金石堂跟著魅力人物鑽進巴黎的毛孔，一場250年的城市探險
有誰能比生活在那裡的人更瞭解一座城市？有誰能比歷代的巴黎住民更能陳述巴黎的歷史？葛蘭姆．羅布的《巴黎人》讓拿破崙、瑪麗皇后、左拉、普魯斯特與沙特等人，親自上陣演出巴黎的歷史劇，於是我們會讀到青年拿破崙在花都的買春體驗，讀到瑪麗皇后逃出皇宮時倉皇迷路的景象，讀到左拉夫婦與出版社一起到一八八九年時剛剪綵啟用的艾菲爾鐵塔鳥瞰巴黎，吃俄羅斯風味晚餐，當時的左拉太太絕對沒想到這之後左拉會外遇且還生下兩個小孩，讀到一九○○年巴黎進入地鐵時代後，也正是普魯斯特逐步撰寫《追憶似水年華》之時，但不愛出門的普魯斯特一年下床只有七次，根本沒有機會搭地鐵，他甚至沒在書中提到地鐵。作者以一個個精采的人物軼事，組合出最具創意的巴黎之書。
這是一個你不知道的巴黎。《巴黎人》貫穿了一七五○年到二十一世紀，是一本讓你立刻從頭讀到尾的書，且讓你沉迷其中，不斷不斷反覆閱讀，就像這座巴黎城市一樣。
This is the Paris you never knew. From the Revolution to the present, Graham Robb has distilled a series of astonishing true narratives, all stranger than fiction, of the lives of the great, the near-great, and the forgotten.
A young artillery lieutenant, strolling through the Palais-Royal, observes disapprovingly the courtesans plying their trade. A particular woman catches his eye; nature takes its course. Later that night Napoleon Bonaparte writes a meticulous account of his first sexual encounter. A well-dressed woman, fleeing the Louvre, takes a wrong turn and loses her way in the nameless streets of the Left Bank. For want of a map—there were no reliable ones at the time—Marie-Antoinette will go to the guillotine.
Baudelaire, the photographer Marville, Baron Haussmann, the real-life Mimi of La Boheme, Proust, Adolf Hitler touring the occupied capital in the company of his generals, Charles de Gaulle (who is suspected of having faked an assassination attempt in Notre Dame)—these and many more are Robb’s cast of characters, and the settings range from the quarries and catacombs beneath the streets to the grand monuments to the appalling suburbs ringing the city today. The result is a resonant, intimate history with the power of a great novel.
★本書中譯版《巴黎人》由衛城出版。
作者簡介
葛蘭姆．羅布（Graham Robb）
一九五八年生於曼徹斯特，曾是牛津大學埃克塞特學院研究員。他的傳記作品大受好評，除一九九四年出版的《巴爾札克》，一九九七年的《雨果》一舉贏得英國皇家文學會海涅曼文學獎（Heinemann Award）和惠特布瑞德傳記獎（Whitbread Biography Award），二○○○年的《韓波》也入圍撒繆爾．強森獎（Samuel Johnson Prize）決選名單。這三部傳記全名列《紐約時報》的年度好書。羅布還寫有《陌生人：十九世紀的同性愛》（Strangers: Homosexual Love in the Nineteenth Century）。《非典型法國》更連續獲得二○○七年達夫．庫珀獎（Duff Cooper Prize）與二○○八年翁達傑獎（Ondaatje Prize）。現居英格蘭牛津。
Graham Robb is the award-winning biographer of Balzac, Victor Hugo, and Rimbaud. His other books include The Discovery of France, Parisians, and Strangers: Homosexual Love in the Nineteenth Century. He lives in Oxford, England.
