2 Stars
Historical retrospective of cities and the literary women who haunted their avenues with overlays of Elkin's experiences.
This is more biographical than geographical. Elkin explores feminism through the lens of authors' lives and their writings. Specifically, women's use of city space or exclusion from it. It has strong associations to arguments of female confinement and the interiority of their lives, but Elkin emphasizes the subversion of it by artists and writers from historical periods.
New York
Twenty pages and only two that actually discuss walking the city, the rest covers nearly everything else but flaneusing.
Don't think I don't see the irony in complaining about the lack of focus in a book titled Flaneuse. But, I took it literally, as an armchair adventurer not as a disjointed treatise on everything from Post World War II architecture, to postmodernism, to feminism, to the epiphany that, "I've lived in a cage and never realized it!" experiential sharing.
Paris
Twenty five pages and maybe one that discusses walking the streets contemporaneously, from a firsthand account. The rest is a dissection of Jean Rhys' literature oeuvre with a provocative counterpoint of Hemingway and a dash of Ford. I haven't read Rhys and I can tell from the analysis provided I'll despise her books--women in penumbral spaces who continually make the worst choice possible-- dear god, yes, why wouldn't I love that?
London
Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group. Again, more literary than actual discussion of London. That said, I was very familiar with the area discussed so I enjoyed moments of flashbacks. Plus, I like London.
Paris Deuxième
This revisit features George Sand and her radical flight to Paris in the early nineteenth century, leaving behind her children to pursue her writing and political ideals only to return to the countryside in Berry after the unrelenting bloodshed of Paris power struggles. Sand refocusing on themes of matrimony and education as the liberator of women. Again, there are brief, one line ties in to contemporary Paris but that is it.
Venice
Diary entry about Elkin's PhD avoidance by writing a novel set in Venice instead of a thesis. Clearly, firsthand experience required. Sophie Calle turns out to be a source for character development and the reader gets to run down this rabbit hole. Turns out Sophie liked to follow interesting looking strangers around the city, see where they went--which to be honest, I've done while wandering various cities myself so I can't knock it. The idea is that someone that interesting looking must be going somewhere interesting. Where? Alas, not always true, but I found strange nooks and crannies with unique shops, festivals, and even dreary financial districts utilizing this method.
Tokyo
I feel like Elkin and I are on opposite ends of the spectrum; I would take Tokyo in a heartbeat over Paris--any day. This section is primarily a diatribe about how much Elkin hated Japan and everything about it with a backdrop of her destructing relationship. The part that really drove me nuts was that for a person who travelled the complaint that the real Japan couldn't be found dumbfounded me. Like everywhere else in densely populated cities, jump on the Metro, Tube, subway and go!
Paris Troisième
God, I don't like Paris, and certainly not enough to start the third chapter of its history and effusing over its "charm". I'm tapping out of this book, page 150. My library loan is about to end and I just don't have the desire to continue on.
This is probably a fantastic read for people looking for an author biography and feminist discussions of restricted space. Just know that it tends towards tossing out philosophical concepts like confetti as it meanders. Either you find it pretentious or a clever tie-in. I clearly had incorrect expectations and while I found it interesting, Paris killed it for me.
Overall, strangely intimate editorializing, but then since complete strangers often share oddly intimate details of their lives unprompted on street corners waiting for lights or deli counters and parking lots this wasn't as weird as it could have been.
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