The Only Street in Paris: Life on the Rue des Martyrs

Certainly a clever idea for a book. With Paris being examined so extensively, writing about a single street would seem to be a stroke of genius. Somehow, though, for me, the writer couldn't make her stories and encounters "sing." The writing is acceptable, if pedestrian (her background is journalism), but I didn't get a sense of anything magical about this street, just the author's desperate need for it to be so.

Frankly, something churlish in me wondered if the shopkeepers dreaded seeing the author heading towards them, knowing they'd be pummeled with questions. The writer seems to gather facts the way children gather Easter eggs - no real interest in the eggs, the "getting" is the thing. She kept drilling one shopkeeper about his humble, difficult background and continued prodding after the man started crying. Just this sense of the writer trying to claw and hammer her way into the social scene of the street, oblivious to how private and reserved French people are.

She's also the designated mourner at a shop's closing, wailing while the people are trying to clear out. To be fair, the people seem to tolerate her fine, but since shops close everywhere one gets the feeling the writer just wants the rue des Martyrs to be and remain forever the same, like fake wooly mammoths at the natural history museum, or a favorite movie one watches again and again. Towards the end of the book she decides to throw a potluck because, well, her book has to have a boffo ending, right? One leaves with the image of her deciding which designer dress to wear for her - I mean the street's - big day.

Even so, I'm sure people in the future might appreciate someone writing this all down about the street. So there's that.

Journalist Elaine Sciolino takes us on a most enjoyable tour of a storied Paris street, the Rue des Martyrs. Life there has evolved through the centuries and so many events that occurred there are now part of a history known to all. Degas, Zola, Truffaut, all left their mark. We walk the street craning our necks at the architecture while learning its history from local mavens. We are introduced to many of the local shop keepers, their charms and their quirks. Ms. Sciolino's writing is brilliantly descriptive, a pleasure to read. Those who already know Paris well should now be as eager to explore this neighborhood as new visitors to the city might be. And if travel to Paris isn't possible, well, this lovely book is the next best thing.

Second time I've picked this book up from my nightstand to give it another go. I just can't do it. It is all about me me me. It has ego written all over the frail attempts to describe the people and places of this street. I don't like to write negative reviews. But in this case, if I can save you the pain of buying it and being disappointed, so be it. Sorry Ms. Sciolino. Not going to give it another shot. Off to the used book sale for planned parenthood you go!

It is not easy to combine encyclopedic knowledge of the subject with a chit-chat of amusing details, gossips and plain story telling. The author succeeded gracefully in doing all of the above and came out with an entertaining description of the Paris the way it used to be and still tries to preserve its heritage, colorful life and bohemian culture. The narrative is also "politically correct" by describing ethnic heritage and subcultures without prejudice. There was one, painful exception I have to point out, though the author took care to attribute the opinion to others. She quotes two women who allegedly agreed that Poles and Romanians were more "anti-Semitic than the Germans." While anti-Semitism may be wide spread in Poland as well as in France to attribute to Polish people the worse than Germans who throughout history kept Jews outside city walls and built gas-chambers to annihilate Jews and succeeded murdering over four millions is ugly! As someone born in Poland and, who as a child, survived Nazi occupation in Romania, I strongly refute such opinions.

A joke! This book is the perfect definition of someone's writing that screams "All about me, me, me!"
Shallow, dull, it has it all! To avoid.

On page 49 of her book, "The Only Street in Paris: Life on the Rue des Martyrs," Elaine Sciolino identifies herself as the latest in a long line of neighborhood "flaneurs" with intimate knowledge of the street she celebrates. The French define the verb "flaner," from which the noun is derived, as "to wander about without a specific goal, stopping frequently to look at things and think about them." Underwriting the magic of this book is the fact that the Rue des Martyrs is composed of buildings rich with historical associations, peopled by residents curious about their beloved corner of Paris, and examined here by the talented Sciolino, a former New York Times Paris bureau chief who is a natural "flaneuse."

