A unique combination of memoir, history, and travelogue, this is author
David Downie's irreverent quest to uncover why Paris is the world's most
romantic city--and has been for over 150 years.
Abounding in secluded, atmospheric parks, artists' studios, cafes,
restaurants, and streets little changed since the 1800s, Paris exudes
romance. The art and architecture, the cityscape, riverbanks, and the
unparalleled quality of daily life are part of the equation.
But the city's allure derives equally from hidden sources: querulous
inhabitants, a bizarre culture of heroic negativity, and a rich
historical past supplying enigmas, pleasures, and challenges. Rarely do
visitors suspect the glamor and chic and the carefree atmosphere of the
City of Light grew from and still feed off the dark fountainheads of
riot, rebellion, mayhem, and melancholy--and the subversive literature,
art and music of the Romantic Age.
Weaving together his own with the lives and loves of Victor Hugo,
Georges Sand, Charles Baudelaire, Balzac, Nadar, and other great
Romantics, Downie delights in the city's secular romantic pilgrimage
sites asking, Why Paris, not Venice or Rome--the tap root of
"romance"--or Berlin, Vienna, and London--where the earliest Romantics
built castles-in-the-air and sang odes to nightingales? Listen to A
Passion for Paris: Romanticism and Romance in the City of Light and
find out.
