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Haussmann, or the Distinction
Paul La Farge's stunning, imaginative novel about the great architect of Paris "full of artful prose, wit, and provocative ideas.” ( The Philadelphia Inquirer )
Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann, who demolished and rebuilt Paris in the middle of the nineteenth century, was the first urbanist of the modern era--and perhaps the greatest. He presided over two decades of riches, peace, and progress in a city the likes of which no one had ever seen before, with boulevards monumentally conceived and brilliantly lit, clean water, public transportation, and sewers that were the envy of every nation in the world. Yet there is a story that, on his deathbed, Haussmann wished all his work undone. "Would that it had died with me!" he is supposed to have said. What is the secret of the baron's last regret?
To answer this question, Haussmann tells the story of Madeleine, a foundling who grew up in the magical, chaotic world that Haussmann destroyed; of de Fonce, one of the great artistes démolisseurs who tore Paris down and sold its rubble as antiques; and of a three-sided affair that pits love against ambition, architecture against flesh, and the living Parisians against Haussmann's unbuilt masterpiece, the Railroad of the Dead.
Although steeped in history, Paul La Farge's Haussmann, or the Distinction is a novel not bound by fact; it is an account of the hidden, sometimes fantastical life of the nineteenth century, a work that will make readers think of Borges as well as Balzac; it is a view of cities, of love, and of history itself from the other side of the mirror.
Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann, who demolished and rebuilt Paris in the middle of the nineteenth century, was the first urbanist of the modern era--and perhaps the greatest. He presided over two decades of riches, peace, and progress in a city the likes of which no one had ever seen before, with boulevards monumentally conceived and brilliantly lit, clean water, public transportation, and sewers that were the envy of every nation in the world. Yet there is a story that, on his deathbed, Haussmann wished all his work undone. "Would that it had died with me!" he is supposed to have said. What is the secret of the baron's last regret?
To answer this question, Haussmann tells the story of Madeleine, a foundling who grew up in the magical, chaotic world that Haussmann destroyed; of de Fonce, one of the great artistes démolisseurs who tore Paris down and sold its rubble as antiques; and of a three-sided affair that pits love against ambition, architecture against flesh, and the living Parisians against Haussmann's unbuilt masterpiece, the Railroad of the Dead.
Although steeped in history, Paul La Farge's Haussmann, or the Distinction is a novel not bound by fact; it is an account of the hidden, sometimes fantastical life of the nineteenth century, a work that will make readers think of Borges as well as Balzac; it is a view of cities, of love, and of history itself from the other side of the mirror.
379 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
12 people are currently reading
443 people want to read
About the author
Paul La Farge
15 books98 followersPaul La Farge was the author of four novels: The Night Ocean (The Penguin Press, 2017); The Artist of the Missing (FSG, 1999), Haussmann, or the Distinction (FSG, 2001), and Luminous Airplanes (FSG, 2011); and a book of imaginary dreams, The Facts of Winter (McSweeney's Books, 2005).
He was the grateful recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Bard Fiction Prize, and fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. He was a fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library in 2013-14. He lived in a subterranean ‘annex’ in upstate New York, where he was almost certainly up to no good.
He was the grateful recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Bard Fiction Prize, and fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. He was a fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library in 2013-14. He lived in a subterranean ‘annex’ in upstate New York, where he was almost certainly up to no good.
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
November 30, 2015
I had never heard of Paul Poissel until I picked up this book. Poissel is not even well-known in his native France. A few serious students of Lettrism and the Oulipo may have stumbled over several of his poems, but his novel, and even the fact that he ever wrote a novel, has largely been forgotten.
It was U.S. author Paul La Farge (and I only heard of him two weeks ago when I read his Introduction to Moravagine, such are the whims of the reading gods, masked as coincidence) who chanced upon this 1922 novel when he filled out a call slip wrong at the Bibliothèque Nationale. At the time of its initial publication, one reviewer called 'Haussmann, or the Distinction' "this book that lives in the past as though it were the present, and the present as though it were the past."
