photo: Parker Amstutz
Paris has inspired more than one and two world writers with its artistic, Bohemian atmosphere. It is no accident that the words of Somerset Maugham - "the souls of deceased Americans go to Paris." It is perhaps the most descriptive city and tribune of many literary subjects in the books. And there is a reason. Paris brings together art, culture, history and a unique romance that often cannot even be explained. One steps into the "Champs Elysees" and is already different - inspired, inspired and with a great desire for life. One of Hitler's big dreams was to see his troops pass through Paris, marching beneath the Arc de Triomphe. We offer you seven books, far from women's sentimentality, in which Paris plays the leading role.
Paris before sunrise by Louis Bromfield
At the beginning of World War II, an American dancer came to Paris to dance. She was immediately hired as a soloist at Foley Berger and soon became his biggest star. But her glamorous career development is only a backdrop to the events of the German occupation, and cabaret roles are far less important than her major role in Paris's resistance against the Germans. Moreover, it describes in detail how the German soldiers treated the Parisians and what tortures they were subjected to. The Gestapo commandant falls in love with her play on stage and at every performance is in the lodge to watch her. However, when she reveals her actions against Germany, she decides to kill her. But she had considered this option beforehand in her head and managed to lock it in the cellar of her apartment so that the torturer of so many innocent people would die in the midst of wine.
The book reveals another Paris occupied by the Germans but retaining its aristocracy and dignity.
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The Arc de Triomphe - Erich Maria Remark
And in this book, Remarque sticks to his favorite subject - war. In 1939, an extremely gifted German surgeon, a refugee from Nazi Germany, was in Paris without documents, without the right to work in his profession and under a fictitious name. He has to operate illegally in a private clinic to earn some money. Disagreeing with Hitler's regime, Ravik helped many Jews flee Germany. Because of this, he was arrested by the Gestapo and forced to answer their questions. The Germans also captured his girlfriend and she died in a Gestapo prison. After being tortured and severely beaten, he managed to escape from the hospital and go to Paris. There, fate met him with Joan - a beautiful singer of mixed blood, who is desperately looking for a way out of his pain (her boyfriend has died) through suicide. The doctor, although not a psychiatrist, manages to get her out of the destructive state and soon the two fall in love. But this love is impossible. Joan was shot by her filmmaker lover and died in hospital without Ravik being able to save her. Fate still decides to repay him. Luckily, he meets his Gestapo torturer von Haake, whom Ravik kills in the Bois de Boulogne. The book remains perhaps Remarque's most romantic work.
“Paris! Paris! ”- Irwin Shaw
The most descriptive book about Paris possible. You start from a coffee table because everything in Paris starts with a coffee table. You are waiting for the girl you love… Everything is possible in Paris. You can say everything, you can meet everyone, often on the same day. It is the only city in the world that is not rural. This book delicately introduces us to the hidden secrets of the city. It opens the massive doors of the old buildings in the center, offers us breakfasts and dinners in the most interesting restaurants. It tells the story of the city in an infinitely fascinating and casual way and introduces us to the life of an ordinary Parisian. All this through the eyes of an American who never ceases to surprise, fascinate and get to know Paris. He finds it quite different from what he imagined listening to and reading about it overseas.
Irwin Shaw uses simple language and the book looks more like a conversation with a reader. This further shortens the distance with Paris and one feels that he has witnessed the author's long tour of the city.
The Paris Secrets by Yogin Sue
Sue's novel deals with the problems of lower social circles in Paris in the 19 century. It illustrates what goes through the soul and thoughts of a widow whose husband has been sentenced to death. Makes readers think about some moral issues that would not otherwise be on the daily agenda. Every city has a nasty side, everything beautiful has its ugly shadow. A child is able to ignore the pain of a bleeding wound in fear of the mother's anticipated reaction that the garment is stained with blood.
The book boldly describes the poverty that compels one to steal, to break one's moral values, to become a criminal, for lack of other choices. And all this is described without reproach, without teaching. Just a description of life as it is, as we create it. Dark stinking entrances, butchers and coal shops emerging from the entrances of the buildings, a night breeze that describes the path of the Paris villains. The descriptive nature of the setting enhances the sense of realism and presence of the places inhabited by the characters.
And the movie made on the book is one of Jean-Marie's star moments - the actor has become the face of French cinema. He is one of the most iconic, most brilliant French artists, along with Louis Jordan, Jean Gaben, Gerard Philippe, Alain Delon, Belmondo and Michel Piccoli - a brilliant galaxy of artists from the second half of the 20 century.
The Paris St. The Virgin "- Victor Hugo
Hugo's book is a symbol of medieval Paris, though it was written much later. The main purpose of the author, writing this book, is to make his contemporaries appreciate the exceptional architectural heritage of Gothic culture, which is being demolished. And most of all because of the cathedral and the removal of its glass panels, replaced with white glass to allow more light. The monumental temple also gives the name of the book. But history is much more than that. Three men are torn apart by love for Gypsy Esmeralda - Captain Phebe in his youth hobby, Abbot Claude Frolo with the horrific ban on her, and the adoration of Quasimodo - the most interesting character in the book.
The story conquers the composers Caesar Pune and then Maurice Jarre. They turn history into an incredibly beautiful ballet - Caesar Pune's "Esmeralda" and "St. The Virgin Mary by Maurice Jarre. And the movie starring Anthony Quinn and Gina Lolobrigida won all the top awards. Esmeralda has excited the imagination of many artists over the years.
Razor Blade - Somerset Maugham
This story goes through Mohammed's pen as a distant observer of the incredible Parisian atmosphere. An American snob named Elliott has one purpose - to be a leader in secular life in Paris. His beautiful and wealthy niece Isabel is getting married to Larry Darrell. A happy future seems to be in the forefront - a cool life in high society, receptions, fun. Larry, however, views life differently. He wants to get to know the world, science and art, so he goes to Paris and this city completely changes his worldview. Larry reads everything in the Paris libraries - philosophy, mysticism, art history. It simply absorbs information with the curiosity of a child. It goes through mansions, Parisian salons, harbor docks, Christian monasteries and Buddhist temples. He meets all kinds of people and destinies to understand life in its diversity and totality.
Maugham starts the book like this:
"I have never started a novel with more fears. And if I call it a novel, it's just because I don't know what else to call it. The story itself is not long and does not end in death or marriage. Death is the endless end that inexorably buries every story; but marriage is also a kind of end, and intellectuals laugh in vain at such a denouement, which we conditionally call the "happy ending." The common instinct of ordinary people tells them that what is worth knowing and telling ends with marriage. When a man and a woman, after all the vicissitudes of fate, finally get together, they have fulfilled their biological purpose, and interest is naturally directed to the next generation. But I will leave my reader ignorant. "
Fiesta by Ernest Hemingway
Paris is firmly involved in Hemingway's work. The author has fallen in love with the city and accidentally chooses him as the backdrop for much of his books.
Fiesta is a beautiful retrospective of life in Paris. Of Parisian morals, dance parties, in the form of bal-musette, in which people danced to the sounds of the accordion, and the accordion player counted the beat with the bell on his foot. Reading the book, readers are mentally transported to the atmosphere of Paris - immediately after the First World War. Hemingway says, "The hero of my novel is the earth that will remain forever, not the people who come and go from it." Paris remains so to this day, only the people who visit it and live in it change. Even the motto of the French capital proves it - "it shakes but it doesn't sink".
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