Left Bank, Right Bank, Paris and Parisians
Barry, Joseph A. Left Bank, Right Bank, Paris and Parisians. First English Edition. 1952. Book and dust jacket are both in very good minus condition—jacket shows minor creasing, light fraying, and repaired tears.
Though there is no viable means of physically traveling to midcentury Paris, this rather marvelous survey of the city will transport you there. The book waxes poetic on the city and its inhabitants, with emphasis on its couturiers, artists, nightclubs, politicians, expatriates, Existentialists, etc. Particular illuminating are into French marriage. To wit, though it is good to be a man in France, it is the French women who are extraordinary.
“And what does she—the Frenchwoman—expect? Only a husband, a man in the house, a father for her children. She, like Juliet, is realist; he, like Romeo, is a romantic. She likes what she gets. He gets what he likes.”
--Joseph A. Barry