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

New
Paperback
2017
$12.50

*Shortlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay* Selected as a Book of the Year 2016 by the Financial Times, Guardian, New Statesman, Observer, The Millions and Emerald Street 'Flaneuse [flanne-euhze], noun, from the French. Feminine form of flaneur [flanne-euhr], an idler, a dawdling observer, usually found in cities. That is an imaginary definition.' If the word flaneur conjures up visions of Baudelaire, boulevards and bohemia - then what exactly is a flaneuse? In this gloriously provocative and celebratory book, Lauren Elkin defines her as `a determined resourceful woman keenly attuned to the creative potential of the city, and the liberating possibilities of a good walk'. Part cultural meander, part memoir, Flaneuse traces the relationship between the city and creativity through a journey that begins in New York and moves us to Paris, via Venice, Tokyo and London, exploring along the way the paths taken by the flaneuses who have lived and walked in those cities. From nineteenth-century novelist George Sand to artist Sophie Calle, from war correspondent Martha Gellhorn to film-maker Agnes Varda, Flaneuse considers what is at stake when a certain kind of light-footed woman encounters the city and changes her life, one step at a time.

Synopsis

*Shortlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay* Selected as a Book of the Year 2016 by the Financial Times, Guardian, New Statesman, Observer, The Millions and Emerald Street 'Flaneuse [flanne-euhze], noun, from the French. Feminine form of flaneur [flanne-euhr], an idler, a dawdling observer, usually found in cities. That is an imaginary definition.' If the word flaneur conjures up visions of Baudelaire, boulevards and bohemia - then what exactly is a flaneuse? In this gloriously provocative and celebratory book, Lauren Elkin defines her as `a determined resourceful woman keenly attuned to the creative potential of the city, and the liberating possibilities of a good walk'. Part cultural meander, part memoir, Flaneuse traces the relationship between the city and creativity through a journey that begins in New York and moves us to Paris, via Venice, Tokyo and London, exploring along the way the paths taken by the flaneuses who have lived and walked in those cities. From nineteenth-century novelist George Sand to artist Sophie Calle, from war correspondent Martha Gellhorn to film-maker Agnes Varda, Flaneuse considers what is at stake when a certain kind of light-footed woman encounters the city and changes her life, one step at a time.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 336
Edition: 1
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 27 Jul 2017
ISBN 10: 0099593378
ISBN 13: 9780099593379
Book Overview: Part memoir, part biography, part cultural meander, an irresistibly intelligent literary walk through the lives of wandering women- about how, by putting one foot in front of the other, we can sometimes stumble upon different routes in our lives

Media Reviews

An uplifting, gender-bending critique of how women negotiate public space -- Deborah Levy * Guardian, Book of the Year *
Deliciously spiky and seditious, she takes her readers on a rich, intelligent and lively meander through cultural history, biography, literary criticism, urban topography and memoir... I defy anyone to read this celebratory study and not feel inspired to take to the streets in one way or another. -- Lucy Scholes * Observer *
Well researched and larded with examples, this picaresque account of a picaresque longing successfully paints women back into the city... Elkin reboots the appetite to go walking and thinking in the city, which can only be a good thing. * Evening Standard *
Flaneuse is not simply a reclaiming of space, but also of a suppressed intellectual and cultural history. Finding ways to reframe images of women walking and to reverse male gazes, Flaneuse builds on recent work by Rebecca Solnit and the artist Laura Oldfield Ford, among others, with striking intellectual vigour and clear, enrapturing prose. * Financial Times *
The thoughtful urban stroller Lauren Elkin is a self-appointed heir to Woolf's 'street haunter'. A memoir, a travelogue and an eminently likeable work of literary criticism, Flaneuse is more like a song sung under Elkin's breath. [...] At its best, her book evokes reading aloud... reading your own life through the novels that form part of it. -- Gaby Wood * Daily Telegraph *
Wonderful... a joyful genealogy of the female urban walker. The book's narrative meanders brilliantly and appropriately across several times periods at once... Elkin's Flaneuse does not simply wander aimlessly, any more than Elkin does herself in this elegant book: she uses her reflection to question, challenge and create anew the life that she observes. -- Lara Feigel * Guardian *
An intense meditation on what it means to be a women and walk out in the world. Flaneuse encourages its readers to lace up their shoes and go for a walk. Elkin lets the reader become a companion to many women who have thought seriously about the relationship between a woman and the path she chooses to tread. -- Erica Wagner * New Statesman *
I've been waiting for years to see the history of women walkers in the city added to the critical literature of the flaneur--and here, in Lauren Elkin's really smart and lovely book -- Vivian Gornick
Engaging, inspiring and vigorous... The persuasiveness with which she urges us to rethink and expand our understanding of the art of flanerie, together with the force of her insights and the strength and weight of her voice, leaves us with a contribution to the field that feels singular. Buy it, read it, talk about it. And carry it with you in your mind when you next go walking in the city. -- Matthew Adams * The National *
Flaneuse offers a rich engagement with the psychogeography of 20th-century literature and the contemporary city... A rich, rewarding pedalogue -- Martin Doyle and Sara Keating * Irish Times *
In her richly evocative and absorbing debut, cultural critic Elkin homes in on the female version of the flaneur . . . In this insightful mix of cultural history and memoir, Elkin emerges at the protagonist as she mines her personal journey from the suburbs of Long Island to her current home in Paris * Publishers Weekly *
Marvellously eclectic and erudite * Bookseller *
An appealing blend of memoir, scholarship, and cultural criticism . . . Elkin's own story runs through the text like a luminous thread. She tells us the woman-in-the-street stories of Jean Rhys, Virginia Woolf, George Sand, Sophie Calle, Agnes Varda, and Martha Gellhorn, but all sorts of other cultural figures appear, including Barthes, Rilke, Baudelaire, Hemingway, Derrida, Dickens, and numerous others . . . Enlightening walks through cities, cultural history, and a writer's heart and soul * Kirkus *
This is a book about wandering women, the author included, who build relationships with their cities by walking through them . . . Women can and do make feminist statements simply by strolling through their stomping grounds; Elkin creates an interesting and inarguable case for this. She, too, is a wanderer and provides compelling anecdotes about her own journeys, interspersed with those of literary heavy-hitters George Sand, Jean Rhys, Virginia Woolf, and others . . . This is ultimately a celebration of women. You'll want to take a stroll by the end * Library Journal *
Inspiring * Psychologies *

Author Bio

Lauren Elkin's essays have appeared in many publications, including The New York Times Book Review, frieze, and the Times Literary Supplement, and she is a contributing editor at The White Review. A native New Yorker, she moved to Paris in 2004. Currently living on the Right Bank after years on the Left, she can generally be found ambling around Belleville.