The first chapter of "Flâneuse," a recent book by Lauren Elkin, makes a case that women can, or at least should be able to, enjoy an activity traditionally associated with a certain type of man: walking about a city more or less aimlessly, soaking up its serendipitous sights, sounds, aromas and pleasures. In short, becoming a connoisseur of the urban experience.
The original term, flâneur, apparently dates back to 16th or 17th century France, but wasn't widely referenced until the 19th century when it became principally associated with a description of such activity by the French poet Charles Baudelaire.
Interestingly, Merriam-Webster defines flâneuse as "a woman who is or who behaves like a flâneur." That suggests it's an unnatural activity for a woman and Elkin at one point concedes that the notion of a woman walking aimlessly in a city is somewhat transgressive. That, in turn, is probably part of its appeal.
After the introductory chapter -- followed by one on the already much-documented downsides of automobile-focused suburbia -- the book is far more about a group of women than it is about walking. The writers Jean Rhys, George Sand, Sophie Calle and Martha Gellhorn are extensively discussed as is filmmaker Agnès Varda. Elkin also talks about Virginia Woolf (nothing new there) and she talks a lot about herself -- the pleasures, trials and tribulations of her attempt to live as an permanent expatriate in Paris -- ultimately without success.
With the exception of Paris, Elkin sometimes finds more to dislike than to celebrate with respect to the cities in which she finds herself -- New York, London, Tokyo and Venice. That seems odd for a woman who proclaims herself a flâneuse. I say that in part because in my personal experience, major cities are so dense in stimuli that they can always be perceived in different ways -- sometimes by two different people taking the same walk together. There are times when Elkin measures a city against her expectations as opposed to taking it on its own terms.
At the end of the day, my feelings about this book were distinctly mixed. If one is interested in the women mentioned above, Elkin appears to have extensively researched their lives and their work, but at the same time, her discussion of those women shouldn't be mistaken for biography. It has more to do with what they did in certain circumstances that Elkin finds interesting.
On the downside, I had difficulty determining what, if any, points Elkin was attempting to make and what insights she had beyond those that seemed obvious -- from the writing of others, for instance.
Expatriate Paris between the wars; Bloomsbury London -- topics already extensively written about. The difficulties of a foreign woman finding a place in Tokyo. A familiar theme. Manhattan's changes for the worse as the rich takeover more and more of the place. The confusing geography of Brooklyn.
About half way through the book, I found myself often skimming Elkin's well-rendered prose as opposed to reading it.
No comments:
Post a Comment