By Elaine SciolinoNY Times foreign correspondent Elaine Sciolino writes about the Seine in a book that is part history and part tribute to this famous river. She offers a couple of chapters on the source of the Seine, both geographically in Burgundy and historically around the origin of the name (from the Roman goddess Sequanna).
Each of the chapters on the Seine's relationship to Paris covers a specific phase of river life: Paris by night, art, the river brigade, the river and song, etc. I especially enjoyed the chapter on bridges - all 37 of them! Each bridge has a connection to a historical figure or event, from the Pont Neuf built by Henry IV to the modern pedestrian span named for the 20th century feminist Simone de Beauvoir.
The chapter on river barges notes that only a thousand of the 15000 bargemen of 1950 operate barges today, replaced mostly by truckers. These barges have a huge capacity, actually carrying many truckloads worth of grain, sand or whatever product they are bringing downriver. Sciolino interviews several bargemen and women to give a picture of their hard life. She also interviews a cruise ship captain, a 4th generation bargeman who has given up the hard life for a more cushy existence as a cruise ship captain (just like the young man I met on a Viking Seine cruise a few years ago). I was also fascinated by the chapter on bouquinistes, the booksellers whose shops line two miles of Seine riverfront; they have plied their trade for a couple of centuries. Their business is highly regulated, and their inventory often includes historic treasures.
Sciolino moves north to Rouen, the international shipping port that is also the site of Ste Jean d'Arc's martyrdom. She concludes with an afterward describing the Seine's importance as a water supply to fight the April 2019 Notre Dame Cathedral fire.
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