The Flaneur: A Stroll Through the Paradoxes of Paris - Softcover

But even caprice is never entirely random. White retreats into the privatised public spaces of writers, artists and collectors: from the Hôtel de Lauzun where arty denizens including Balzac, Gautier, Manet and the ubiquitous Baudelaire attended exotic dinners parties fuelled by powerful hashish, to the Musée Camondo, built by a prominent banking family who were wiped out in the Holocaust. He maintains that the contemporary vitality of the city lies in the teeming quartiers where Arabs and blacks live, but, tellingly, rather than lead into a discussion of France's postcolonial history, White uses these areas to peer into the jazz-soundtracked encounter between Parisians and American blacks between the wars, the stage taken by Josephine Baker, Sidney Bechet, Richard Wright and James Baldwin. White is quintessentially an American in Paris and his struggle with the tensions between US identity politics and the universalist citizenship of France sometimes reveals more about the walker than the streets he walks, most especially in his discussion of AIDS in France.

White's Flâneur is the city guide as story-teller, rather than inventory-taker--a guidebook of which Walter Benjamin would have approved. The Flâneur is a jewel-box of a book offering rich rewards, which, while not serving up Paris as a list of sights for us to check, certainly conveys some of the city's aura in a beautifully compact format.--Fiona Buckland

One has the impression, reading "The Flaneur," of having fallen into the hands of a highly distractible, somewhat eccentric poet and professor who is determined to show you a Paris you wouldn't otherwise see . . . Edmund White tells such a good story that I'm ready to to listen to anything he wants to talk about. "New York Times Book Review"

White's charming book is for literati, voyeurs and aesthetes, and for travelers who love familiar terrain from a different viewpoint. "Publishers Weekly"

Lovely. "Los Angeles Times"

Brilliant. "Village Voice"

Vibrantly evocative. "Elle""

One has the impression, reading The Flaneur, of having fallen into the hands of a highly distractible, somewhat eccentric poet and professor who is determined to show you a Paris you wouldn't otherwise see . . . Edmund White tells such a good story that I'm ready to to listen to anything he wants to talk about. New York Times Book Review

White's charming book is for literati, voyeurs and aesthetes, and for travelers who love familiar terrain from a different viewpoint. Publishers Weekly

Lovely. Los Angeles Times

Brilliant. Village Voice

Vibrantly evocative. Elle

"One has the impression, reading The Flaneur, of having fallen into the hands of a highly distractible, somewhat eccentric poet and professor who is determined to show you a Paris you wouldn't otherwise see . . . Edmund White tells such a good story that I'm ready to to listen to anything he wants to talk about." --New York Times Book Review

"White's charming book is for literati, voyeurs and aesthetes, and for travelers who love familiar terrain from a different viewpoint." --Publishers Weekly

"Lovely." --Los Angeles Times

"Brilliant." --Village Voice

"Vibrantly evocative." --Elle