A proposta do livro é muito interessante, porém a forma romantizada que o autor usa para descrever acontecimentos históricos e a tradução preguiçosa (ie traduzir o "Hôtel" das mansões urbanas literalmente para hotel) cansam um pouco. ( )

Métronome was sold under the ingenious gimmick of using Paris' ubiquitous metro stations as markers for the city's history. Vienna's metro stations are about 500 meters distant from each other. Parisian metro stations, however, rarely are beyond 100 meters of a peer. Often, it is quicker and easier to walk to the next station than to enter the metro. There are many tales of tourists being sent on long metro trips only to emerge barely a few hundred meters from their point of destination. Apart from their density, Parisian metro stations also have highly memorable names of famous men (Kléber, Victor Hugo, Pasteur, Jean Jaurès, ...) and battles past (Wagram, Sébastopol, Bir-Hakeim, ...).

Unfortunately, Deutsch chose the metronome as his guiding principle. Every century receives its own chapter which dooms the book to a tale of distant path about a Paris that no longer exists. The global city of Paris was built in the 19th and 20th century. Even the metro system, to which Deutsch's marketing pays so much tribute has to be inserted into the overtaxed chapter of the 20th century. The failing of the book's structure was already apparent in the four part documentary presented by the author. The first three parts, notable by the constant bad hair days of the Parisians, deal with the time period up to 1500. The final part thus has the impossible task of presenting five hundred years of modern Paris. This could have been a much better book. Robert Hughes' Barcelona justly condenses the first 1,000 years of the city's existence into only a few pages. While Paris certainly had a richer early history, a similar approach would have created happier readers. ( )

Au début, c'est sympa. Mais, chapitre après chapitre, plus on avance, plus c'est mal écrit, moins documenté, moins intéressant, de plus en plus pauvre.
C'est facile à lire aux toilettes mais je pense que c'est sa qualité principale. Pour le reste, y'a une palanquée de bien meilleurs livres. ( )

Overzicht van de geschiedenis van Parijs, opgehangen aan 21 metrostations. De formule is leuk gevonden, maar werkt niet altijd. Ter plekke blijkt er af en toe nauwelijks iets van de geschiedenis van de betrokken eeuw te merken. Deutsch voegt wel wat leuke ontdekkingen toe, maar verlustigt zich vooral in het vertellen van de bekende verhalen en hij doet dat goed. ( )

Een tripje naar Parijs staat dus nog eens op het programma. Met Metronome in de hand, deze keer.
Volledige bespreking via http://wraakvandedodo.blogspot.com/2011/07/lorant-deutsch-metronome.html ( )