SECRET LIFE OF THE SEINE - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 186105100X ISBN 13: 9781861051004

Publisher: Robson Books Ltd, 1998

Synopsis

When Mort Rosenblum, world-weary foreign correspondent, moved aboard a 54-foot boat moored in the center of Paris, he knew that life would be sweet. Damp perhaps. And sometimes ripe with the smell of diesel fuel. But sunning himself on deck for the first time, in sight of characters out of Hugo or Flaubert, enjoying his view of the Eiffel Tower as the wake from a bateau-mouche sloshed the Burgundy in his wine glass, he realized that he had entered a separate "arrondissement" of the spirit, a Paris that even most Parisians would have sworn vanished decades ago. In The Secret Life of the Seine, Rosenblum is our guide to life along the river, and to the many pleasures unique to this main artery of the heart of France. We get to know his own floating village between the Pont de l'Alma and the Pont de la Concorde, but then setting out from Paris, he takes us to the river's source near Dijon, through the provinces of Burgundy and Champagne, past castles and abbeys and cherry orchards, through a thousand years of French history and culture, on to Normandy, where the Seine empties at last into the sea at Le Havre. Along the way the narrative shifts from the art of navigation and commerce to the art of Monet and Renoir, but the focus is always on people, the citizens of the Seine. Rosenblum's neighbors range from the occasional movie star or reclusive novelist to reformed bums and fallen aristocrats meeting in the bohemian middle. With their boats moored three deep against the quai, they form a unique symbiosis of overlapping bow lines and power cables, and, given the close quarters, distinctive rules of etiquette - "please understand if I do not seem to see you when we look at each other." Andmany could lay claim to Travis McGee's title of "world's longest continuous floating party." There are the floating restaurants and the ruins of old bordellos, the tourist boats, the lovers on the quais at night, and the nearly naked sunbathers there by day. But there is a more s

About this title

About the Author

Mort Rosenblum, a special correspondent for the Associated Press and former editor-in-chief of the International Herald Tribune, is the author of Mission to Civilize, Back Home, Who Stole the News?, and, most recently, A Goose in Toulouse and Other Culinary Adventures in France. He lives in Paris.

Synopsis

Originally published in 1995 and now available in paperback, an account of Rosenblum's experiences living aboard a 54-foot boat moored in the centre of Paris and his travels in it along the River Seine.

About this edition

• Publisher: Robson Books Ltd
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 186105100X
• ISBN 13: 9781861051004
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 292