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The Existential Englishman: Paris Among the Artists
A love letter to Paris and a memoir of a life spent at its bohemian heart, rich with adventures, misadventures and the beauty of one of the most enduringly romantic cities in the world
The Existential Englishman is both a memoir and an intimate portrait of Paris – a city that can enchant, exhilarate and exasperate in equal measure. As Peppiatt 'You reflect and become the city just as the city reflects and becomes you'. This, then, is one man's not uncritical love letter to Paris.
Intensely personal, candid and entertaining, The Existential Englishman chronicles Peppiatt's relationship with Paris in a series of vignettes structured around the half-dozen addresses he called home as a plucky young art critic. Having survived the tumultuous riots of 1968, Peppiatt traces his precarious progress from junior editor to magazine publisher, recalling encounters with a host of figures at the heart of Parisian artistic life – from Sartre, Beckett and Cartier-Bresson to Serge Gainsbourg and Catherine Deneuve. Peppiatt also takes us into the secret places that fascinate him most in this ancient capital, where memories are etched into every magnificent palace and humble cobblestone.
On the historic streets of Paris, where all life is on show and every human drama played out, Michael Peppiatt is the wittiest and wickedest of observers, capturing the essence of the city and its glittering cultural achievements.
The Existential Englishman is both a memoir and an intimate portrait of Paris – a city that can enchant, exhilarate and exasperate in equal measure. As Peppiatt 'You reflect and become the city just as the city reflects and becomes you'. This, then, is one man's not uncritical love letter to Paris.
Intensely personal, candid and entertaining, The Existential Englishman chronicles Peppiatt's relationship with Paris in a series of vignettes structured around the half-dozen addresses he called home as a plucky young art critic. Having survived the tumultuous riots of 1968, Peppiatt traces his precarious progress from junior editor to magazine publisher, recalling encounters with a host of figures at the heart of Parisian artistic life – from Sartre, Beckett and Cartier-Bresson to Serge Gainsbourg and Catherine Deneuve. Peppiatt also takes us into the secret places that fascinate him most in this ancient capital, where memories are etched into every magnificent palace and humble cobblestone.
On the historic streets of Paris, where all life is on show and every human drama played out, Michael Peppiatt is the wittiest and wickedest of observers, capturing the essence of the city and its glittering cultural achievements.
- GenresArtNonfictionFrance
384 pages, Hardcover
Published March 19, 2019
8 people are currently reading
92 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 22, 2023
A bit slow for the first 100 or so pages, but then picks up nicely. Given the rarefied circles in which the author moved, I'm struck by his lack of conceit. The mental torment he suffers about becoming a writer are refreshingly honest and easy to identify with. If it's any consolation, some of the writing in this book is of a very high standard. I'm thankful to the author for introducing me to Dado, Music and Brassai.
February 9, 2023
Had to give this book up after 50 pages as found it to be introspective and meandering. It's a romantic vision of Paris that chart the author's life but didn't find anything interesting to hook into and found myself drifting. Life's too short to plough through a book I'm not enjoying.
December 12, 2020
Michael Peppiatt is an English art historian, curator and writer, now seventy-nine years of age. He is internationally respected as an expert on 20th century art. He studied at Cambridge University, left England spending a year in Barcelona and Madrid before moving in 1966 to Paris where he took up a job at “Réalités” magazine. He would spend the next thirty years or so here, becoming a longtime friend with Francis Bacon and Paris correspondent for a wide range of art magazines such as "Art News", "Connaissance des Arts" and "Art International" where he was appointed Senior Editor, eventually taking over the ownership. Some of the issues were devoted to living artists such as Francis Bacon, Antoni Tapies and Anselm Kiefer. In 1994 he returned with his wife, the art historian Jill Lloyd, and their two children to London.
