5/12/2023 0 Comments London edward rutherfurd summaryFrom there on in almost every chapter, famous figures come into the story: from King Louis IX, Philip Augustus, Villon, and Richelieu to many others in the last third of the nineteenth-century (Gustave Eiffel, Claude Monet, gallery owner Paul Durand-Ruel, among others) and the twentieth century (Coco Chanel, Marc Chagall, Ernest Hemingway, and Charles de Gaulle, to name just a few). On the very first page he launches into a lightning-quick survey of Paris history– from the Parisiis’ home on the Seine and the Romans’ town of Lutetia to the medieval city of Gothic churches and dark narrow lanes and then to the “new” Paris of “classical spaces” and the renovated city of Haussmann -all in 2 ½ pages. Though principally a storyteller, Rutherfurd assumes the role of historian explicitly at the outset of thenovel. Along the way, the author tells about Paris in Wikipedia-like briefings, usually delivered by one of the characters explaining the historical background to another. From generation to generation, their personal lives unfold in the context of major public events, some of them not in Paris (or even in France). The novel is above all the story of a handful of French families, representing different types and strata of society over the centuries since the late Middle Ages. Paris is not a principal character or a subject that is developed in any systematic way, although the city is the setting of much of the story. With a title like that, you might assume that this novel is about Paris. Charles Rearick University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Emeritus
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