This is La Farge's translation, and I wonder how much of himself he put into the book.
Regardless, looking around, 'Haussmann, or the Distinction' is certainly obscure. And it has not left puddles of praise in its wake.
Well, I thought it was wonderful, and one of the top ten books I read this year. (But it's only November, you say.)
It's historical fiction, of a sort; that being more fiction than history. It's the story of Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann, who redesigned Paris in the mid-19th Century. There's some political intrigue, but the story mainly revolves around Haussmann's adultery.
But, the Hell with all that. What makes this book soar is the writing. Because any story, of any time, would be spectacular with this tangent on Ghosts:
Now a word about ghosts. O. Why pretend? We don't know anything about them. They don't come to us anymore, or when they do, we call them something else. What's a ghost, really? What haunts us. What's lost but not gone, gone but not forgotten. Ghosts are like books, like photographs; they are memory continued by other means. For there's no reason to believe all ghosts were once people; in Japan they tell stories of animal spirits with cold blue fox eyes; and many's the stable where long-dead horses kick their traces on windy nights. Ghost ships sail before ghost winds; ghost trains wail across the plains, terrifying mortal engineers; and there must be houses which appear only when the moon is right and the fog has settled all around--why, anything might become a ghost, provided that it dies too soon, provided that it has unfinished business with the world.
How's this for a quick biographical sketch:
Echs was a government minister's son, who had already, at thirty-one or thirty-two, won a seat in the National Assembly, representing some blighted part of the country where they raised goats. To tell the truth he looked like a good representative for them: more than a little goatish himself, with a protruding chin and a long, narrow forehead, yellow teeth, a flat nose and a bleating laugh.
--How's your flock? Madeline asked.
Poissel intrudes himself in the novel. Having created Madeline (Mlle de Fonce), he falls in love with her. He tries to learn more about her:
Poissel and the woman spoke about Mlle de Fonce and the future. He found that her opinions on this latter subject were like Flaubert's on writing, like an ex-convict's on prison reform: sadly given, relentlessly concrete, and wholly irrefutable.
Really remarkable that this almost-forgotten 1922 novel should sound so modern to our ears today. It's almost as if........
It was U.S. author Paul La Farge (and I only heard of him two weeks ago when I read his Introduction to Moravagine, such are the whims of the reading gods, masked as coincidence) who chanced upon this 1922 novel when he filled out a call slip wrong at the Bibliothèque Nationale. At the time of its initial publication, one reviewer called 'Haussmann, or the Distinction' "this book that lives in the past as though it were the present, and the present as though it were the past."
This is La Farge's translation, and I wonder how much of himself he put into the book.
Regardless, looking around, 'Haussmann, or the Distinction' is certainly obscure. And it has not left puddles of praise in its wake.
Well, I thought it was wonderful, and one of the top ten books I read this year. (But it's only November, you say.)
It's historical fiction, of a sort; that being more fiction than history. It's the story of Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann, who redesigned Paris in the mid-19th Century. There's some political intrigue, but the story mainly revolves around Haussmann's adultery.
But, the Hell with all that. What makes this book soar is the writing. Because any story, of any time, would be spectacular with this tangent on Ghosts:
Now a word about ghosts. O. Why pretend? We don't know anything about them. They don't come to us anymore, or when they do, we call them something else. What's a ghost, really? What haunts us. What's lost but not gone, gone but not forgotten. Ghosts are like books, like photographs; they are memory continued by other means. For there's no reason to believe all ghosts were once people; in Japan they tell stories of animal spirits with cold blue fox eyes; and many's the stable where long-dead horses kick their traces on windy nights. Ghost ships sail before ghost winds; ghost trains wail across the plains, terrifying mortal engineers; and there must be houses which appear only when the moon is right and the fog has settled all around--why, anything might become a ghost, provided that it dies too soon, provided that it has unfinished business with the world.
