(Postcard from Paris V) Gertrude Stein, The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas

Saturday – my final day in Paris, spent wandering along the banks of the Seine browsing the bookstalls, listening to the jazz buskers on the bridge to the Ile de la Cite, having a last coffee in the Latin Quarter, and visiting one last bookshop, the Village Voice.

Stein’s portrayal of early twentieth century Paris and the artistic and literary circles of which she was a mainstay, takes the form of the ‘autobiography’ of her companion, Alice B Toklas – essentially, Stein’s own self-aggrandising story. It is a fascinating counterpoint to Beach’s memoir, overlapping as it does, at a number of points. However, with Stein’s work, the form is as important as the content – as Stein writes about Georges Hugnet,

He liked the sound of her writing and then he liked the sense and he liked the sentences.

Well I liked the sound of her writing and I liked the sentences (despite disagreeing violently about commas) although I’m not always sure that I quite caught the sense!

What I did get a sense of was the very small world not only of literary and artistic Paris, but of the literate and mobile elite – where everyone could claim a connecton to everyone else. From Beach and from Stein, one also gets a picture of independent women taking positions of influence in society on their own terms.

(Postcard from Paris IV) Sylvia Beach, Shakespeare & Company

Friday saw another successful exercise in crowd avoidance – an early trip to the Louvre, carefully avoiding the Mona Lisa in favour of the mediaeval remains of the Louvre, and the mediaeval and Renaissance art. Following that, a trip next door to the Musee des arts decoratif to visit the Valentino exhibition, to drool over the art deco and art nouveau furniture, and to puzzle over the rouge gallery, which juxtaposed items from various periods around a common theme of being red in colour.

An afternoon wander around the Latin Quarter involved a trip to Shakespeare and Company, another English language bookshop – not the original inter-war bookshop owned by Sylvia Beach - but quaint nonetheless, with a library and teashop on the upper floor.

It was here that I got a copy of Beach’s memoir about her bookshop and her recollections of her patrons, including Hemingway and Stein, and her experience of becoming the published to James Joyce. Not exactly well written – there is a drinking game to be constructed around the repetition of ‘and we became good friends’ – but a fascinating insight into the small world of literary Paris in the 1920s and 1930s.

(Postcard from Paris II) Claud Izner, Murder on the Eiffel Tower

Wednesday started with a trip to Notre Dame, which, if you like crowds of people walking through a church sipping Starbucks coffee, talking on mobile phones and taking flash photography, then this is definitely the tourist attraction for you. I had a serious attack of high church atheism and withdrew quickly. The rest of the day was far more restful – walking through the mediaeval remains of Paris, and visiting the small, independent shops in the Marais.

One of these was the Red Wheelbarrow, an English language bookshop. Here I picked up an English translation of one of a series of mysteries involving a Parisian bookseller, Victor Legris, set in late nineteenth century Paris.

This particular episode involved a death on the newly finished Eiffel tower. The description of nineteenth century Paris was engaging – the investigation was largely incidental - more a wander around, and then a hurried exposition in the final chapter.

(Postcard from Paris I) Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code

A week away in Paris, and some time for a little Paris-themed reading.

Tuesday was a lovely day that started with a visit the church of Sacre Coeur, relishing the silence inside and the views outside. In the afternoon, I followed a guidebook walk through the Passages of Paris – covered passageways of shops, hotels, cafes and museums – really lovely.

According to my guidebook, tourists are now invariably spotted clutching copies of the Da Vinci Code, with a resulting increase in visits to the Louvre and the church of St Sulpice. Well, I had read Brown’s previous book, Angels and Demons, while in Rome and had quite enjoyed it, so I picked up a copy at the airport. 

The Da Vinci Code has become such as phenomenon in recent years that I was genuinely ashamed to be seen reading it in public. I wanted to wear a sign that said ‘I’m just reading this because I’m tired and on holiday, I don’t believe it to be true, nor do I see this as my guidebook to Paris’. It was tempting to wrap it inside the cover of something less embarassing – like a Mills and Boon romance!

Anyway, fast-moving trash. Minimal characterisation and plot devices that rely on stretching Douglas Adams’ theory of the interconnectedness of all things to its absolute limit. To be recommended as a couple of hours mindless reading – certainly not worth the public dissection it has received.