Research Catalog

Details

Description

1. xiv, 340 pages : illustrations; 23 cm

Summary

1. Stephen Scobie, flaneur extraordinaire, deftly blends travelogue, memoir, literary criticism, and poetry in The Measure of Paris. He re-presents a "peripatetic speculation" on Paris and those others who have walked and written this "infinite city." Scobie's graceful wanderings into Parisian art, history, architecture, city planning, and flanerie prepare readers for his prolonged meditations on fellow Canadian writers such as Sheila Watson, Mavis Gallant, Gail Scott, Lola Lemire Tostevin, John Glassco, and Gerry Shikatani, and other literary visitors such as Gertrude Stein and Djuna Barnes, Scobie leaves us with personal observations, journal entries, and lucid poems to mark and measure his own time there. Seldom do pleasures of form and content align so perfectly. Those who enjoy travel, great writing and great writers, and the city of light will love The Measure of Paris. --Book Jacket

Series statement

1. Wayfarer, a literary travel series

Uniform title

1. Wayfarer (Edmonton, Alta.)

Subject

1. 1900-1999
2. Canadian literature > 20th century > History and criticism
3. Canadian literature
4. Civilization
5. Englische Literatur > Kanada > Paris. > Motiv
6. Literatur > USA > Paris. > Motiv
7. Paris (France) > In literature
8. Paris (France) > History > 20th century
9. Paris (France) > Civilization > 20th century
10. Paris (France) > Biography
11. France > Paris
12. Paris > Motiv > Englische Literatur > Kanada
13. Paris > Motiv > Literatur > USA

Genre/Form

1. History.
2. Biographies.
3. Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Contents

1. Part one. Paris Perdu. Conspiracey theories "Ineluctible intolerable oblivion" -- The Baron of Alphaville -- From the Tour Eiffel to the Tour Montparnasse -- Part two. I is an other: Parisian autobiography. Part three. What pleasure in a name!: the long poem of walking. Missing the direct way -- The street map of Paris -- The Flaneur -- Devious Routes Sheila Watson walking in Paris -- Mavis Gallant on the streets of May 68 -- Loving walking here, Gail Scott's Paris -- John Glassco and the ethics of pleasure.
2. Part four. Parisian sites. A walk with Gertrude Stein -- Wrestling with the angel, Djuna Barnes and Saint-Sulpice -- 19 Rue Rousselet -- Part five. Canadian visions. The frog's kiss, Lola Lemire Tostevin and the mirage of Paris -- A travel of indeterminate stops, Gerry Shikatani's aqueduct -- Part six. Personal postscripts. The first time I sas Paris (1970) -- Catastrophe and shame, Paris Journal (2002).

Owning institution

1. Princeton University Library

Note

1. Includes index.

Bibliography (note)

1. Includes bibliographical references: p. 307-314.