How's this for a quick biographical sketch:
Echs was a government minister's son, who had already, at thirty-one or thirty-two, won a seat in the National Assembly, representing some blighted part of the country where they raised goats. To tell the truth he looked like a good representative for them: more than a little goatish himself, with a protruding chin and a long, narrow forehead, yellow teeth, a flat nose and a bleating laugh.
--How's your flock? Madeline asked.
Poissel intrudes himself in the novel. Having created Madeline (Mlle de Fonce), he falls in love with her. He tries to learn more about her:
Poissel and the woman spoke about Mlle de Fonce and the future. He found that her opinions on this latter subject were like Flaubert's on writing, like an ex-convict's on prison reform: sadly given, relentlessly concrete, and wholly irrefutable.
Really remarkable that this almost-forgotten 1922 novel should sound so modern to our ears today. It's almost as if........
June 24, 2024
Don’t read this expecting to learn anything about the creativity or process involved in the transformation of Paris in the 19th century. Most of this book was devoted to a (probably fictional) mistress of Baron Haussmann, “the great architect of Paris”. The book reminded me a little of Balzac, and I did enjoy the writing. I just wasn’t that crazy about the plot. I preferred “The Night Ocean”. 3.5 stars
February 10, 2023
I finally got around to reading this novel because the author recently died at the young age of 52. Haussmann is a wonderful entertainment. It works mainly due to its clever, witty narrator and La Farge’s decision to limit his biographical work to a small part (not time, but relationships) of the subject’s life. Cleverly, it doesn’t even start with Haussmann (or his family members).
It’s sad that La Farge didn’t live to write more than four novels, and that his work was not better known despite Farrar Straus being his publisher.
It’s sad that La Farge didn’t live to write more than four novels, and that his work was not better known despite Farrar Straus being his publisher.
November 24, 2018
I enjoyed this book. That said, it took me forever to complete it, I found the beginning difficult to follow, difficult initially to get engaged in. Deciding this fall that it was time to finish it, I began the story from the beginning. The beginning charts the life of Madeleine at length, leaving one to wonder when and where Haussman will ever enter the plot line.
And I suppose this is part of the point, drawing at length a characterization of the ‘old Paris’ before the grand imprimatur of Haussman was laid down. And, well, Paris in his wake IS grand. Hence my interest in the story, the times, the person as drawn through the lens of historical fiction.
It is an interesting social commentary of the ‘life’ of Paris during the time of the Goncourt brothers, and a time of general social upheaval and urban renewal. The plot line, however, is at times disjointed, but I attribute this to the author’s style as opposed to a central flaw. So while at times LaFarge was maddeningly hard to follow, I enjoyed the book. The author strikes me as writing very much in the 19C French realism style of Maupassant, Balzac and Anatole France.
And I suppose this is part of the point, drawing at length a characterization of the ‘old Paris’ before the grand imprimatur of Haussman was laid down. And, well, Paris in his wake IS grand. Hence my interest in the story, the times, the person as drawn through the lens of historical fiction.
It is an interesting social commentary of the ‘life’ of Paris during the time of the Goncourt brothers, and a time of general social upheaval and urban renewal. The plot line, however, is at times disjointed, but I attribute this to the author’s style as opposed to a central flaw. So while at times LaFarge was maddeningly hard to follow, I enjoyed the book. The author strikes me as writing very much in the 19C French realism style of Maupassant, Balzac and Anatole France.
December 27, 2011
On first look, this had many aspects of a novel I'd love - one character is an orphan girl, the setting - mid-19th century Paris. However, after the first half of the book, it lost me. I frankly didn't care what happened at the end & was glad to see it finished. The historical aspects of it were interesting, the character of Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann was a real civic planner who transformed Paris into the magnificent city it is still today.
October 21, 2013
I had the worst trouble getting into this. Some good writing, but I had an immense disdain for all of the characters. I was legitimately creeped out at times, and I don't agree with what La Farge did in fictionalizing the life of a real person. I generally don't have a problem with it, but in this case he gave a real man some truly detestable qualities. Not a fan.
