Reading a review of Jill Jonnes’ Eiffel’s Tower by Caroline Weber I was intrigued by tidbits gathered from the article. The long full title of Jonnes’ book itself is intriguing. It reads thus: Eiffel’s Tower, and the World’s Fair where Buffalo Bill beguiled Paris, the Artists Quarreled, and Thomas Edison became a Count. That is the longest title I have seen in a book which is not a scientific treatise. Weber is professor of French in Columbia University, and her review was in the IHT of May 30-31.

That’s what I exclaimed to my second son as he led me to the Eiffel Tower one bright summer day a couple of years ago. He had insisted I join him on a sightseeing week in Paris. I bless him for that; but did not bless his suggestion that happy morning.

"My gawd! I cannot climb that thing! I’ll surely die of heart attack or fall down in a dizzy fit.’’

"Nonsense! You are strong. You climb one step at time and don’t look down. We go up lifts right near the top so there is little actual climbing.’’

"I can’t. I can’t. The top climbing will be the worst. Why are you inviting trouble when we have had such a wonderful time?’’

"No trouble will result. It is perfectly safe and you can do it. You out walk me often, so what is a bit of climbing. And however can you go back home and say you did not climb the Eiffel Tower?’’

"You can’t persuade me and you are not going to force me!’’ I declaimed standing amidst a whole lot of eager tourists.

But when my son said he’d climb and for me to wait for him, however long it took and all alone below, my fear veered in another direction and bloated itself, aided and abetted by my vivid imagination. That’s one thing I do not like to have happen – get separated from him when traveling. I conjure such horrible predicaments: me lost and he nowhere to be seen. That sends me clinging onto his arm all the tighter.

So we went up and as promised it was nothing. My fear forsook me, my nerves were steel until safety was ensured, my legs supported me, and my sense of balance was perfect. The experience of being right up there was totally exhilarating and one felt safe. I even leaned forward to look down at specks of people milling below. When my son suggested we descend, I asked for a longer stay right on the top and a climb part down instead of using a lift!

It’s appropriate to write about the Eiffel Tower and reminisce because its age is close to double the Biblical age. It was declared open in May 1889.

Gustave Eiffel, builder of bridges and aqueducts and visionary millionaire, conceived the Tower as the main attraction of the 1889 Exposition Universalle in Paris, celebrating the centennial of the French Revolution. It was to be "a potent symbol of French modern industrial might, a towering edifice that would exalt science and technology, assert France’s superiority over its rivals, especially America, and entice millions to visit Paris."

France was a new country among the Europeans with its revolution-initiated democratic republic, and its progress in science while most other neighbouring countries were still conservative monarchies. America was the country that France wanted to compete with and America had just then completed its Washington Monument. Here was the challenge and Eiffel met it with his steel structure, 323 meters or 1063 feet high, almost twice as tall as the then pride of the capital of the United States. It remained the tallest building until the Chrysler Building rose in New York in 1930.

The principal challenge in building the Tower was the wind factor. The ingenuity of the engineer Eiffel, was that he gained the building’s resistance to wind. "I submit that the curves of its four piers as produced by our calculations, rising from an enormous base and narrowing toward the top, will give a great impression of strength and beauty," he is reported to have said. The Tower has withstood winds and jets flying low for 120 years, slanting slightly when high winds rock it – two to three inches.

The Tower while planned, constructed and presented to the nation as a stupendous showpiece had equal numbers for and against it. The government of France must have approved since it definitely symbolized the genius, engineering skill and wealth of France. To me it connotes bravado. The surely eccentric engineer must have got immense delight in cocking a snook at his detractors and other nations with his daring building.

Guy de Maupassant was one of the severest critics. He saw the Tower as a monstrosity and affront to his nation’s proud cultural heritage. "This giant and disgraceful skeleton - you see it from everywhere, an unavoidable and horrid nightmare." He is, however, said to have lunched daily in the restaurant in the Tower, his excuse being that that was the only way to enjoy the skyline of Paris without seeing the Tower.

Other critics referred to the engineer’s name Eiffel and pronounced it decidedly was "nothing more nor less than German Jew" though he was a French Catholic. They called the Tower plenty of derisive names and threw derogatory descriptions at it. ‘A lighthouse,’ ‘a nail,’ ‘a chandelier’, ‘a black and gigantic factory chimney’, and a ‘funnel planted on its fat butt’. One critic wrote: "Stretching over the entire city, we shall see the black blot of odious shadow of the odious columns built up of riveted iron plates."

Paul Gauguin, along with James McNeill Whistler, exhibited their work at the Exposition Universalle. Gauguin loved the Tower. To him it was "a triumph of iron: an exciting new art form."

Thomas Edison travelled from America to unveil his new and improved phonograph on the Tower. When my son showed me a room where Eiffel is said to have entertained the great inventor to dinner, I said, "Surely old Edison could not have climbed up so high with no lifts like we have had to come a certain distance at least." "Maybe they hauled him up in a basket" explained my patient son. But dine they did, almost at the top.

Eiffel had rights to the tower for twenty years, then it reverted to the city of Paris which even considered tearing it down. Hitler definitely ordered its demolition in 1944 when the Allies were very close to winning the war. The Nazi military governor of occupied Paris ignored the order, disobeyed his Fuhrer.