Scan barcode
A review by amyslibrarian
Flâneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, and London by Lauren Elkin
3.0
What I have learned from reading this book: the author and Paris are both way cooler than I can ever hope to be. After accepting this humbling self-assessment, I still cannot get my fill reading about ambitious women going after their dreams in another country with a culture so very different than what they have always known.
The chapters focusing on Virginia Woolf and George Sand, with the author's own thoughts interwoven in-between, spoke to me the most; as well as her discussions about women needing to be free to walk, to explore the way men have always been allowed to do.
"A culture that does not walk is bad for women. It makes a kind of authoritarian sense...As I became alert to the city, I became alert to women's history, literature, politics, as if it were impossible to learn about one without the other" (37).
While this book could be choppy at times, with certain chapters more riveting than others, I'm still very glad I read it. I hope more will be written about the flaneuse.
The chapters focusing on Virginia Woolf and George Sand, with the author's own thoughts interwoven in-between, spoke to me the most; as well as her discussions about women needing to be free to walk, to explore the way men have always been allowed to do.
"A culture that does not walk is bad for women. It makes a kind of authoritarian sense...As I became alert to the city, I became alert to women's history, literature, politics, as if it were impossible to learn about one without the other" (37).
While this book could be choppy at times, with certain chapters more riveting than others, I'm still very glad I read it. I hope more will be written about the flaneuse.