Paris – The Epic Novel of the City of Lights

Paris – The Epic Novel of the City of Lights
By Edward Rutherfurd
Hodder & Stoughton – £18.99

What I particularly like about Edward Rutherfurd’s Paris – The Epic Novel of the City of Lights, is its literary and more than imaginative traipse through what still has to be the most celebrated and beautiful city in the world.

Anchored within a fraught period of one hundred years, the author takes us on a tantalizingly beguiling, and particularly charming historical tour of the French capital.

As seen through the eyes of one who clearly knows, adores and what’s more, understands Paris – and it’s all centrifugal, influential and tempestuous past – this book weaves together the occasionally gripping saga of four completely different families across the centuries. From the deeply entrenched dishonesty that traverses the noble line of de Cygne, to the revolutionary Le Sourds who seek their down-fall; from the Blanchards whose quasi-bourgeois respectability offers minimal protection against scandal, to the hard-working Gascons and their veritable soaring ambition(s) – Paris really is an ultimately intriguing read, wherein the reader is transported unto another time and another place.

To be sure, I found the city itself to be the prime protagonist, while the four families (as linear and as essential as they undoubtedly are) simply furnish Rutherfurd with a reason or a canvas upon which to project his sparkling, yet fundamentally historical vision: ”Yet old Paris was still there, around almost every corner, with her memories of centuries past, and of lives relived. Memories as haunting as an old, half-forgotten tune that, when played again – in another age, in another key, whether on harp or hurdy-gurdy – is still the same. This was her enduring gaze.”

Whether gazing over the majestic skyline of Paris from the top of Montmartre Hill – where a mere few pages along, the hard-working Thomas Gascon pronounces: ”’Montmartre isn’t holding up the church. It’s the church that’s holding up Montmartre”’ – or any other such heightened vantage point; that the author ends the above quotation with the line ”This was her enduring gaze,” triggers much eloquent food for thought.

For Paris is indeed enduring.
As is her everlasting gaze.

And this is all the more substantiated by the fact that Rutherfurd then continues with a new paragraph: ”Was Paris now at peace with herself? She had suffered and survived, seen empires rise and fall. Chaos and dictatorship, monarchy and republic: Paris had tried them all. And which did she like the best? Ah, there was a question… For all her age and grace, it seemed she did not know.”

Like many an epic novel, there are always a couple of (perhaps) questionable short-comings. One such example herein, being the plausibility through which history is both regaled and transferred.

The following is a conversation between the nine-year-old Jacques Le Sourd and his mother, which some, might find a little far-fetched:

”’What happened to the priests, Maman? Were they killed, too?’
‘Some.’ She shrugged. ‘Not enough.’
‘But the priests are still here today.’
‘Unfortunately.’
‘So were all the men of the Revolution atheists?’
‘No. But the best were.’
‘You do not believe in God, Maman?’ asked Jacques. His mother shook her head. ‘Did my father?’ he pursued.
‘No.’
The boy was thoughtful for a moment.
‘Then nor shall I,’ he said.
The path was curving towards the east, drawing closer to the outer edge of the cemetery.
‘What happened to the Revolution, Maman? Why didn’t it last?’
His mother shrugged again.
‘There was confusion. Napoleon came to power. He was half revolutionary, and a half Roman emperor. He nearly conquered all Europe before he was defeated.’
‘Was he an atheist?’
‘Who knows. The Church never got its power back, but he found the priests useful to him – like most rulers.’

Suffice to say, there’s a hell of a lot of historical, as well as (dense) ideological information being shared here, which is fine – regardless of whatever side of the revolutionary fence one finds oneself. My issue is whether such a conversation is plausible between a mother and a nine-year-old boy.

Other than such instances, Paris – The Epic Novel of the City of Lights, is a profoundly endearing and illuminating read. If it doesn’t do just as much to promote this most wondrous of cities, as say Helen Constantine’s Paris Metro Tales (Oxford University Press), then I’d be mighty surprised.

Not to mention surprisingly disappointed.

David Marx