EmilyA Posted April 25, 2010 Share Posted April 25, 2010 Has anyone else read the new Graham Robb book "Parisians"? Will be interested to know what you thought.Em Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mint Posted April 25, 2010 Share Posted April 25, 2010 No and I doubt that I will be reading it.His approach is too "journalistic" for my taste: not "bookish" enough and too much of a broad sweep with too many generalisations.But, that's just my humble opinion![:D]If you do read it, please come back and tell us about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EmilyA Posted April 25, 2010 Author Share Posted April 25, 2010 That's interesting Sweet, I wouldn't describe his writing as journalistic at all, I have always thought his academic research was incredibly detailed. Is it "The Discovery of France" you mean or Victor Hugo, Balzac etc? I loved "The Discovery of France", but that is perhaps because we live deep in rural France and I found out so much historical stuff that I didn't know about before. I enjoyed some of "Parisians"; loved the chapters about Hitler's tourist visit, the 1968 evenements, Mitterand and de Gaulle. In other bits I thought the levels of obscurity in the writing were a bit too deep and I had to work hard to understand what was going on. Will be interested to hear what other people thought. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mint Posted April 25, 2010 Share Posted April 25, 2010 Yes, he does have an engaging quality to his writing but I do feel that there is too much "showmanship".Look, what I've found: come and see this!But, I am being grudging now as a bit of enthusiasm never comes amiss.Must be my age .....just feel somewhere at the back of my mind that History should be spelt with a Capital Letter and written in very black ink! LOL, sure as hell getting really daft.....,Apologies, Emily, don't want to spoil your enjoyment at all.[:)] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EmilyA Posted April 25, 2010 Author Share Posted April 25, 2010 Oh I see - I don't disagree about the "showmanship" and that is what annoyed me a bit in some of the chapters; the one about Juliette Greco and Satre especially. He is very much an academic and I think some of it may be written for an audience of other academics. Interestingly,he seems to be the first person the TLS turns to to review books about France.I would recommend it though, most chapters were very entertaining and interesting and I learnt a lot. Em Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mint Posted April 25, 2010 Share Posted April 25, 2010 Might give it a shot then, Emily. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Renaud Posted April 25, 2010 Share Posted April 25, 2010 After we had bought our house, we met Madamoiselle from across the road. She is four foot six inches tall and proudly told us that she was 86. My language skills are not great and her Charentaise accent did not help but we got along. When we left we told her that we were heading to the airport to catch a plane back to London."No" she said "You are going back to Paris."That put us in our place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sab in Paris Posted March 22, 2011 Share Posted March 22, 2011 Hi Emily!I'm delighted to find this thread, as I review books on Paris, and I've just 'done' Parisians and you might be interested in reading it!Perhaps the poster 'Sweet 17' will find my reviews to idiosyncratic, but as you discuss, I have my style, Graham Robb has his, you have yours, and you'll find out what I thought of it if you read the review, which I'd be delighted if you did. It's here: http://t.co/WvIkT9kAll the best! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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