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231 reviews for:
Flâneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice and London
Lauren Elkin
3.54 AVERAGE
231 reviews for:
Flâneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice and London
Lauren Elkin
3.54 AVERAGE
emotional
funny
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
relaxing
slow-paced
Un ensayo para leer con tranquilidad, con la misma tranquilidad con la que pasea una flâneuse. El capítulo de Londres y Bloomsbury es mi preferido, seguido por el de Tokio.
Tiene muchas referencias interesantes, que de momento he filtrado un poco para no desesperarme con la interminable Pila (o Kaos Lector).
He ido creando una playlist como música de fondo mientras leía: https://open.spotify.com/user/missplaced/playlist/0GqAuSpLfvhwUx1Qwzd2kb?si=WktJqbZdQHql7ExkiT2MFg
Tiene muchas referencias interesantes, que de momento he filtrado un poco para no desesperarme con la interminable Pila (o Kaos Lector).
He ido creando una playlist como música de fondo mientras leía: https://open.spotify.com/user/missplaced/playlist/0GqAuSpLfvhwUx1Qwzd2kb?si=WktJqbZdQHql7ExkiT2MFg
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
relaxing
fast-paced
I love this book. It is such a unique mix of travel, sociology, anthropology and feminism with a sprinkle of self-reflection. I felt like I was best friends with the author, listening to her talk about her favorite subject ever. It satisfied my travel cravings and piqued my wanderlust anew. It's utterly fantastic.
adventurous
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
Very fascinating read about women, walking, art, and carrying a sense of self between the various borders of the external and internal globe. Lots of looks into the world of writers/artists, as well as memoir-esque musings on the author’s life as a flaneuse. A friend of mine said we are each born with a little flaneuse in us, and I agree. Happy to have had this look into the topic.
The premise of this book sounded so interesting. I was excited to read it. Unfortunately, it fell flat for me. It seemed like a bunch of loosely related university research papers thrown together. It wasn’t cohesive and a big part of the book was not about walking in the city, which was what I was expecting. There were passages in the book that I loved, though. I was prepared to give this book 1 star when I finished it, but I went back and re-read the parts that I had highlighted and I loved those parts so much, so I don't regret reading this, but it's not something that I would be quick to recommend.
Parts of this I loved, parts of this I wasn't crazy about. When Elkin writes about cities and traveling within them I felt engaged, loved her descriptions, could place myself there. However, I found the book to be just as much about writing and female writers, as it was about walking in cities. This might work for some people, but wasn't why I'd been keen to read it. I enjoyed Elkin's personal reflections, as I'm a sucker for memoir, and she is undoubtedly a wonderful writer. In the end, this book didn't deliver what I hoped it would for me, but I'm pleased I read it.
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
slow-paced
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
I'm quite disappointed in this book, which delivers something quite different than what it advertises. I had envisioned it as a kind of memoir interspersed with some musings on historical women who struck out on their own in cities. And it is that, partly - but a very minuscule part. Mainly, it is biographical and literary analysis of a bunch of white women who lived in Paris and London and Venice. There's even one agonizingly dull chapter that just summarizes an entire film. All literally information I can pull of Wikipedia, and Elkin doesn't really add any interesting or profound insights, though she does spend a lot of time pretentiously philosophizing. And yet, even with all this navel-gazing, there is little acknowledgment of the different layers of privilege inherent to being a traveler, to walking in a city alone as a woman. And in general, the narrative is uneven, scattered, random. There's no cohesion here.
There were some interesting bits, mainly when Elkin focuses on her own life and experiences, but these bits are few and far between. Furthermore, Elkin is just...boring; she's a very specific subset of privileged white woman, and while she occasionally acknowledges that privilege, she doesn't really seem to do anything with that acknowledgment, so it all feels like posturing. Her experiences all feel bland, rote. The most egregious chapter is when Elkin is in Tokyo and proceeds to criticize the entire city and culture in classic White Woman fashion; it's particularly irritating when Paris is given three entire chapters and is romanticized in a way that is, frankly, naive.
I think, overall, what I did like about the book is that it inspires a sense of wanderlust and evokes in me a new appreciation for urban spaces. It makes me want to travel and explore and walk and observe, though that may just be because we've all been trapped at home for almost a year, so I don't know how much of this wanderlust I can credit the book with. You could probably get away with reading the introduction and maybe the first chapter and you'll have the gist of the book. This would have worked well as an long essay, but as a book it definitely overstays its welcome.
There were some interesting bits, mainly when Elkin focuses on her own life and experiences, but these bits are few and far between. Furthermore, Elkin is just...boring; she's a very specific subset of privileged white woman, and while she occasionally acknowledges that privilege, she doesn't really seem to do anything with that acknowledgment, so it all feels like posturing. Her experiences all feel bland, rote. The most egregious chapter is when Elkin is in Tokyo and proceeds to criticize the entire city and culture in classic White Woman fashion; it's particularly irritating when Paris is given three entire chapters and is romanticized in a way that is, frankly, naive.
I think, overall, what I did like about the book is that it inspires a sense of wanderlust and evokes in me a new appreciation for urban spaces. It makes me want to travel and explore and walk and observe, though that may just be because we've all been trapped at home for almost a year, so I don't know how much of this wanderlust I can credit the book with. You could probably get away with reading the introduction and maybe the first chapter and you'll have the gist of the book. This would have worked well as an long essay, but as a book it definitely overstays its welcome.