Paris

The capital city of France is the setting for the first and third parts of the narrative and is referred to frequently throughout the second half. The city has for years evoked romance, intensity of emotion, and a certain freedom of passion, evocations that are also present here in metaphor (in the narrative) and in the perspectives and experiences of the central characters. In other words, to live in Paris is to live in a world of feeling.

The Fishers' House

The home of Naomi Fisher and her mother, Madame Fisher, is "the house in Paris" of the book's title. It is portrayed as a place in which the seeds of feeling are planted, in which those feelings sprout into passion, and in which the flowers of that passion are ruthlessly cut off in the prime of their bloom. In that sense, there is a powerful, intriguing...