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oxnard_montalvo's review
A very engaging memoir/essay collection. Elkin has a very chatty, personable writing style. Was surprised by the wealth of topics she explores, and the meandering unexpected roads she takes us down. While I enjoyed it a lot, the combo-essay structure and memoir could be rather jarring. Got the sense Elkin was struggling to interrogate her own bias and preconceptions of Tokyo, and the tone of that chapter in particular was much more diary than critique. Granted I’m not expecting a person to be as self aware and reflective in their own personal diary, but since this was published, I think the chapter as a whole could have benefitted from some analytical distance. Some time spent thinking about the city itself not just her reactionary relationship to it.
paytonmckenna's review against another edition
3.5
not sure this book has anything profound to say about women's roles in cities and as flâneurs, but it was interesting nonetheless as elkin weaves together history, art criticism, and memoir. like many other people who left reviews, i also found the tokyo chapter tough to get through. elkin spends the entire chapter emphasizing how much she dislikes the city and everything she thinks is wrong with it in comparison to america or europe, and the lack of self-awareness makes elkin's attitude feel antithetical to the approach she takes to rest of the book. beyond that major disappointment, i appreciated elkin's analyses of short stories, novels, and films littered throughout the book, and i'm taking away plenty of new additions to my to-read and to-watch lists. at the end of the day, if this book did anything, it just made me want to book a flight to paris.
trin's review against another edition
2.0
The first problem with this book is that I've read better versions of it multiple times. [a:Maeve Brennan|172661|Maeve Brennan|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1417923313p2/172661.jpg]'s [b:The Long-Winded Lady|299435|The Long-Winded Lady Notes from The New Yorker|Maeve Brennan|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1328050456s/299435.jpg|290509], [a:Vivian Gornick|75060|Vivian Gornick|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1260777260p2/75060.jpg]'s [b:The Odd Woman and the City|22929524|The Odd Woman and the City A Memoir|Vivian Gornick|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1420944842s/22929524.jpg|42499074], [a:Kate Bolick|8435477|Kate Bolick|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1420003385p2/8435477.jpg]'s [b:Spinster|26804054|Spinster Making a Life of One's Own|Kate Bolick|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1443020354s/26804054.jpg|42459922] -- even [a:Edmund White|15975|Edmund White|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1386885403p2/15975.jpg]'s [b:The Flaneur|109724|The Flaneur A Stroll through the Paradoxes of Paris|Edmund White|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1369505859s/109724.jpg|16186642] does a better job discussing marginalized groups walking the streets of Paris. My favorite flânerie, I think, is about looking outward: observing others, watching the buildings and the streets. Elkin's book seems to be primarily about how much she loves France, how much she hates Tokyo, a really bad boyfriend that she had...in short, about Elkin. This could still be interesting if she made herself a rich, complex subject, but -- she doesn't.
And good god, that Tokyo chapter. TOKYO IS UGLY COMPARED TO PARIS AND THEY EAT GROSS FOOD YOU GUYS. It's 35 pages of the worst white girl whining. How is this still considered acceptable (publishable) travel writing/cultural commentary/anything? Elkin claims you can't walk in Tokyo -- which, since I tragically have not been (making me especially fond of the passages where Elkin bemoaned her boyfriend's company paying for her to fly and live there), I can't actually dispute, but having read a ton of wonderful, wandering [a:Murakami|3354|Haruki Murakami|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1470611596p2/3354.jpg] novels -- and even the white guy travelogues of, say, [a:Will Ferguson|21042|Will Ferguson|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1232853650p2/21042.jpg] -- I view with extreme skepticism. Also, "the men slurp their noodles." Elkin doesn't put the adjective Japanese in there, but it is more than just implied; it's a given. Ew.
Two stars because the chapter on Agnès Varda was a small oasis of excellence -- the only section of the book that seemed truly in the spirit of flânerie: probably more a credit to Varda than to the author.
And good god, that Tokyo chapter. TOKYO IS UGLY COMPARED TO PARIS AND THEY EAT GROSS FOOD YOU GUYS. It's 35 pages of the worst white girl whining. How is this still considered acceptable (publishable) travel writing/cultural commentary/anything? Elkin claims you can't walk in Tokyo -- which, since I tragically have not been (making me especially fond of the passages where Elkin bemoaned her boyfriend's company paying for her to fly and live there), I can't actually dispute, but having read a ton of wonderful, wandering [a:Murakami|3354|Haruki Murakami|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1470611596p2/3354.jpg] novels -- and even the white guy travelogues of, say, [a:Will Ferguson|21042|Will Ferguson|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1232853650p2/21042.jpg] -- I view with extreme skepticism. Also, "the men slurp their noodles." Elkin doesn't put the adjective Japanese in there, but it is more than just implied; it's a given. Ew.
