Travel Writers Online

Architecture and the French Novel Second Empire architecture and the great department stores are a powerful visitor attraction for Paris in the twenty-first century. Many of the buildings of this period are extravagant mixtures of architectural style using references to gothic but with new building technologies, for example the iron girder, which reflect both France's imperial status and its material gains.  The French empire included both Vietnam and Algeria during this period, indeed the 1885 Maupassant novel, Bel Ami begins with its main character, Duroy, returning from military service in Algeria , and later in the story, land speculation in Algeria contributes to his wealth. The novel appears in English as The History of a Scoundrel in 1903 and gives a description of the Folies Bergère , a visitor attraction which had only opened in May 1869.  At the time of writing a further film adaptation of Bel Ami has been released (2012) directed by Declan Donnellan, demonstrating

French Novels in Literary Tourism The classic novels of France have a central theme that repeatedly deals with modern urban culture in a serious way.  This theme is expressed through the development of the French novel in the nineteenth century in a way which is quite different from English literature in the same period.  The realist writer, Balzac (1799-1850), for example presents a series of novels that chart life in Paris after the fall of Napoleon in 1815 which is very different in approach from the writing of Charles Dickens (1812-70).  Ultimately, this does have an effect on literary tourism associated with these writers today.  Even though Dickens is examining London life in the nineteenth century their literary styles are very different; Dickens uses humour and irony whereas Balzac tackles the issues of class in a more direct, unforgiving manner.  Using a non-comedic approach, like Balzac, Zola (1840-1902) embarks on a self-declared, serious scientific project in his series o