One Can Never Have Too Many

One can never have too many books about Paris and French life. As sometimes happens, when it rains it pours. In the past few days two books have arrived to sweeten my bookshelf concerning both.

Every Frenchman Has One is written by a woman who, depending on your age, you might or might not have heard of: Olivia de Haviland. Yes, that Olivia de Haviland, the award winning actress who starred in many films and might best be known for her role as Melanie in Gone With the Wind. 

In 1955, Ms. de Haviland married Pierre Galante, editor of the French journal Paris Match, and moved from Hollywood to Paris. This memoir is the result of her learning to adapt to la vie française. I haven't started reading it yet, so I can't tell who or what 'one' every Frenchman has, but I am eager to find out. At a mere 140 pages, I suspect this will be a breezy, delightful read.

Ms. de Haviland was born in 1916 and this book, originally published in 1962, was reissued in 2016 in honor of her centennial birthday. As of this writing, she is still living in Paris.

Parisian Charm School is written by American author Jamie Cat Callan.  Raise your hand if you think you could benefit from a bit of Parisian je ne sais quoi. 

Ms. Callan, inspired by her French grandmother, has written several books about the allure of the French lifestyle. This latest one is set up as a series of classes. At the end of every chapter (dining, reading, travel, fashion, etc.) she includes a charm school lesson - something to think about - and a charm school pratique - something to do.

So here we have one book that looks at life in France decades ago and the other that offers a take on its more modern charms.

These deux livres should keep me entertained and amused over the holidays. Until next time, wishing you a

Joyeux Noel et Bonne Année.

Staying at Home and Travelling to France with Vivian Swift

Would you rather savor the joys of home or travel to France?

With these two books by author/artist Vivian Swift you can do both. They can each be picked up and enjoyed for a long read or just a brief sojourn. But really, they are more of an education and an experience than just books to read.

The first, When Wanderers Cease to Roam, I bought several years ago. It's publication date is 2008. Subtitled A Traveler's Journal of Staying Put, it is Ms. Swift's record, captured in words and watercolors, of coming to rest for a year in a village on the Long Island Sound after ten years of world travel. 

Through the pages of her monthly entries Ms. Swift shares her days and nights, reminisces about her many travels, records the weather, introduces her cats and neighbors, looks to the stars, drinks tea, muses on sweaters and mittens, and finds new uses for her now languishing suitcases. 

I know why I bought this book - I love Ms. Swift's watercolors and illustrations. They express the joy of the every day. Simple lines. Clear colors. All that I strive for in my own sketchbook renderings.

The text is handwritten by the author which would normally put me off, but the words are clearly formed and not at all difficult to read. Her writing is energetic and entertaining. I feel I have stumbled upon one of her secret art journals.

Her collection of teacups

I am looking forward to the colors of autumn 

that Vivian Swift captures here.

---

As enamored as I was with her first book, I was delighted to discover that Ms. Swift has a second book titled Le Road Trip. It has a publication date of 2012 and lucky for us she gave up on staying put. Here is her chronicle of a trip to France with her husband James. In her inimitable style she paints the sites of Paris, Bayeux, the Normandy beaches, Mont Saint-Michel, Chartres (all places I have been), and the villages and towns in Brittany and Bordeaux (haven't made it there yet).

Laundry day in Normandy

Although it is a book about her travels in France it is also a book about the art of travel: the anticipation, comforts and discomforts, ups and downs, wrong turns, dimly lit hotel rooms, and coming home.

It is full of more of her lovely illustrations — cafes, steeples, gardens, and countrysides — and her lively text. But, be warned: this book may prompt your own excursion to Paris and beyond. 

Ooh-là-là! That could be a good thing. 

Les gâteaux

Flirting with French by William Alexander

As someone who has tried over the years to learn French, I can certainly empathize with the brain pain and heartbreak of William Alexander in his book Flirting with French. The subtitle says it all: How a Language Charmed Me, Seduced Me & Nearly Broke My Heart.

This is his tale of not only wanting to learn French but really wanting to be French. Before a bike trip through Brittany and Provence with his wife Anne, Mr. Alexander decides to buckle down and learn les mots française. As he is 57 years old, this is not the easiest of tasks and his time spent studying using a Rosetta Stone language course has mixed results. 

Once back to America from his trip, he redoubles his efforts to learn his bonjours et bonsoirs. In addition to laughing at his comic struggles with this self-imposed task, I have been treated to, among other things: a brief history of the Battle of Hastings; the quirky workings of the Académie français, the official authority on the French language; and a chapter on his attempts to make croissants from Julia Child's recipe (they were délicieux).

I took two years of French in high school. I have bought and listened to numerous French language instruction tapes, have at least three French-English dictionaries on my bookshelves plus a variety of How to Learn French textbooks, and have taken adult education classes in the language. 

I have been twice to Paris on my own and was determined to at least speak a little of the native tongue. I think it paid off although my speaking to someone and my understanding of their response were two different things.

Alas. I am in the same boat (le bateau) as Mr. Alexander. The striving to be fluent in this beautiful language has been more of a dream (I wonder what it is like to dream in French?) than a reality. And yet, I persist.

I am reminded that there is no word in French for seventy, eighty, or ninety. No wonder numbers are so difficult. And don't even get me started on the wacky assignment of gender to words. For example, beard is feminine; chicken is masculine. Go figure.

This book is full of fun and fun facts and le français. Even if you don't speak a word of French (although you know you want to), I think you will find this witty book a treat.

Have you had any experience trying to learn a language as an adult? What were the results?

Two Books: Sixpence House and The Bookseller

There is a footnote on page 123 in Sixpence House that reads: Please accept my apologies: this book is a disappointment. The author, Paul Collins, is writing about something else, but I couldn't help thinking that he could be referring to his own book. 

