{"product_id":"9781839767258","title":"Balzac's Paris","description":"\u003cb\u003eAn exploration of Paris with Balzac, 19th century French society's most famous novelist and observer\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn Balzac's greatest work, a body of novels and stories collectively entitled\u003ci\u003e The Human Comedy,\u003c\/i\u003e he set out to offer a complete picture of contemporary French society and manners. His loving ode to Paris also serves as an introduction to the first capital of the modern world.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe ever-new Paris to which he addresses his declaration of love consists of an accumulation of details – names, landmarks, streams, gates – a city with countless meticulously drawn figures: legal clerks, grisettes, journalists, concierges, usurers, salesmen, speculators. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBalzac gathered the elements of this Paris by sauntering through it. ‘To saunter is a science,’ he writes, ‘it is the gastronomy of the eye. To take a walk is to vegetate; to saunter is to live.’  This book follows in Balzac’s footsteps, crossing the city in his big boots, running between his printers, publishers, coffee merchants, mistresses and friends, stopping for a moment, struck by a detail that his photographic memory faithfully fixed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMore than a tour of the city,\u003ci\u003e Balzac's Paris\u003c\/i\u003e is an attempt to measure the soul of a place.","brand":"Eric Hazan","offers":[{"title":"Verso Books |  Hardback  |  2024-06-25","offer_id":45177798131967,"sku":"9781839767258","price":33.95,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0329\/9075\/7001\/files\/BNCImageAPI_23c2fb9f-56d7-42ce-9242-5ca281b25079.jpg?v=1712936662","url":"https:\/\/riverbookshop.com\/products\/9781839767258","provider":"River Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}