October 7, 2009
Atmospheric, but ultimately not quite engaging enough. I think this is due to an omniscient narrator who keeps the reader at an emotional distance from the characters.
January 24, 2017
dope af
February 4, 2023
Rest in peace.
February 6, 2018
My hopes were high after the first chapter of this book, but alas I won't be lending it to my friends. For a novel purportedly about the most famous city planner, this one lacked a sense of place. Perhaps this was because of the over-aware narrator - who is this person? what is his or her agenda? Not entirely clear, and lacking in personalized poignancy for it. La Farge clearly enjoys words, as do I. He does get at some deeper insights of life, but too often flails and falls in his own floridity (I'm doing it too, but this isn't a novel).
BUT, for my main pile of gripes: As a woman named Madeline (not Madeleine, but still), I was increasingly disappointed but not surprised to see the story of the novel pivot more towards Haussmann himself rather than the translucent girl at the center of the story. I say girl because she remains childish into her twenties, and has little life outside her paternalistic lovers. Is the "graceful waif" the 19th c counterpart to the manic pixie dreamgirl of today? These last thoughts bothered me most. I can understand reading about some morally ambiguous dude who's canny and good with rational, modernistic plans and bad with human connection. Nevertheless, most of the novel was centered on M., who remained blandly characterized beyond being a trope from some Dickensian wet dream. What is it with Madeleine and messed-up father figures, of which there are four? Does she have any friends her own age who don't disappear in a cloud of TB, sapphic dreams, and sparkly rubble (N.)? Who is she? I would understand reading more from H.'s perspective and less from de Fonce, who took on a strange mix of roles working-class mythology fan to grotesque architectural appraiser to... well, to one of two pseudo-incestuous lovers for M in the course of the story. And yet both male characters dissappoint in depth, too.
This novel has a charming sense of nostalgia while also maintaining the rush of modernity and horror we call the 19th c. However, like de Fonce's rose-colored glasses, La Farge sees the world through his archaic sensibilities about men, women (...girls?), sexuality, the distribution of wealth and the legacy of art. There are better ways to access Paris on the page than through this theatrical masculine tale.
BUT, for my main pile of gripes: As a woman named Madeline (not Madeleine, but still), I was increasingly disappointed but not surprised to see the story of the novel pivot more towards Haussmann himself rather than the translucent girl at the center of the story. I say girl because she remains childish into her twenties, and has little life outside her paternalistic lovers. Is the "graceful waif" the 19th c counterpart to the manic pixie dreamgirl of today? These last thoughts bothered me most. I can understand reading about some morally ambiguous dude who's canny and good with rational, modernistic plans and bad with human connection. Nevertheless, most of the novel was centered on M., who remained blandly characterized beyond being a trope from some Dickensian wet dream. What is it with Madeleine and messed-up father figures, of which there are four? Does she have any friends her own age who don't disappear in a cloud of TB, sapphic dreams, and sparkly rubble (N.)? Who is she? I would understand reading more from H.'s perspective and less from de Fonce, who took on a strange mix of roles working-class mythology fan to grotesque architectural appraiser to... well, to one of two pseudo-incestuous lovers for M in the course of the story. And yet both male characters dissappoint in depth, too.
This novel has a charming sense of nostalgia while also maintaining the rush of modernity and horror we call the 19th c. However, like de Fonce's rose-colored glasses, La Farge sees the world through his archaic sensibilities about men, women (...girls?), sexuality, the distribution of wealth and the legacy of art. There are better ways to access Paris on the page than through this theatrical masculine tale.
May 26, 2024
A book for those who like stories of deception, arched eyebrows, and various flights of imagination, written by an American who lived in Paris for many years. But why Haussmann?
I guess we're all Parisians now.
And if I have chosen this story to tell you among all the others, I have chosen it because it is the story of what might have been and was not, which is Haussmann's story, which is the story of everyone who lives with what he has done.
I guess we're all Parisians now.
