History, geography and romance in one package

Edward Rutherford has made his name by writing lengthy novels based on the histor

PARIS<br><b>Edward Rutherford</b><br><i>Hodder & Stoughton</i>
PARIS<br><b>Edward Rutherford</b><br><i>Hodder & Stoughton</i>
es of famous cities: London, New York, and now, Paris.

I've only read New York, and a thoroughly enjoyable read it was, though navigating its 900-plus pages was assisted by a large bold typeface. No such luck with this 809-page paperback edition of Paris, but that's more than compensated by the content: for what would Paris be without l'amour?

Yes ladies, and males who want to learn how the French do it, Rutherford offers history, geography and romance in a bulky package that holds the interest from page one, aided by maps that help readers navigate their way around the city's high and low spots, and family trees to help follow the fortunes of his five or six fictional families and who's fathered whom.

The narrative device is to weave the fictional going-ons of these families with true-life events as they unfold.

So after a brief sortie into the time of the Romans, with Julius Caesar disposing of the Parisii tribe, before Franks, Huns and Vikings dispose of the Romans, it's off to Paris in 1875 with a priest looking after his bastard child while a man named Eiffel, who designed and built France's gift to the United States, the Statue of Liberty, racks his brain trying to think up a suitable monument to front the Paris Exposition of 1889.

What I've always enjoyed when reading about the French is how mistresses and courtesans enjoy respectability and even fame, and an early episode in Paris has a young aristocratic army officer winning a ballot at the Moulin Rouge to spend a night with the most famous and expensive courtesan of the day. That sets the tone for Paris: a city where style is as important as substance.

True, there's a dark side to the city, with a murder or two, but the real killings take place on the orders of a king or the king's top dogs, and inevitably lead to the demise of Jews, Protestants, Knights Templars, or anyone who gives the thumbs down to autocratic Catholic rule. World Wars 1 and 2 also feature prominently.

Strangely, Rutherford doesn't give much space to the French Revolution and Napoleon, probably because the demise of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette and the ''petit general'' have been done to death.

The real news from the barricades is the birth of political systems that will put an end to autocratic rule and corrupt forms of government.

So sit back and enjoy as Rutherford's Parisian families make their way in the world:the aristocratic de Cygnes, the drug-dealing restaurateurs Le Sourds, the legal eagle Renards, the merchant Blanchards and the artisan Gascons. As their paths cross, barriers come down or are forced down as new generations prove that class is no barrier where love, not to mention sexual attraction, is concerned.

Vive la France! er, make that, Paris!

- Ian Williams is a Dunedin writer and composer.

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