BOHEMIAN PARIS

Bestselling French novelist Franck (Separation, 1994, etc.) turns to nonfiction with a thorough and vivid evocation of the City of Light in its heyday as capital of the avant-garde.

According to Franck, at certain points in time a city becomes a harbor for the disaffected of both artistic and lunatic stripes (which were often indistinguishable), and under such a regime of cultural, religious, and political tolerance, a handful of artists, thinkers, and writers, free to express themselves in fresh ways, give birth to entirely new movements in the arts. Paris at the beginning of the 20th century set just such a stage for the confluence of events and people that led to many of the cornerstone “isms” of modern art: cubism, dadaism, fauvism, futurism, and surrealism. While the author concentrates his survey on the artists of the period, particularly Picasso, Modigliani, and Matisse, he also looks at the contributions of writers, poets, sculptors, composers, and photographers who participated in this cultural cross-pollination. Covering the period from roughly 1900 to 1930, Franck introduces the reader to an international cast of characters, including Polish-Italian poet Apollinaire, French painter and cubism co-founder Braque, Russian choreographer Diaghilev, and the American writers Hemingway, Stein, and Fitzgerald, who arrived near the end of the run. Franck presents these players in the settings of their daily lives, pungently evoking crushing poverty, extravagant partying, fierce loving, and contentious wrangling that epitomize the bohemian lifestyle. Conceived as a companion piece to his untranslated novel Nu couché, Franck’s chronicle does much to demystify the temperament of these “sublime troublemakers” who, when not “inventing the century’s language,” took childish delight in thumbing their noses at a bourgeoisie that held them in equal contempt. The trove of anecdotes fleshes out the stereotypes and makes sense of the conflicting viewpoints that sparked this prodigiously creative period.

An impressive synthesis of historical detail and novelistic atmosphere. (16 pages b&w photos and illustrations, not seen)