Paris

The Novel

By: Edward Rutherfurd

Narrated by: Jean Gilpin

Length: 38 hrs and 20 mins

Publisher's summary

From the grand master of the historical novel comes a dazzling, epic portrait of the City of Light.

Internationally best-selling author Edward Rutherfurd has enchanted millions of readers with his sweeping, multigenerational dramas that illuminate the great achievements and travails throughout history. In this breathtaking saga of love, war, art, and intrigue, Rutherfurd has set his sights on the most magnificent city in the world: Paris.

Moving back and forth in time across centuries, the story unfolds through intimate and vivid tales of self-discovery, divided loyalties, passion, and long-kept secrets of characters both fictional and real, all set against the backdrop of the glorious city - from the building of Notre Dame to the dangerous machinations of Cardinal Richlieu; from the glittering court of Versailles to the violence of the French Revolution and the Paris Commune; from the hedonism of the Belle Époque, the heyday of the impressionists, to the tragedy of the First World War; from the 1920s when the writers of the Lost Generation could be found drinking at Les Deux Magots to the Nazi occupation, the heroic efforts of the French Resistance, and the 1968 student revolt.

With his unrivaled blend of impeccable research and narrative verve, Rutherfurd weaves an extraordinary narrative tapestry that captures all the glory of Paris. More richly detailed, more thrilling, and more romantic then anything Rutherfurd has written before, Paris: The Novel wonderfully illuminates hundreds of years in the City of Light and Love and brings the sights, scents, and tastes of Paris to sumptuous life.

©2013 Edward Rutherfurd (P)2013 Random House Audio

Well Read, Engaging Plot, A Few Historical Errors

Enjoyed the diverting story. A skillful narrator. It's a shame Rutherfurd doesn't employ a fact checker.

Great story, oddly read.

Would you consider the audio edition of Paris to be better than the print version?

I like the French pronunciations, but see comment below.

How could the performance have been better?

The reader reads every sentence as if a dramatic scene about to climax. Gets old.

Wish I had listened before my recent trip to Paris

A sweeping and magestic tale of my favorite city, and generations of families that inhabit it...before ordering I had read many reviews criticizing the shifting from one century to another and not writing this as a linear story, but I enjoyed this feature, and thinkt added to the story line.

These are families that will stay with me, and whose neighborhoods I will wander next summer when I am back....I have been going to Paris since 1981, every 4-5 years,.. and so this story was like someone filling out the details of the family tree of a beloved friend...

If you love Paris, read this now!

Sweeping and Engaging

This is an incredible work of historical fiction. It's truly sweeping, ranging over hundreds of years as it tells the tale of six families from Paris interwoven through time. The book primarily focuses on the members of the family who had their heyday in the late-1800s, then later their children. The book takes you through the entire lives of these main characters, later following some of their children. The story then flashes back through the history of Paris to increase the depth of the story. I learned an incredible amount of history and became very engaged in the lives of the characters. This is one of the most enjoyable books I have read in a long-time.

I should also add that the narrator did a fantastic job. She is a master at both male and female voices.

Love me some Paris history with a great tale

I am intrigued by the twist and turns of Paris history and often get some of the events and timelines confused. This story helped put all the pieces together for me with a great story mixing several families. I also loved the nod to Midnight in Paris.

A must read for any 30 year old woman!

They say when you turn 30, you turn French! In a worlds whose secrets no living man knows, this novel is most appropriate. Charming, historical, and inspiring, I highly recommend this read! Both author and narrator have out done themselves!

- C'est la vie mon ami 💝

Stilted expositional dialog

What did you like best about Paris? What did you like least?

The massive sweep of history about this world-class metropolis is well covered in this novel. All the epic moments in history through which Paris experienced major upheaval and change are covered. Very informative. As with his other novels of a place, the main character, "Paris" is a living "being" formed by the humans who dwell within it and wander through it.

What could Edward Rutherfurd have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

Having characters describe expositional details is a bit stilted. I love history, but the dialogs in which a character explains the vision or engineering behind a building or history of some notable location, the character basically loses their own voice and becomes the voice of the narrator. People don't generally talk like this (expository dialog). Every once in a while it can be helpful in a novel, but whole sections in which an character describes some recent or past event with incredible accuracy seems artificial. I enjoyed the way he chose to tell the story by jumping forward and backward through time. I have read his books "Sarum", "Russka", "London", and "The New Forest" which all move linearly from past to present. In this book, he jumps back and forth, which adds some interesting twists and turns to the story line.

What does Jean Gilpin bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

The performer delivers the dialog in ways that are unique to her interpretation. When I read a book, the voices of the characters do not have the depth that I get when I listen to an audiobook. Gilpin does a good job covering the voices of the huge sweep of characters in the novel. Sometimes her young adult male characters sound too young, but overall, she has a decent range of voices and accents to add valuable color to the dialog and to avoid confusion as to which character is speaking.

Any additional comments?

This is not a book to listen to in a distracted environment. The year of the given chapter is indicated in the first sentence, and if you are distracted for a few minutes during which this happens, you can easily become confused as to what is going on. Because this novel is a host to many characters with the same last name (following a family lineage), keeping track of who is from what time period and what has already happened and what will happen (that you've already heard).

Long and hard to follow

This book is beautifully written paragraph by paragraph, but the storyline is thick and difficult to follow with too many jumps through centuries while trying to hold a thread of particular families. Unless you take notes as they go, the story is difficult to follow and the necessity for jumping from one century to the next is simply too complicated for an enjoyable read. The narrator does a great job with tone, inflection, character voices and so on. If this were a book that I had in paper, I would never have been able to finish; the narrator saves this thing. I understand the concept of trying to bring history to life through fiction, but there was no need to cover all of France's history over 300 years. A task too big even for a book this long.

I Love Paris!

I loved all the history and the families that made it come alive! The details were amazing. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have!

Loved the story and the performance

I’ve been living in Paris for the past 15 years and I loved learning so much about this city. The stories of the families throughout the generations were captivating. Oddly enough, 37 hours of listening wasn’t enough, it seemed short in the end I wanted to know more. Great book.