February 13, 2021
Sort of a love-but-hate book. Its historical. also. its fictional. in those respects, well its fairly typical for a 'love-but-hate read', but the writing is way better than any other modern author I've ever read. Surpasses even Peter Maas, and I didnt think it was actually possible.
October 20, 2021
What a pleasure. It’s funny and moving. It made me miss living in Paris. I devoured it.
October 9, 2024
Haussman fanfic is crazy work
March 12, 2013
(Background note: Haussmann was the man responsible for redesigning Paris in the 1860's into a bourgeois paradise, a modernization brought about both to improve standards of living and destroy the narrow streets that French revolutionaries (of which France had plenty in 1789) so loved to make use of in the past (difficult for artillery to pass through, wonderful to guard). This is a pretty cool character and time to read about.)
Era pieces are normally not my thing (something I'm always surprised to rediscover, given how I legitimately love devouring 700+ paged, dense history nonfiction), but I got a copy of this book free (chosen out of a choice of this and two others, The Artist of the Missing A Novel and Luminous Airplanes A Novel) and signed at a subsequent book reading. I initially chose the book because I recognized the titular character as a figure in history and the context in which he lived (my preening ego was very happy). Then I read the book more out of obligation than anything else, because the author was a cool guy and he signed the thing.
This book isn't one of my all-time favorites, but I don't particularly regret the time I spent with it. I feel like the book is a fairly solid 3.5 (but the slightest bit more a 3 than a 4, so maybe a 3.45?). If you love sweeping recreations of long-past settings, you'll love this book. If you love clever humor, you'll enjoy this. If you read books for the heart of the characters only, there are ups and downs. The book takes a lot of time meandering through side-notes and such, but some people really enjoy that.
La Farge is clever and funny. His funny is clever. Take for example this passage on a lamplighter's hobby of peeping on nuns through the window:
What La Farge does exceptionally well is to recreate Paris at the turn of the century. The research that he has put into the novel is highly evident. The things that hinder his characterization lend to a brilliant evocation of nuances to the transformation of a city, both physically and societally. While I couldn't be swept away by his characters, I was swept away by his recreation of a world. He also has penetrating insights into human nature, made in (again) clever observation, that resonated.
I'll be checking out La Farge's other novels at some point. From the samples I've read, the first person of Luminous Airplanes A Novel balances out the detached character analyses and still retains all the good things.
Era pieces are normally not my thing (something I'm always surprised to rediscover, given how I legitimately love devouring 700+ paged, dense history nonfiction), but I got a copy of this book free (chosen out of a choice of this and two others, The Artist of the Missing A Novel and Luminous Airplanes A Novel) and signed at a subsequent book reading. I initially chose the book because I recognized the titular character as a figure in history and the context in which he lived (my preening ego was very happy). Then I read the book more out of obligation than anything else, because the author was a cool guy and he signed the thing.
This book isn't one of my all-time favorites, but I don't particularly regret the time I spent with it. I feel like the book is a fairly solid 3.5 (but the slightest bit more a 3 than a 4, so maybe a 3.45?). If you love sweeping recreations of long-past settings, you'll love this book. If you love clever humor, you'll enjoy this. If you read books for the heart of the characters only, there are ups and downs. The book takes a lot of time meandering through side-notes and such, but some people really enjoy that.
La Farge is clever and funny. His funny is clever. Take for example this passage on a lamplighter's hobby of peeping on nuns through the window:
Though modest in his other tastes, Jacob has an appetite for three things, innocent enough singly, but which together constitute a vice: for lamps, for curtains, and for nuns. It's best, he thinks, bootnails clicking against the flagstones of the otherwise quiet bridge, if the light is behind the curtain…it combines religion, lust, and flame, the three forces which vie--so thinks Jacob--to consume the world.His cleverness can be too clever though. His descriptions of his characters are made in a drawling tone chockfull of hyperawareness, sometimes of irony, in their actions/thoughts/personas. I got a very good sense of who the characters are, but didn't really feel a connection to them because I was always viewing them through almost academic lenses, which is enjoyable in its own rights, but not when it's continuous with no reprieve through 370 pages of a novel. Madeleine, one of the main characters, is described thusly:
And Madeleine loved most of all that which was catlike in herself, in other words, that which achieved freedom without struggle and independence without loneliness, and for all that never had to go long without food.Beautiful prose, but that's always the type of description you get about every character. Probably would have gone over better with me had I read this in a different mood.
