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It will likely surprise no one, that the reading schedule we discussed back in February (but has been going since April 2020), is still alive and well.  When I looked at it earlier today and saw that there was one more book between me and a return trip to Velaris, I was STOKED.  Join me?  Please?!  SIGN UP HERE to join the virtual trip.  I don’t always start back at the beginning, and I won’t this time either, as my plan is to pick up A Court of Frost and Starlight and begin my adventure during the chill of winter solstice partially because it’s the exact opposite of outside now and partially because I’ve only reread that gem once.  Even though that’s my starting place, Virtual Book Club on Friday, July 16 at 7:30 pm CST is really to talk about A Court of Silver Flames (A Court of Thorns and Roses #4)  by Sarah J. Maas. We’re so ready. 

A short book and an intriguing cover are easy sells for me.  You all have seen our reading life reviews, so you know we cover a lot of pages in a month.  I’m also learning (slowly) to DNF books that aren’t for me, and to hit pause on books that are for me, but the timing is off.  Ashley and Anne Bogel are both due credit for supporting me through this, and I’m so grateful to them, but that’s a whole other story.  I’m also grateful to Anne for suggesting today’s title, The Paris Hours by Alex George.  As usual, don’t skip the notes or acknowledgements in the back, because in this novel, we find out what spark launched the idea for the text.  George shares that when he “read that [Céleste] burned all of [Marcel Proust’s] notebooks at his request, the novelist in me immediately began to wonder what would have happened if she hadn’t followed his orders to the letter.”  And that, dear readers, is how we came to have today’s intriguing title.

Sticking with shocking no one, I didn’t read the marketing copy for The Paris Hours before starting this title, or maybe I did.  Unlike with many titles, Anne and her guest didn’t discuss the title much, but I assume at some point I read the copy, recommended the title to the library, and promptly forgot the copy.  I was surprised when this novel ended a mere 24 hours after it began (yes, Ashley’s already made fun of me), and I didn’t like it.  I like more epilogue, so after spending 24 hours with four intriguing, complex characters, I wasn’t ready for our time together to be over because there’s so much still to discover.  We have a starving artist, a journalist who’s lost his family, Marcel Proust’s devoted former maid, and an Armenian puppeteer all struggling with their own baggage and trauma through life in vibrant 1927 Paris between the world wars.  Readers spend not even 300 pages learning how these four characters got to where they are and how their days progress very much not according to plan.  

I think my favorite part of The Paris Hours was the gorgeous descriptions of Montmartre, Montparnasse, Père Lachaise, and even just sitting at a café, and the nostalgia they brought me.  The starkly different characters drew me in, but I stayed for the writing and the atmosphere, and to see what in the world the connection would be between these four characters.  I won’t spoil that piece, because it amused me immensely.  I’m giving The Paris Hours three stars.  This isn’t my usual style of book, but I enjoyed the experience, and I’m interested in what else has inspired George’s writing.  

What’s something out of your ordinary you’ve experienced recently and enjoyed?

~Nikki 

Before I settled down to write this blog post I texted a screenshot of author Alex George’s GoodReads biography to Nikki and she replied, “that makes me want to take a nap.” For context, here’s the image, and the first line reads: Alex George is a writer, a bookseller, a director of a literary festival, and a lawyer.” Imagining doing any of those things full time is exhausting, doing all of them, together, even part time is mind boggling. He has written two other novels besides 2020’s The Paris Hours, 2012’s A Good American and 2017’s Setting Free the Kites. He read law at Oxford University and was a corporate lawyer in London and Paris before moving to the USA in 2003. He owns independent store Skylark Bookshop in Columbia, Missouri, where the Unbound Book Festival has run for 5 years. Besides these four career paths, George is married to writer and professor Alexandra Socarides and they have four children. Do you need a nap, too? So much same.

I would much prefer to take that nap on an 8 hour flight to Paris because, darling, readers, Paris is always a good idea. And if one can’t travel there in the flesh, well then, by the page is also acceptable. It would take a lot for me to be disappointed in a book where Paris herself is a main character. She speaks to us over the course of the book’s 24 hours and in the flashbacks each of the four main characters narrates so that we, as readers, have all the information needed for the way they are connected to each other. And it’s brilliant and surprising and wonderful and I, too, wanted just a little bit more epilogue. [Nikki here: FINALLY!!]

Maybe it’s because when I went to Paris as a young nineteen year old, fresh from her first year of University and on a trip with her Honors College colleagues for art history credit, I can never think of Paris without thinking about art. And not just visual art, but music and theatres and, bien sûr, writing. These are the activities which make us human and help share the experience and emotion of the human condition with others. Art is the theme of The Paris Hours because every character is directly involved with one art form or another, usually multiple times during this one day. The way George describes a piece of music or a painting or a puppet show, allows the reader to see and hear and be immersed in each of the art forms. Paris, maybe more than any city I have experienced, is built on the knowledge of and sharing in all art, no matter the person’s social or economic status. Art is for the masses, the embodiment of Liberté, Egalité, et Fraternité. (Liberty, Equality, and Brotherhood)

Again, this month, maybe it wasn’t what an author actually wrote, though the words were lyrical, but the feelings conveyed and especially those that linger long after the reading is done. I can just imagine Alex George walking the streets of Paris, like his characters, finding joy in the humanity found there. Although there were not nearly enough mentions of pigeons for my liking and experience of the city (two, I searched the Kindle book), because as you know I kicked a pigeon in Paris, I give The Paris Hours a solid four stars. I am unlikely to read it again any time soon, but I may very well take it with me as a walking tour guide on my next stop in the City of Lights. A trip to Shakespeare and Company is on the bucket list.

What items on your bucket list have been placed there because of something you read?

~Ashley

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