“Metropolitain” is an eclectic blend of engineering and travelogue, urban planning and anecdote
ode to the Paris Metro, is an affectionate and welcome antidote to the prevailing grumbling about litter-strewn platforms and overcrowded carriages in Paris. So enthusiastic is hisfor the French underground that he cedes to his inner railway geek. No tunnel goes unvisited, no track uninspected. Mr Martin includes six pages on Metro tickets and devotes ten chapters to individual lines of the network, startingwith Line 1.
What shines through above all is a sense of awe. There is the wondrous quiet of the rubber-tyre-wheeled Paris Metro carriages, compared with the bone-jangling rattle of the London Tube. There is also its sheer density. The French capital’s underground has 225km of tracks, compared with 400km in London, yet serves 304 Metro stations, by the author’s count, 32 more than the Tube.
The names of Metro stations evoke history at every turn: Pyramides and Iéna and Montparnasse-Bienvenuë . Even stations named after humdrum street intersections take on a lyrical quality: Marcadet Poissoniers, Maubert Mutualité. Strange things go on underground. The first recorded murder on the Metro, Mr Martin notes, took place in 1937 at the Porte de Charenton.
A literary work this is not, as Mr Martin might concede, judging by his self-deprecating style. He has ignored certain French conventions, refusing to refer to the right andof the Seine, and makes some odd observations. “How’s that going to play out”, the author asks of gendered French, “in an increasingly androgynous world?” Nor is Mr Martin well-briefed on the politics of future urban planning in the capital.
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