A flaneur is a stroller, a loiterer, someone who ambles through
a city without apparent purpose but is secretly attuned to the
history of the place and in covert search of adventure, aesthetic
or erotic. Edmund White, who lived in Paris for sixteen years,
wanders through the streets and avenues and along the quays, taking
us into parts of Paris virtually unknown to visitors and indeed to
many Parisians. Entering the Marias evokes the history of Jews in
France, just a visit to the Haynes grill recalls the presence -
festive, troubled - of black Americans in Paris for a century and a
half. Gays, Decadents, even Royalists past and present are all
subjected to the flaneur's scrutiny.
Edmund White's The Flaneur is opinionated, personal,
subjective. As he conducts us through the bookshops and boutiques,
past the monuments and palaces, filling us in on the gossip and
background of each site, he allows us to see through the blank
walls and past the proud edifices and to glimpse the inner, human
drama. Along the way he recounts everything from the latest debates
among French law-makers to the juicy details of Colette's life in
the Palais Royal, even summoning up the hothouse atmosphere of
Gustave Moreau's atelier.
