful diversion.
Rating:
Summary: The Outcasts
Review: This book is as much about people who don't fit in as it is about Paris: african-american ex-patriates, jews, gays, poets and artists, Paris has given safe harbor over the decades to those who found drawing a breath elsewhere painful. Paris of course is not without its faults, its political and social incorrectness, but Edmund White describes the city in such a way that you can't help but want to retrace his steps and visit the lesser known streets and museums. Having been to Paris twice but not on nearly such familiar terms, I recommend this tome to the novice or expert francophile. Merci beaucoup pour ce livre, Msr White...
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