Two stars because the chapter on Agnès Varda was a small oasis of excellence -- the only section of the book that seemed truly in the spirit of flânerie: probably more a credit to Varda than to the author.
bookschaosnart's review against another edition
2.0
It felt like the author was trying to write a memoir, a biography of influential women authors and a commentary on social issues all in on.e Instead, it made fora clunky series of essays that didn't really work for me. I enjoyed the Paris protests chapter and the Tokyo memoir chapters but the rest left me oscillating between bored and wanting more.
carrie_t_loves_books's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
4.5
mirasu's review
reflective
medium-paced
1.5
A tonal and conceptual flop. Flaneuse bills itself as an exploration of how women move through cities and inhabit public space. In reality, Flaneuse is the contrived collection of a few chapter length biographies of the bourgeoisie literati Elkin studied in graduate school, followed by several chapters of rants, personal anecdotes, and summaries of art the author likes.
Flaneuse says next to nothing about how women as a whole engage with urban life or the built environment. It is pitifully limited in scope — to Elkin, the great metropolises of the world are evidently NYC, Paris, London, Paris, Venice, Paris again (1/3 of the book is about Paris)... and a single, emaciated nod to Tokyo that ends up being depressingly racist.
For her Tokyo chapter, Elkin doesn't bother to research a SINGLE female Japanese writer, artist, or activist (despite exhaustively discussing at least one female creative for her Western cities). Instead, Elkin spends 30 pages wallowing in how mystifying and repulsive her time in Tokyo was (recounting with disgust the dirty buildings, the offensively exotic food [some of which she doesn't even spell correctly — it should be okonomiyaki with an "i"], the shrill pigeon-toed women...) — betraying her oblivion to the history of Japanese student + feminist movements, as well as her ignorance of the Japanese art scene.
As the orientalist cherry on top, the only other time Elkin discusses a non-Western country for more than one sentence is a paragraph about Gellhorn + Hemingway's trip to China ft. opium dens, mahjong parlors, and the lovely phrase "her hands were covered in 'Chinese rot.'" Joy! How about using that degree to research what WOC have to say about their own cities, Lauren?
tl;dr — Having a PhD does not a good writer make. Flaneuse suffers from terminal Academic Syndrome, and Elkin has clearly only ever had a captive audience that is forced to read her work and thus thinks everything she says is intelligent, interesting, and important. You're better off reading Benjamin + Barthes and watching Cleo 5 to 7 in your own time instead of wading through a sea of WW tears for scant crumbs of insightful synthesis.
Flaneuse says next to nothing about how women as a whole engage with urban life or the built environment. It is pitifully limited in scope — to Elkin, the great metropolises of the world are evidently NYC, Paris, London, Paris, Venice, Paris again (1/3 of the book is about Paris)... and a single, emaciated nod to Tokyo that ends up being depressingly racist.
For her Tokyo chapter, Elkin doesn't bother to research a SINGLE female Japanese writer, artist, or activist (despite exhaustively discussing at least one female creative for her Western cities). Instead, Elkin spends 30 pages wallowing in how mystifying and repulsive her time in Tokyo was (recounting with disgust the dirty buildings, the offensively exotic food [some of which she doesn't even spell correctly — it should be okonomiyaki with an "i"], the shrill pigeon-toed women...) — betraying her oblivion to the history of Japanese student + feminist movements, as well as her ignorance of the Japanese art scene.
As the orientalist cherry on top, the only other time Elkin discusses a non-Western country for more than one sentence is a paragraph about Gellhorn + Hemingway's trip to China ft. opium dens, mahjong parlors, and the lovely phrase "her hands were covered in 'Chinese rot.'" Joy! How about using that degree to research what WOC have to say about their own cities, Lauren?
tl;dr — Having a PhD does not a good writer make. Flaneuse suffers from terminal Academic Syndrome, and Elkin has clearly only ever had a captive audience that is forced to read her work and thus thinks everything she says is intelligent, interesting, and important. You're better off reading Benjamin + Barthes and watching Cleo 5 to 7 in your own time instead of wading through a sea of WW tears for scant crumbs of insightful synthesis.