In this potpourri of a book on the Paris Métro, British author Andrew Martin is not so much writing an ode to the Métropolitain as providing rail fanatics with a literary handbook. You don’t need to be familiar with “third-rail electrification” and “the MP73s, third-generation tyred trains” to enjoy the eclectic information and funny anecdotes of this charming book – but it would sometimes help. Perhaps better assembled as a dictionary of the Métro, in the style of the Dictionnaire amoureux series published since 2000 in France by Plon, Martin’s short book will nonetheless give Paris and Métro lovers what they are looking for: the infectious enthusiasm of a passionate fan with a clear eye for details.
I naturally chose to read Metropolitain on the Paris Métro, which added some relief and piquancy to the experience. Martin, whose dad worked for British Rail, developed a fascination for le Métro: its smell, its “unified vision”, its lighting, carriages, vaults and tunnels, for its names and colours, all of which were designed as the antithesis of London’s tube. “The London Underground was the world’s first metro, and Paris, having taken a long cool look at it, decided to do the opposite.” There would be no entrance buildings; it would be built much closer to the surface; much denser, all Parisians would live within 500 metres of a métro station; airy and large, carriages would feel tall to passengers, to avoid claustrophobia; and with binary directions, and easy connections, there would be no risk of losing oneself in a subterranean maze.
Martin evokes some of the famous features of the Paris Métro, such as the tiles and the dark blue signs. “The white tiles had bevelled edges, to reflect as much as possible the low-wattage electric light. In early photos of the Métro nobody’s reading a book, because that wasn’t possible in the available light, but such light created a moonlight-on-the sea effect over those bevelled tiles, and the elegance of the stations was commensurate with that of the streets above.” For Martin, the vault is the key to the elegance of the Métro. “It has all sorts of knock-on benefits. It is wide enough to accommodate two platforms facing each other with two tracks in between. You will see and hear two Parisians continuing late-night conversations by shouting across the platforms even after they have diverged to go in opposite directions.”
Of course, Hector Guimard’s art nouveau decor looms large in Metropolitain. Though “skimpy” and “outrageous” to British eyes, Martin finds its entrances “compellingly bizarre”. Alas, French bureaucrats also found them bizarre, so much so that there are only two surviving full Guimard entrances in Paris today. After art nouveau fell out of fashion, they were taken down, sold to auction or, sadly, destroyed. You need to go to Abbesses, at the bottom of Montmartre, to see and be dazzled by the frosted glass and iron-cast arabesques, a thing of beauty for this art nouveau lover.
There are lovely images and remarks in Metropolitain. “Everyone seems to know the precise moment at which the train becomes too crowded to justify sitting on one of the folding seats near the doors, the strapontins: the occupants of these rise to their feet in unison, like people giving a standing ovation in the theatre and on most Métro carriages the seat promptly snaps back upright behind them.” True.
The “portraits of the lines” have many anecdotes and interesting trivia. Martin has a particular fondness for the two lines of elevated Métro “running along viaducts flamboyantly decorated with classical motifs, high-spirited at having made an illicit escape”. Just like in Charles Trenet’s 1937 international hit Y’a d’la joie in which le Métro, drunk on blue sky, music and flowers, is coming out of the tunnel flying towards the Bois de Vincennes.
An all too short chapter deals with novelists and le Métro. Raymond Queneau’s Zazie dans le Métro is of course quoted, but only in passing, and Martin points his finger at Hemingway and Proust for their lack of interest in it. A chapter on le Métro’s smell is perhaps the most curious of all. According to the era, it smelled of “hot oil on wooden brake blocks”, later of “garlic, dust and tobacco”. Martin describes the odour as “lemongrass”. And for this Parisian, the station Opéra has always smelled of hard-boiled eggs.
• Metropolitain: An Ode to the Paris Metro by Andrew Martin is published by Corsair (£16.99). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
