Sunday, September 27, 2009

By Reviewed by John French

"Eiffel's Tower"

Jill Jonnes

Penguin Group, $27.95

Anyone living on this planet in 1889 who had the time and money to visit the Exposition Universelle in Paris but failed to make the trip missed the entertainment event of a lifetime. The title and subtitle of this book nicely capture the moment: "Eiffel's Tower And the World's Fair Where Buffalo Bill Beguiled Paris, The Artists Quarreled, and Thomas Edison Became a Count."

Today we are accustomed to receiving sights and sounds from around the globe instantly via radio, television and the internet. In 1889, if you were an American and were not in Paris, you were limited to copy provided over the transatlantic cable. In no way could that have conveyed the impact of the Paris World's Fair on those who attended it.

Jill Jonnes comes as close as the written word permits to placing us at the center of that chaotic, colorful, exciting event. She draws us in with an opening chapter, "We Meet the Characters, Who Intend to Dazzle the World at the Paris Exposition." Here is a sample:

• Annie Oakley, the astonishing sharpshooter who so awed the London crowds while performing in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show a year earlier that she received "four offers of marriage, including one from a French count;"

• Gustave Eiffel, multimillionaire bridge builder with offices around the world who had successfully competed for the right to construct the fair's centerpiece, a controversial 300-meter tower that was to be the tallest structure in the world;

• The American artist, James McNeill Whistler, an aging enfant terrible known as the Butterfly, who lived in London, reveled in personal feuds and was in the process of being expelled from the Society of British Artists;

• The yet unknown Paul Gauguin, formerly a well-to-do stockbroker, now a full-time painter, whose wife escaped their impoverished situation by taking herself and their five children home to Denmark;

• James Gordon Bennett, the wealthy, tyrannical publisher of The New York Herald who had opened a Paris office after his notoriously bad public behavior made him persona non grata in New York;

• Thomas Edison, whose electric lights and phonograph had already made him the world's scientific superstar;

• And, of course, Buffalo Bill Cody himself, the most famous showman of the day, along with a huge tent encampment of cowboys, Indians, horses and buffalo.

If this were not enough to overwhelm you, the French had more to offer. France now rivaled Britain as a colonial power and it intended to show off with exhibits from colonies such as Senegal and Cambodia, as well as the construction of an entire Cairo market with hundreds of Egyptian goldsmiths, weavers, sculptors and the like selling their wares from little shops. Not the least among these exotic attractions were the Javanese dancers, lovely women whose "skin, of which a great deal was visible, was of the most beautiful golden hue."

Noticeably absent at first were the royalty and nobility of Europe, for this was the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution that sent the royalty and nobility of France to the guillotine. Queen Victoria had declared a boycott of the event and most of the continent's upper crust sent its regrets to the French government.

But the allure was too great. Little more than a month after the Fair opened, Victoria's son, the Prince of Wales, with his wife and their five adult children, was touring M. Eiffel's tower.

The enduring star of the Exposition was, of course, the tower. It had been vilified as an "odious column of bolted metal" and "an inartistic scaffolding of crossbars and angled iron" with a "hideously unfinished" look. Attacks turned viciously personal when Eiffel was falsely branded a "German Jew." But the Fair's commissioner, Gen. Edouard Lockroy, had faith in both Eiffel and his design, so up the tower went.

Not without difficulty, however. The curving design was an engineering challenge. Thousands of iron segments had to be precision-manufactured and then bolted together hundreds of feet in the air. Striking workmen had to be placated with higher wages or, when necessary, fired. Elevators had to be built and installed to traverse the structure's curves, necessitating -- to the consternation of the French -- retention of the American Otis Elevator Company. And lawsuits by angry residents of the neighborhood had to be resolved.

But the tower had become a success by the time its first platform was completed. Restaurants were promptly installed and the French could dine and drink over their beloved Paris, viewing all its beauty from above, as never before.

And everyone came, albeit sometimes ignominiously. The Fair's American exhibit had accepted 18 of Whistler's works but rejected 10. Whistler's response was to withdraw all of them and head to the British exhibit, which hung just one oil portrait and two etchings. At Volpini's Café, where Gauguin's paintings were hung, thousands of visitors supped but not a single Gauguin was sold.

Others fared far better. Buffalo Bill's show drew audiences in the thousands twice daily. Cody's Indians were a hit with the European ladies. Visiting dignitaries vied for the opportunity to ride in the Deadwood Stage while it was under Indian attack.

Annie Oakley wowed the spectators by shooting the heart out of an Ace of Hearts from 10 yards and then, with the card turned sideways toward her, shooting it in half. When the King of Senegal sought to buy Oakley for an enormous price so she could be brought to his country to kill man-eating tigers, Buffalo Bill had to explain that she was not a slave but a free citizen of the United States.

James Gordon Bennett's new Paris Herald was turning a tidy profit from its headquarters on the Eiffel Tower. Thomas Edison and his beautiful second wife were feted at 18-course banquets that made Edison ill, but the French awarded him the Legion of Honor and Italy made him a count. The fabulously wealthy Shah of Persia prudently arrived without his harem but had secretly arranged for two concubines to be purchased in Istanbul and smuggled into Paris in men's clothing. His reception in Paris might have been less warm if it had been known that he recommended strangulation as the punishment for anti-social conduct.

As one noted French author saw the situation: "The truth is that Paris is no longer Paris; it is a kind of free city in which all of the thieves of the earth who have made their fortunes in business come to eat badly and sleep with the flesh of someone who calls herself a Parisienne."

"Eiffel's Tower" is such a delight that my wife and I craved more. We found it on Netflix where you, like we, can rent and enjoy "The True Legend of the Eiffel Tower" (2005), a well-made docudrama; "Modern Marvels: Eiffel Tower" (1999), a good documentary from the History Channel; and "American Experience: Annie Oakley."

But first read the book. No film can convey the rich experience of the 1889 Paris Exposition Universelle as well as Jill Jonnes has portrayed it in "Eiffel's Tower."