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A history of Paris in twelve métro stops.
Métro Stop Paris recounts the extraordinary and colorful history of the City of Light, by way of twelve Métro stops—a voyage across both space and time. At each stop a Parisian building, or street, or tomb or landmark sparks a story that holds particular significance for that area of the city.
Dallas takes us to the jazz cellars and literary cafés of Montparnasse and Saint-Germain-des-Prés; the catacombs at Hell’s Gate; and the Opéra during the days of Claude Debussy. A darker side of Paris emerges at the Trocadéro stop and a charitable side at the Gare du Nord, which highlights the work of Saint Vincent de Paul. Finally, our journey ends at Père-Lachaise cemetery with the little-known story of Oscar Wilde’s curious involvement in the Dreyfus affair, one of France’s greatest legal scandals. From Hell (the Denfert-Rochereau stop on the south side of the city) to Heaven (the Gare du Nord at the north end of Paris), Métro Stop Paris carries readers on a journey of the heart and mind.
Métro Stop Paris is a thinker’s guide to Paris made up of “slices of life,” little vignettes drawn from Paris’s two thousand years of history. Taken separately, these are charming historic tales about a city known and loved by many, but read as a whole Métro Stop Paris goes straight to the heart of what is quintessentially Parisian.
This rather quirky book is likely to interest only the most serious Francophiles. Part travelog, part guidebook, part history, it can most accurately be described as a journey through the mind of its author, a prolific British writer (1945: The War That Never Ended) who now lives in France. Imaginatively and creatively conceived, the book takes us on a trip through the Paris Métro, making 12 carefully selected "stops." Each stop, and its environs, is described historically, architecturally, and geographically. Dallas gives close attention to how the environs fared or changed in the grip of political crises such as the Revolution, German Occupation, or Cold War years. More central to the author's purpose, however, are his lengthy ruminations on characters or individuals associated with each spot. Vincent de Paul, Anaïs Nin, André Gide, and Jean-Paul Sartre all find a place here. The chapter on legendary cemetery Père Lachaise, for example, leads to musings on Oscar Wilde, the Dreyfus affair, and the interconnections the author has found between them. Readers who are well acquainted with the geography of Paris may find this work fascinating, but its idiosyncratic focus, abrupt ending, and absence of a conclusion will make it a difficult read for most.
| Price | Condition | Delivery | Seller | Action |
| $99.99 | Digital |
| WonderClub |
Dick Turpin
reviewed Metro Stop Paris: An Underground History of the City of Light on February 18, 2012
Metro Stop Paris
There are 300 stations in Paris' sprawling metro system. Gregor Dallas chose twelve of them. In a map in the front of the book, the twelve stations seem rather evenly spaced circling the city. I thought the underground history promised in the title would be contemporary, that Dallas would take us through the spindles, each in turn, and introduce us to the bakers and the buskers, the plen air painters that I imagine give each city its color. And the book looks like it could deliver that. Twelve chapters begin with our arrival at each selected station; each chapter in turn adorned with a single, grainy black and white photograph or etching. Very Sebald-y in appearance. I thought it might prove a travel guide, but with an artistic flair, such that I could go there, take the train, and have a feel for what the locals see.
But it's not quite that. Dallas is an expatriated English historian. His books are often entertaining, but typically rife with errors. History, but written in his sense of things. Here, at each station, we disembark, look around, and are treated to a mini-biography of some notable who lost a head here, was buried there, or found a bed much more to his or her liking than the one risen from that morning.
He chose characters wisely. There is Sartre in the German occupation and his conversion to communism. We learn how St. Denis lost his head. No, really. There's a statue of him near Porte de Clignancourt holding his head. Zola writing Le Ventre. Debussy, writing opera scenes that mirrored his own infidelity. Jim Morrison's body is no longer in the cemetery at Pere Lachaise, but Oscar Wilde's tomb is, and people can't stop writing wishes of love in lipstick on the granite.
At one stop, we are introduced to Antoine Bourdelle, the sculptor of The Dying Centaur. Bourdelle was asked why the centaur dies. "He dies like all the gods," Bourdelle replied, "because no one believes in him any more".
Dallas has an eye for the prurient, but never as much as when he tells of the time Anais Nin knocks on Otto Rank's door. Doctor, doctor, can you help me?
You can read this in pieces, as I did. There are bald statements - "In the twentieth century, belief became the central issue" - which are facially ridiculous. I would have liked more buskers.
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