What La Farge does exceptionally well is to recreate Paris at the turn of the century. The research that he has put into the novel is highly evident. The things that hinder his characterization lend to a brilliant evocation of nuances to the transformation of a city, both physically and societally. While I couldn't be swept away by his characters, I was swept away by his recreation of a world. He also has penetrating insights into human nature, made in (again) clever observation, that resonated.
I'll be checking out La Farge's other novels at some point. From the samples I've read, the first person of Luminous Airplanes A Novel balances out the detached character analyses and still retains all the good things.
December 22, 2019
The charismatic narrative voice appears larger than any of the book's characters, sometimes crowding out our chances of connection with them. Good thing, then, it's so witty, so offhandedly wise and archly funny. The books' structure is complex but finely calibrated, often jumping ahead to show a scene, then ending with its result, then jumping back to show how that event came to be. Does it sap the story of energy? Maybe. Madeleine feels real, but remote. Some of her most important moments, we see from another perspective or learn of turbulent inner movements only when we see the actions they result in.
For sheer intellect and authorial control, it's hard to beat La Farge. His imagination is world-spanning. His curiosity zooms off every direction, every magnitude of life. Big events, little ones. His startling cheek when it comes to writing into the life of real people is here, given some cover by the conventions of the historical novel. Later in The Night Ocean, when he's writing about people still alive at the time comes back, this time with the cover of the hoax-in-a-hoax at the heart the book.
For sheer intellect and authorial control, it's hard to beat La Farge. His imagination is world-spanning. His curiosity zooms off every direction, every magnitude of life. Big events, little ones. His startling cheek when it comes to writing into the life of real people is here, given some cover by the conventions of the historical novel. Later in The Night Ocean, when he's writing about people still alive at the time comes back, this time with the cover of the hoax-in-a-hoax at the heart the book.
January 12, 2010
Overall, LaFarge has painted an exquisitely detailed portrait of 19th century Paris; his turns of phrase and short digressions are elaborately useless and yet so useful for setting the stage and introducing us to the host of characters and places that populate the book. The story excels where it does just that, particularly in a few magical realist moments; it begins to fall apart once the play begins. By the final chapter, the storytelling is rushing to fulfill the reader's expectations, and the cliffhanging leaps between subplots get harried. (LaFarge deliciously gives away the end quite a few pages before the actual end.) In that way, the book doesn't quite live up to its opening promise -- to reveal the fount of Haussmann's regret -- although there is an attempt, with the afterword, to hammer home The Theme. (And yes, that theme is Borgesian.)
Readers would do well to look up the various untranslated French puns in a dictionary. Readers (like me) with a prior interest in French history or the politics of urban renewal will be particularly well rewarded.
"What ecstasy to fall in love with a city planner, who surrounded her, day and night, with signs of himself!"
Readers would do well to look up the various untranslated French puns in a dictionary. Readers (like me) with a prior interest in French history or the politics of urban renewal will be particularly well rewarded.
"What ecstasy to fall in love with a city planner, who surrounded her, day and night, with signs of himself!"
September 28, 2012
A book of great wit, complexity and intelligence. Difficult and rewarding. A portrait of the Second Empire as it caterwauls into the Third and vaporizes into the 20th century. La Farge's novel focuses on a trio of characters: the orphaned, luminous, and precocious Madeline; de Fonce, the "demolition man," who makes his wealth by speculating on discarded bric-a-brac from the Second Empire; and finally (Baron) Georges-Eugène Haussmann, the Prefect of Paris whose sole distinction (other than the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour) was to modernize Paris via a series of infrastructural and architectural interventions. This is not a character study as much as it is a sustained investigation of a city in the midst of epochal transformations. When viewed through our trio of characters, what emerges is a rich tableau that allows the reader, to paraphrase Édouard Manet, "to get the picture."
