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We'll Always Have Paris: Sex and Love in the City of Light
Books: Travel: Arkansas: Item 5
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We'll Always Have Paris: Sex and Love in the City of Lightby John Baxter
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful: Bring it with you to Paris, July 1, 2006 Reviewer:M. Gordon "syracook" - I happened to spot this book at B&N the day before leaving for France. Reading about Paris while walking around Paris enhances the experience no end, especially when the book is as equisitely well-written, insightful,charming, and amusing as this one.
From Publishers Weekly
Perhaps no city has been more lustfully romanticized than Paris, and this cavorting collection of bons mots will do nothing to quell its erotic reputation. Baxter (A Pound of Paper), a cineast and biographer (of Woody Allen, Steven Spielberg and others), is an Australian in love with a French woman. After moving into her Parisian apartment in 1990, he subsequently becomes her baby's father, her husband and eventually, in his own way, French. He loosely arranges his narrative in themed chapters, lobbing little-known facts, references to favorite films, and gossip about the inglorious past of certain addresses into stories about the affairs of the heart of famous Parisians and expats. He peppers tales of his quotidian life with bemused observations of Gallic quirks and offhanded recommendations of tucked-away shops and obscure cafés, resulting in a book that is part guidebook, part memoir. Some chapters are bawdy and some hilarious, such as "Invaders," about uncouth, ingrate houseguests. Anyone who appreciates Paris and its myths, likes the meandering storytelling of good conversation and enjoys the mildly salacious will relish reading this book, curled up with a glass of full-bodied red and a box of chocolates. Photos. (Mar.)
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From Booklist
Australian-born Baxter moves from Los Angeles to Paris to start a new marriage to a French television newscaster. Searching for a place to live, they find an apartment on the tiny, Seine-bound Ile de la Cite, the veritable heart of Paris, steps from Notre Dame. From there, Baxter leads his readers on a decidedly eccentric tour of Paris. A film critic, Baxter intelligently connects Paris venues to various films, French and American, familiar and obscure. Baxter loves to focus on Paris' erotic history, and he does a particularly stunning job of explicating Josephine Baker's electric effect on the French psyche, attributing to her nude dances a profound restructuring of French attitudes to sexuality. Foodies will revel in Baxter's portrayals of Parisian restaurants' obsession with offal. Baxter's mordant humor is put to good use in his observations on Paris' ubiquitous dogs and their ton-a-day droppings on the capital's chic byways. Baxter also provides lively perspectives on Andre Malraux and on the city's ancient marketplace, Les Halles. Mark Knoblauch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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