If recent reporting from Paris has produced despair, this book is a perfect antidote. To be sure, at the upper end of the Rue des Martyrs, where the Sacre Coeur Basilica is located, we indeed encounter a neighborhood that has lost its soul to floods of tourists. Further, in the "banlieu" suburbs away from the city center, many emigres live in disadvantaged circumstances that leave them poorly integrated into French society. But not so at the lower, traditional end of the street on which Sciolino concentrates, for here a strong sense of mutual support and respect binds together an admirably diverse cast of characters. And if you mistakenly believe that the French are reserved individuals, just read the amusing chapter on how to rid one's apartment of an errant mouse. Every neighbor and local merchant appealed to rushes to offer advice, none of it consistent but nearly all involving very specific types of cheese. All told, Sciolino's adventures are a wonderful advertisement for both getting to know the byways and residents of Paris and investing in French-language studies.

This was a gift, but I read quite a bit online. The text and illustrations were spellbinding, and I almost felt a part of the scene. This would be perfect for anyone who has walked the streets of Paris. They would be drawn to return and explore the Rue des Martyrs. In fact, the recipient of this book will be spending time there on his next trip to Paris.

I love Paris and have lost count of my visits there, but I did not relish this book. It tries to be too many different things and sometimes is unnecessarily detailed and boring as a result. It is a history of the street, quasi tour book, social, descriptive commentary on the strange denizens of the street, and too many times wanders into a biography of the author's early life in Buffalo, as well as self-promotion. At one point she is describing a visit to Italy. Despite these detours and distractions, it was dull. Perhaps if there was humor, it would be more engaging. Also, there was simply too much discussion of the church on her street, Catholicism, and her effort to get the Pope to visit. At one point, she quotes her husband saying to her "just the facts." I felt that was a very apt comment because too many of the passages were verbose. If she were my neighbor, I'd see her as a busy body. Even she used the word "meddling" to describe how some of her neighbors might perceive her. It was tiresome. But there were some good nuggets of information, so I give it a 3.

Millions of Americans easily fall in love with Paris. But after one gets past what charms tourists – the Louvre, the Champs Elysees as it rises towards the Arc de Triomphe, the view of the city from the Eiffel Tower, Montmartre or even the roof of Galeries Lafayette – what other parts of the city can you fall in love with?

Elaine Sciolino shows you one in “The Only Street in Paris: Life on the Rue des Martrys,” Her book is no garden-variety tourist guide, but instead the story of a vibrant and charming street that illuminates the past and explains the present of Paris.

Sciolino, a veteran foreign correspondent who once served as the Paris bureau chief of The New York Times, may be a journalist but she is hardly an objective observer. She is clearly an enthusiast for her street and neighborhood, eagerly embracing its history and the lives of its residents and shopkeepers.

In “The Only Street in Paris,” she guides readers through the street through stories about the past but more often about the characters in the present. There’s Henri, the knife sharpener, and Guy, the crabby bookseller. Sciolino lets us know that one can still find someone to repair an old barometer, and that octogenarian cabaret impresario Michou continues to hold forth amidst his apparently seedy-but-charming establishment. (As a fan of Paris myself, I can forgive her for the somewhat jarring and name-dropping inclusion of Arianna Huffington among these amusing and interesting stories.)

The book effectively chronicles the appearances and disappearances of the shops that make the Rue de Martyrs more than just a street. And here it is where past collides with present, as merchants from Africa and the Middle East open antique shops and groceries on this historic Paris street thoroughfare.

Through Sciolino’s reporting skills, she examines the key historical aspects of the street, including its links to Thomas Jefferson all the way up to the neighborhood schoolgirls who became Holocaust victims, but most especially Saint Denis’ martyrdom and the founding of the Jesuit order. She laments the conditions of Notre Dame-de-Lorette, a much less famous church than the “other” Notre Dame, of course, or the Sacré-Coeur basilica right up the hill from it.

Sciolino is clearly an advocate for the street’s special qualities, and, without spoiling the book’s end, she goes to great lengths even beyond the book to have the world recognize it. And it might make the reader acknowledge that even if you don’t live a place like Paris, there is history and there are stories worth telling on nearly every corner.

I loved the book. Each chapter developed a new idea about this marvelous Paris street and brought to life the shop owners, people who lived nearby, caretakers, and old people who had seen so many changes over the years. I felt as though I were walking down the street or into one of the shops with the author as she explored the various aspects of the upper and lower Rue.