![](https://image.librarything.com/pics/fugue21/magnifier-left.png)
![](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/P/1782278443.01._SX180_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg)
Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
Loading... Clouds Over Paris: the Wartime Notebooks of Felix Hartlaubby Felix Hartlaub
THE WAR ROOM (771) No current Talk conversations about this book. no reviews | add a review
New paperback of the acclaimed, sharply immediate diary written from the heart of Occupied Paris by a classic German writer No library descriptions found. |
Current DiscussionsNone
![]() GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)940.5334092History and Geography Europe Europe 1918- World War IILC ClassificationRatingAverage:![]()
Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. |
This is a collection of diaristic impressions of the city written in 1941 that he left behind, and it is clear that had he continued to write he would have had quite a reputation by now, instead of hardly been known.
These writings will stir nostalgia in anyone who knows Paris, they are vivid and true, even after 82 years. He captures a city that despite occupation presents its normality.
The book is a description of place, and the diversity of people who are residing there when he is. It is rich in description, with no 'I', so at some stage description starts to feel relentless, and while I read over a third in one sitting, I had to pace myself for the rest. It should be noted that he did not edit the work, and may have changed it were he aware it was publishable.
The final part of the book describes the disintegration of the outgoing occupying Ministries.
Relentless it may become, but there is some exquisite writing here.
I have visited Paris a couple of times a decade since my late teens, and many memories were evoked as I started to read.
What I also thought about, and suspect he intended is to perceive how despite war, one might experience some kind of normality, and to wonder at that possibility. (