{"product_id":"balzacs-paris","title":"Balzac's Paris","description":"An exploration of Paris with Balzac, 19th century French society's most famous novelist and observer In Balzac's greatest work, a body of novels and stories collectively entitled The Human Comedy, he set out to offer a complete picture of contemporary French society and manners. His loving ode to Paris also serves as an introduction to the first capital of the modern world. The ever-new Paris to which he addresses his declaration of love consists of an accumulation of details – names, landmarks, streams, gates – a city with countless meticulously drawn figures: legal clerks, grisettes, journalists, concierges, usurers, salesmen, speculators. Balzac gathered the elements of this Paris by sauntering through it. ‘To saunter is a science,’ he writes, ‘it is the gastronomy of the eye. To take a walk is to vegetate; to saunter is to live.’ This book follows in Balzac’s footsteps, crossing the city in his big boots, running between his printers, publishers, coffee merchants, mistresses and friends, stopping for a moment, struck by a detail that his photographic memory faithfully fixed. More than a tour of the city, Balzac's Paris is an attempt to measure the soul of a place.","brand":"Landmark Booksellers","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46202490716400,"sku":"9781839767258","price":24.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0586\/1385\/8477\/files\/content_a48d50ae-0067-424d-9694-3ca360f608a1.jpg?v=1718637162","url":"https:\/\/shop.landmarkbooksellers.com\/products\/balzacs-paris","provider":"Landmark Booksellers","version":"1.0","type":"link"}