Flâneuse

Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, and London

By: Lauren Elkin

Narrated by: Abby Craden

The flâneur is the quintessentially masculine figure of privilege and leisure who strides the capitals of the world with abandon. But it is the flâneuse who captures the imagination of the cultural critic Lauren Elkin. In her wonderfully gender-bending new book, the flâneuse is a "determined, resourceful individual keenly attuned to the creative potential of the city and the liberating possibilities of a good walk." Virginia Woolf called it "street haunting"; Holly Golightly epitomized it in Breakfast at Tiffany's; and Patti Smith did it in her own inimitable style in 1970s New York.

Part cultural meander, part memoir, Flâneuse takes us on a distinctly cosmopolitan jaunt that begins in New York, where Elkin grew up, and transports us to Paris via Venice, Tokyo, and London, all cities in which she's lived. We are shown the paths beaten by such flâneuses as the cross-dressing 19th-century novelist George Sand, the Parisian artist Sophie Calle, the wartime correspondent Martha Gellhorn, and the writer Jean Rhys. With tenacity and insight, Elkin creates a mosaic of what urban settings have meant to women, charting through literature, art, history, and film the sometimes exhilarating, sometimes fraught relationship that women have with the metropolis.

©2016 Lauren Elkin (P)2017 Tantor

Pronunciation Matters

Cons:
While I can understand that an American trained to be an expat in Paris might find Tokyo more challenging than someone like myself (who had never been to Europe before living in Japan), the author's negative impression of the city was not helped by the narrator's mangled pronunciation. I suppose that choice was made because (presumably) the author didn't know how to correctly pronounce place names and other Japanese words, but the effect is nails-on-chalkboard irritating to those who are familiar with the language. It's not only disrespectful to the Japanese people, but also to those foreigners who bother to listen and learn how to speak properly. I wonder if the choice to mangle French would've been made if the author had been less familiar with France. (As a narrator myself, I'm laying the blame on the director/producer here.)

Pros:
I really enjoyed walking around my current city while listening to this book. The meandering style suited my exploratory ramblings. It was lovely to hear I'm not the only person who makes a place hers by walking it!

I also enjoyed all the literary references and now have a mini library of books and authors to listen to while I walk in other cities.

Trying not to let her very negative take on Tokyo/Japanese culture ruin my enjoyment, as I understand her personal situation likely colored her perception of the place while she was there. Her stories are a good reminder that what we bring to a place is not the place itself.

Pretentious Drivel

Look, Abby Craden can read me the phone book and I’d be happy to listen to her. This book was meandering, pretentious drivel. The only thing that even vaguely saved it was Abby Craden reading it. I regret wasting a credit on this nonsense.

rambling unfocused

I found the description of this book very misleading. I expected: 1. A discussion about the history &/or experience of walking in cities. 2. The tradition &/or origin of the Flâneuse. 3. The experiences of women past &/or present walking in cities. 4. The author’s experience of walking in cities. Or any variation of this kind of thing. It is not any of these! Usually I finish books even when they are not what I expected as long as they are interesting but after 5 chapters I just can’t face another 7 hours of this authors rambling unfocused style. For me, it is very tedious! and unsatisfying. I won’t be finishing this one!