In theme, subject matter, and in one very specific instance, a plot point revolving around a specific kind of architecture, the novel anticipates Andrew Miller's excellent "Pure" (2012).
In theme, subject matter, and in one very specific instance, a plot point revolving around a specific kind of architecture, the novel anticipates Andrew Miller's excellent "Pure" (2012).
March 6, 2013
Those of us who live in Paris, often dream about having the perfect Haussmannian apartment- high ceilings, fireplaces, molding. We think of these apartments as an elegant remnent from the past. But that wasn't always the case. When built, they were the equivalent of the glass buildings in Soho. Haussmann tore up large portions of the city, expropriated loads of people, destroyed numerous churches and artifacts to get us our beautiful avenues, buildings and parks. This novel, set in the 1860s in Paris, shows us both the good and the not so flattering side of Haussmann and the political and social webs of the time. The voice of the narrator is annoying at times (this is a novel in a novel -supposedly written at the time of Haussmann - so feels like an awkward version of Dickens at times) but the story worth reading. Loved the Madeleine character who goes from street urchin to lady
February 11, 2012
Haussmann is the prefect for Paris during the reign of Napoleon the III. He was the architect responsible for making Paris the beautiful city it is today. Under his direction much of the medieval city was torn down to make room for wider streets, an aqueduct with clean water, and the famous sewer system. Unfortunately, we don't get to read about his work in this novel.
The focus of the book is an adulterous relationship Haussmann has with a fictional woman. It was disturbing to me that the author would besmirch someone's name in this way. I've set it aside as one of those novels that I can't bring myself to finish.
The focus of the book is an adulterous relationship Haussmann has with a fictional woman. It was disturbing to me that the author would besmirch someone's name in this way. I've set it aside as one of those novels that I can't bring myself to finish.
February 9, 2017
Asks the question of preservation vs renewal in a beautifully written story of Haussmann and his mistress.
June 4, 2007
Another captivating tale of Parisian fantasy and mystery...
Where the gruesome and grave squalor of the pre-Revolution city shapes the miserable world of the orphaned Grenouille in Suskind's "Perfume," the story of LaFarge's own Parisian orphan, Madeleine is spun in a Paris transformed by the Baron Haussmann. Despite grand boulevards and meandering paths in lovely planned parks, however, even haute-Paris has its underbelly...
Where the gruesome and grave squalor of the pre-Revolution city shapes the miserable world of the orphaned Grenouille in Suskind's "Perfume," the story of LaFarge's own Parisian orphan, Madeleine is spun in a Paris transformed by the Baron Haussmann. Despite grand boulevards and meandering paths in lovely planned parks, however, even haute-Paris has its underbelly...
December 25, 2012
Pretty boring. I avoided this for years based on the title alone, and maybe you should too. Sometimes its lousy to have suspicions confirmed. A bland period piece set in second empire France with only the tiniest bits of LaFarge magic sprinkled here and there.
September 9, 2016
This reminded me a bit of a Dickens novel. In a good way. The prose was fluid, and easy to savor. The characters had depth. The three main characters did at least. I would read another book by this novel for sure.
January 26, 2008
Novel about the Hausmann who made Paris what it looks like today. A fast read, but includes good details about the period.
January 22, 2010
Enjoyable glimpse in to Haussmann's Paris. I'd like to read a biography of him now (as well as move the Power Broker and Robert Moses up the list).
January 2, 2017
Betrayal, wistfulness, mystery, ghosts. Wonderfully restrained and narrative voice. And funny in many places. 1860's Paris.
April 27, 2010
Disjointed. It just didn’t fit together for me in some way I can’t quite put my finger on.
Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews