Travelers' Tales Paris: True Stories

Paperback - September, 2002 - Travelers' Tales Guides
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By: James O'Reilly, Larry Habegger and Sean R'Reilly
ISBN: 188521183X

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Reviews by readers

super!

i have enjoyed many of the travelers' tales books and the paris edition was no exception. it is a great companion to a regular old run-of-the-mill guidebook if you're preparing for trip to france.

Paris: City of Lights or a State of Mind?

Francophiles will find much to love about TRAVELERS' TALES PARIS. "Imagine leaving this world without ever having seen Paris," the editors observe in the Introduction to this fascinating collection of Paris-inspired essays. "For those who have been there, the thought is unthinkable. For those who haven't yet had the chance, the thought is a reminder that their lives will be impoverished until they go, for Paris is the center of the civilized universe, the capital of the Western world, a city of transcendent beauty, which belongs to everyone" (p. xix).

Paris is the ultimate travel destination for Francophiles, lovers, flirters, thinkers, and cafe sitters, and for good reason. The thirty-six essays collected here reveal that Paris is as much a place as a state of mind. Paris means something different to everyone. "There may be no city more uplifting to the human spirit. It is a place to explore the dimensions of yourself or those of someone you love--to walk and talk, to argue about life, to sit and contemplate the events of human history which have played themselves out here on these streets, on the banks of this river (p. xx).

Organized into five Parts; the "Essence of Paris," "Some Things to Do," "Going Your Own Way," "In the Shadows," and "The Last Word," TRAVELERS' TALES PARIS immerses its reader in the rich diversity of Parisian culture and the French mind, including, French existentialism, the twenty-volume French encyclopedia of Paris's 20 arondissements, Vie et Histoire, the Latin Quarter's literary and philosophical past, the Louvre, the Paris Catacombs ("Death's Kingdom"), the Turkish Baths, the Concierge tradition, and French strippers.

One caveat emptor, however: this collection of is an updated edition of PARIS: TRUE STORIES OF LIFE ON THE ROAD (Travelers' Tales Guides)(April 1, 1997).

G. Merritt

deadly dull and almost entirely useless

Nearly evenything in this book reads like rehashes of uninspired Paris tourist brochures. Even the three hatchet jobs contributed by Jan Morris and Herbert Gold (the insufferable, execrable, and virtually unreadable Gold contributed two) are derivative and unoriginal instead of witty and daring, as they were, no doubt, intended.

Apparently it is virtually impossible to see Paris with one's own eyes. At least if you're an Anglo-Saxon foreigner. Major portions of the city have been, effectively, laminated and generously greased by the native French so as to slide foreign tourists through, and out, with the minimum of muss and fuss.

And the editors seem to think that by excluding any significant mention of the Eiffel Tower that they are providing a novel and fresh take on Paris. But this constitutes a very feeble effort, at best.

And apart from all the airy-fairy poetical musings that travel seem to provoke in travel writers, Paris also fills writers with cloying smugness. As the most extreme example, the one selection I could not finish was by someone called Lawrence Osborne, and it described Turkish baths. His mentioning of a "veritginous loss of toxicity" in the first, very long, paragragh was the last straw for me.

On the upside, there are one or two glimmers of humanity and immediate, unpretentious life in these selections. But not nearly enough to justify ploughing through all 300 pages.

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