Perceptions of the city
Uncle? ” I asked one day. “ No, ” he replied. “ Everything gets worse. ”’ And get worse it does, when in a slapstick scene the inadequate son-in- law knocks Jamila’s father down with a dildo, leading Karim to remark: ‘Uncle Anwar, who’d come from India to the Old Kent Road, to lodge with a dentist [ . . . ] could never have guessed all those years ago that late in life he would be knocked unconscious by a sex-aid. ’ Karim becomes disillusioned to some extent. But he remains enchanted by London itself, the city which, as with others of the books I have discussed, is this story’s real hero. Karim muses, ‘ And so I sat in the centre of this old city that I loved, which itself sat at the bottom of a tiny island. I was surrounded by people that I loved, and I felt happy and miserable at the same time. I thought of what a mess everything had been, but that it w ouldn’t always be that way.’ Just as London has been the source of some wonderful contemporary books about the immigrant experience, so too has Paris. A recent book, Lumières Étrangères , edited by Elisabeth Lesne, has brought together a number of short stories about the immigrant experience in Paris: a story by Fouad Laroui about life in the Moroccan community, one by Eduardo Manet about the Cubans in Paris, Bernardo Toro’s story about the Chilean community, Saber Mansouri’s set among the Tunisians, Arezki Metrel’s story about Algerian life and so on. Paris – and indeed highly specific quartiers and streets of Paris ( the avenue de la Bourdonnais, the rue Mouffetard) feature all the way through these stories, in a way that reflects the adhesion of these disparate communities to this or that arrondissement . Does Paris offer the immigrant the greater security and opportunity that the character in the Selvon book suggests it would? Not if all of these stories are to be believed (and it should be noted that none of these new writers have become seen as ‘ new literary giants ’ – yet). But one literary giant’s descriptions of Paris have lived on through time. Charles Baudelaire used Paris as the backdrop to many of his poems and the theme of loneliness and detachment is ever-present in his volume Les Fleurs du Mal . Born in Paris, Baudelaire led a peripatetic life, living in the Latin Quarter, Lyon and India before the age of 21. He enjoyed the city lifestyle although, at times, he also felt a strong sense of detachment and isolation from the city. His poem Paysage, for example, clearly presents this dichotomy. He finds the landscape of the city itself a source of endless fascination, writing of ‘ Les tuyaux, les clochers, ces mâts de la cite, / Et les grands ciels qui font rêver d’éternité.’ This line, and particularly the phrase ‘font rêver d’éternité’ , demonstrate the sense of hope that the city provides just by existing. The fact that the towers of Hausmann’s Paris could be built on what was once empty countryside is of course inspiring and makes Baudelaire proud of humanity’s achievements. Furthermore, Baudelaire expresses a sense of wonderment at the machinery of Paris. He writes, ‘ Il est doux, à travers les brumes, de voir naître / L’étoile dans l’azur, la lampe à la fenêtre / Les fleuves de charbon monter au firmament. ’ Here, Baudelaire appreciates that the beauty of the city comes from its mix of natural beauty and man-made invention: to him, a star in the blue sky holds equal value to the smoke pouring out of chimneys. However, despite this wonder, Baudelaire believes that the city in the winter is a cold, unforgiving place, and instead says, ‘ Je fermerai partout portières et volets / Pour bâtir dans la nuit mes féeriques palais. ’ While explicitly directed at the weather, this could also be an allegory for the city itself: its intensity can be beautiful, but in can also prove overpowering when one is exposed to it in large doses, prompting a sense of isolation and detachment.
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