My Paris

by Gail Scott

In My Paris, a Canadian woman keeps an extraordinary journal of her time in a Parisian studio. Not a typical tourist, she prefers indoor spaces, seeing Paris go by on TV or watching from her window the ever-changing displays of men's designer clothing across the boulevard. Or she roams the streets, caught between nostalgia and a competing sense of the present day, between Paris's rich cultural traditions and the realities of Western imperialism. Disillusioned by her inability to reconcile these contradictions and by her own part in perpetuating them, she assembles in her journal pieces of the present, past, of art, philosophy, of herself, and of the world outside her.

Genres: Fiction, Paris, Literature, Canada, Queer

138 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Liz Latty · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Like a heroine from Balzac. I am on a divan. Narrow. Covered with a small abstract black-and-white print.”
This was my introduction to Gail Scott...and I wouldn't have had it any other way. KNOW HER.

[m.]

I don't rate the books i read for uni but i will say: i've rarely hated a writing style more than i've hated this one. Incomprehensible, robotic, without life and frankly quite boring.

[Hannah · Rating 3.5 out of 5]

Written in the perpetual present tense, Gail Scott's My Paris is a modernist flaneusian hauntology. As Scott's Québécoise autofictional narrator walks and walks and walks the streets of Paris, she pays homage to a literary and cultural legacy embedded in the buildings and geography, in the sites, smells, and culinary heritage of the city...Walter Benjamin's mammoth "The Arcades Project," Gertrude Stein's radical use of language, Baudelaire, "Oulipolian Perec," Proust, Collette, and so many more spectres stalk the pages of this novel. Stylistically cool, queer, and totally arresting.

[Olivia]

didn't really totally get thru this one but i think i'm done with it. i very much appreciate the stylistic choices gail scott is making and i really especially like the fun grammar stuff she is doing. it's just that i don't really care that much about paris

[Angel · Rating 2 out of 5]

(2/5)

[Emi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had a true love-hate relationship with this book. Every time I tried to read it, I had to force myself to open it. However, after about 10 pages I would be hooked, devouring the book at breakneck speed.
"My Paris" is written in a unique way. The fragmented sentences, seemingly unconnected ideas, intertexuality may be rather irritating. I didn't mind it terribly but I don't think I'd ever subject myself to reading this book again. As clever as it may be and as many topics as it tackles in just under 200 pages, I have to say it isn't exactly my cup of tea.

[Laura Lewakowski · Rating 1 out of 5]

As much as I love Paris, I could NOT get past the bad grammar, (poor editing?) and overall sentence structure. I also felt like I could never follow her footsteps as she seems to have an unending money supply. I didn't like her by then end of the first chapter. Didn't care about "her" Paris anymore. I like my own Paris thank you.

[Kay · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just couldn't, giving it now a second chance months after the first. The severely truncated word groups between periods painted no picture for me of my beloved Paris. Nothing grabbed me, it was a chore reading as much as I did, giving it a second chance. All done now.

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

would've given this a two-star rating but gail scott is just so wonderful.
will probably like this better when 1) i have been to paris; 2) i have read benjamin's arcades project.

[Marci Daniels · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not my bag, but I can appreciate that it might be someone else's. Her distancing/reductive sentence structures worked for the piece, it just didn't tickle my fancy.

[Laurel · Rating 1 out of 5]

aburrido / chato / bored

[DeadWeight · Rating 2 out of 5]

After reading and thoroughly enjoying Heroine it's possible that I was too harsh on Scott before for My Paris -- it's very likely I resented it entirely as an assigned reading.