A Year In The Merde

Just finished reading this book, by Stephen Clarke. I suppose I enjoyed most of it. It's a bit like a fictional travel log. The author has created this character, Paul West, who is a British twentysomething business boy wonder who goes to France to work for a year. From what I can gather, the author plans to continue the adventures of Paul West in future books. Most of the book is very funny...the comments that he makes, his observations on Parisien life, and on the life of an expat living in Paris. His experience in the business world, and the little things like mistranslations and misunderstandings.
The author is very sarcastic, almost caustic sometimes...I mean he has another book entitled Giving Good Head: An Analysis of the Expectations of Real-Ale Drinkers. That just sort of sets the tone. But I found, at times, that the tone of the book was almost negative. And I can't say that I was overly enthusiastic about the way women were treated - at the risk of sounding like a crazy feminist - I thought they were rather objectified and I felt sort of uncomfortable about it. For example, there's this whole bit in the book where the characters are talking about how in Paris you don't find an apartment to live in, you find a Parisien girl to screw - Sex with Accomodation.
Anyways, perhaps my opinion of this book was doomed from the start. The publishers bill it both as "an urban antidote to A Year in Provence", and as "edgier than Bryson." So, first of all, I loved A Year in Provence, and second of all, I love Bryson. So I had high expectations. It was funny, but alas, it didn't live up to my expectations.