Henry Ford, he takes pains to tell us, is “the motor manufacturer” (not “a motor manufacturer”), just so we’re sure we’re not talking about Henry Ford the doughnut baron of Chillicothe. For Rutherfurd, the novel form seems to be an opportunity to erect a kind of scaffolding around a sequence of flash cards devoted to, in this case, the history of Paris, and there’s scarcely a paragraph of exposition that is not didactic at heart. A novel, maybe-or maybe five novels rolled up into one big saucisson-but not the novel, DeMille-an or Zanuck-ian as it may sound.
Rutherfurd’s latest is billed as Paris: The Novel, a designation with which the shades of Émile Zola and Victor Hugo might take issue. Overstuffed yarn of the ville lumière from city-hopping epic-smith Rutherfurd ( New York, 2009, etc.).
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