I read The Existential Englishman because I love Paris and I love art and Peppiatt's journey through thirty or so years on the historic streets of Paris is a witty and wicked account peppered with so many luminaries of the art world. There is however a period where he becomes so maudlin, at times suicidal, that the going got hard to continue reading. Don't let my three stars put you off though. Peppiatt is a gifted conversationalist. His is a story of a bohemian life in Paris full of charm and flair with the final redemption of returning to Paris like a true revenant.
I read The Existential Englishman because I love Paris and I love art and Peppiatt's journey through thirty or so years on the historic streets of Paris is a witty and wicked account peppered with so many luminaries of the art world. There is however a period where he becomes so maudlin, at times suicidal, that the going got hard to continue reading. Don't let my three stars put you off though. Peppiatt is a gifted conversationalist. His is a story of a bohemian life in Paris full of charm and flair with the final redemption of returning to Paris like a true revenant.
May 8, 2020
Delightful, wonderful, and at times, from the perspective of a woman, difficult to read, but ultimately the most satisfying, lyrical, sweet, expansive and honest portrayal of a lifespan that I have ever read. The life of a man and that of a city intertwined, as many of us know is possible. His portrayal of ageing and awareness of death are courageous, redemptive and beautiful. I am in love with this gem of a book and can’t believe my luck in finding it. His dedication to the visual arts is poignant and soothing in an age which has forgotten its necessity.
January 26, 2021
The foreword was very promising so I started enthusiastically. But then it got a bit boring so I skimmed the chapters (more or less). I think it didn't like it that much because we don't share the same experience, him being a guy, having a (well-paid) job, living in fancy neighbourhood in Paris from the late 60's on. Then again, the postscript was more interesting.
And I don't like giving 2 stars on a person's memoir, but I'm a bit disappointed. Maybe my expectations were too high.
And I don't like giving 2 stars on a person's memoir, but I'm a bit disappointed. Maybe my expectations were too high.
July 7, 2024
Meandering. I don’t find him interesting enough to be in the author’s random thoughts that long.
June 22, 2021
Review written: 08/02/20.
I can't say that I've read an art biography of any kind, but I enjoyed this one. Michael does a good job of bringing to life the Paris of his youth, drawing me in so well that during the epilogue, his revelation that Paris has changed since then managed to shock me. As if somehow the city he had lived was the definitive one.
Following along the twenty five years in which he lives in Paris, Michael paints an image that, from a modern perspective, is both enviable and frustrating. What I would give to have been offered the opportunities that he seemed to scorn as a young man! To read as he calls others bourgeoisie while from a 21st century perspective he comes across as this himself in many ways. But I know this makes it sound as if I didn't enjoy the book. I did. I really did.
This uncensored glimpse into another world, one so cut off from my space and time, was quite enchanting. Michael's frankness vis a vis his own shortcomings in part reduce the sting of reading about his at times questionable moral fibre (something that was frequently frustrating). I think it's a testament to the quality of the memoir that it's author so often angered me, yet this didn't negatively impact my opinions of the memoir itself.
Tales of madness, despair, hope and freedom abound in this frank novel about life in the City of Lights.
I can't say that I've read an art biography of any kind, but I enjoyed this one. Michael does a good job of bringing to life the Paris of his youth, drawing me in so well that during the epilogue, his revelation that Paris has changed since then managed to shock me. As if somehow the city he had lived was the definitive one.
Following along the twenty five years in which he lives in Paris, Michael paints an image that, from a modern perspective, is both enviable and frustrating. What I would give to have been offered the opportunities that he seemed to scorn as a young man! To read as he calls others bourgeoisie while from a 21st century perspective he comes across as this himself in many ways. But I know this makes it sound as if I didn't enjoy the book. I did. I really did.
This uncensored glimpse into another world, one so cut off from my space and time, was quite enchanting. Michael's frankness vis a vis his own shortcomings in part reduce the sting of reading about his at times questionable moral fibre (something that was frequently frustrating). I think it's a testament to the quality of the memoir that it's author so often angered me, yet this didn't negatively impact my opinions of the memoir itself.
Tales of madness, despair, hope and freedom abound in this frank novel about life in the City of Lights.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews