Book Review: "Paris on the Brink" by Mary McAuliffe

I have been interested in the Belle Epoque to the French Modernist Era for a while and I have read extensively into French Literature during the second world war as well. I think France's greatest literature is within this period from their golden age of the 19th century all the way down to their 1950s literature. One of the first extensive books on the Belle Epoque that I actually got to read (as opposed to just articles) was called The Man in the Red Coat by Julian Barnes and it was absolutely divine. I had before that read many books from the era, articles about the era but never a full book which captured it heart and soul. Fortunately enough for me, I also located the books of Mary McAuliffe and started with her nonfiction book entitled Paris on the Brink.

The book starts off referring the Hemingway and I think that is mainly because of A Moveable Feast in its style since it is set in France in the 1920s and is by Hemingway. Unfortunately, the book also starts in 1929, which means everyone moves ever closer to financial ruin by the second as the Wall Street Market Crash approaches. I think that the best thing about this whole section was the fact that it depicts Paris 'on the brink' just as the title states and doesn't leave us simply trying to figure things out.

Another way Paris was 'on the brink' was through the German occupation. One thing I had always found strange about the German occupation of France was that the two notable writers and philosophers, Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre, had remained completely silent on the topic and chosen not to take interest in it. As death camps opened, as people rioted, as everyone began to die, these two people later regretted their silence on the topic for silence was to them, complicity.

The author talks extensively about the Prime Minister Leon Blum and describes him and his social circles in intense detail. The fact that France finally had a socialist Prime Minister made a lot of change to a country that had once prided itself on patriotism and nationalism in a way that had a creeping kind of favouritism towards a certain class of people who could afford the fanfare of patriotism all the time. Leon Blum however, seems to be a conflated, but better Prime Minister for this era than any other candidate would have been.

As we explore further, we take a look at a library in Paris, the people who wouldn't - and would - publish James Joyce's Ulysses, the works of Andre Gide, the life and times of Coco Chanel, the irresistability of Josephine Baker, the genius of Marie Curie, the madness of Pablo Picasso, the strangeness of Salvador Dali and the strategic artisticness of Man Ray. Everything and everyone in this book is important to creat the image of Paris 'on the brink'. It is not exactly on the brink of war, or of financial ruin, or of famine - maybe it is all three. But, the one thing it definitely is on the brink of is making its own art, literature and culture a European superpower than very few countries can equal in output.

In conclusion, this book doesn't simply show us Paris 'on the brink' of ruin, but it also shows us Paris 'on the brink' of a rebirth, a renaissance of ideas that once showed them that they need new art and literature to keep such an artistic nation sustained. That simply existing was not nearly good enough.