The premise is a fine one: American writer (Mr. Collins) moves with wife and young son from San Francisco to Hay-on-Wye in Wales. Hay is known as the 'town of books' and is home to dozens of bookstores and a literary festival. There is even a castle. How could this possibly go awry?

I so wanted to like this book but never could quite get the point of Mr. Collins's rambling account. It seemed to be part journal, part disjointed dialogue that was neither enlightening nor entertaining, and part record of obscure facts that often seemed forced and didn't really advance the story. Finally, there was a sense that many of the episodes were simply the result of timed writing exercises.

Sixpence House refers to an ancient pub that Mr. Collins thought about buying in an effort to settle in Hay. That didn't work out. Unfortunately, in my eyes, neither did this book.

I took my leave of Mr. Collins and the bookstores of Hay-on-Wye and traveled south to the bookstalls in Paris where I got lost in a new-to-me mysteries series. 

The Bookseller by Mark Pryor introduces a worthy protagonist to the world of crime solving. Hugo Marston is a former FBI profiler and now is head of security at the U.S. Embassy in Paris. A bibliophile himself, he befriends Max, one of the elderly bouquinistes selling books from a stall along the Seine. When Max is kidnapped right before Hugo's eyes, the adventure begins. Does his disappearance have to do with a rare book? Drugs? An old grudge? Someone's greed for money and power? 

I followed Hugo and his friend, ex-CIA agent Tom Green (whose every sentence is expletive-filled which I admit grew quite tiresome), along with Claudia Roux, a journalist and Hugo's newest flame through the narrow streets of Paris, into a French count's well-stocked library of rare first editions, on to a handful of literary sites, and, of course, a few refreshing stops at the cafés and patisseries of the city.

Hugo Marston is a fine upstanding fellow. He hails from Texas and it doesn't perturb him one bit to wear his cowboy boots with his tuxedo to a formal dinner. But he is not a Good Ol' Boy. He lives in a terrific fifth-floor apartment on Rue Condorcet that is filled with books and has a balcony that overlooks the city's rooftops. Not quite the wide open spaces of Texas, but for him it will do.

There are five more mysteries is this series including The Button Man, a prequel that recounts Hugo's post at the U.S. Embassy in London. I can hardly wait to join him on his next adventure.

Bounty from the Book Sale

I had a marvelous time at the Locust Grove Used Book Sale yesterday. Each time I go to this twice-a-year event, there seem to be more and more people. Good for the historic home, but it makes getting to the books a bit of work. But everyone is in a good mood, so we just jostle and browse and chat. It is all quite festive.

I donated five books from my shelves to the cause. It is getting more and more difficult to cull my collection though because the majority of the books I buy, I buy because I want to keep them. I am down to the keepers, books that were gifts, souvenirs from one of the Grand Southern Literary Tours, or books from my family shelves.

At the sale I showed restraint and did well with a net gain of three books. Here they are:

I was happy to find two books I had not read by Peter Mayle, Chasing Cezanne, an art caper, and A Good Year, the story of a British fellow who inherits his uncle's vineyard in Provence. Apparently this last one was made into a movie starring Albert Finney.

The Good Husband of Zebra Drive is by Alexander McCall Smith and is the eighth in The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series. I have read all the books but only own the first one. I like the look of these hardcover editions by Pantheon so I snatched up this one. Looks like I am starting a collection!

Machiavelli's Lawn is an anthology of garden writings in the style of twelve writers from Raymond Carver on planting a hanging basket to Pablo Neruda on pruning roses. It is written and illustrated by Mark Crick. I picked it up not realizing that it was a parody on the listed writers' works, but it looks to be fun.

I am always on the lookout for vintage volumes. I did not know of Ernest Dimnet but discovered he was a French writer and his book The Art of Thinking was popular in the 1930s. Maybe reading it will help me think!

I like vintage Modern Library editions and this nice clean copy contains both of Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (which I have never read) and A Journal of the Plague Year which I once started but never finished although I remember it to be quite fascinating. It is an account of London in 1665 during its battle with The Great Plague.

So You're Going to Paris! is a vintage guide to the City of Light. It was written by Clara E. Laughlin in 1924. It depicts a Paris just after World War I. But this edition, published in 1948 has been updated to reflect a Paris after WWII and the German Occupation. This is one in a series that the American Ms. Laughlin wrote for women travelers. I love reading travel books no matter what the age.

Frugal Luxuries by the Seasons by Tracy McBride is the only paperback book I purchased. It looks to contain everything needed to celebrate the changes in the year from recipes to wreath making to flower arranging to cleaning out one's pantry. As the seasons seem to all run into one another, maybe this book will help them - and me - slow down.

Paris, je t'aime

Ah. Another movie featuring the streets and sights of Paris.

Paris je t'aime is a film made up of 18, five-minute stories set in different neighborhoods of Paris. Characters find the beginning of love, the end of love, and the mysteries of love in these assorted vignettes. There are soft-spoken French actors and the more rambunctious American actors. There is a cameo by Oscar Wilde, a vampiress, a mime, and, of course, the arrondisements of the city.

My two favorites just happen to be the final two sketches:

In "Quartier Latin", Ben Gazzara and Gena Rowlands play a long-married and yet long-separated couple who meet in a cafe the night before they are to sign their final divorce papers. Gérard Depardieu (it is always nice to see him) plays the patron of the cafe. The couple's reunion is bittersweet as there is still much affection between the two.

In "14e Arrondissement", Margo Martindale plays an older solo tourist on her first visit to Paris. Her  scenes are narrated with a voice-over of the report that she has written for her French class recounting her days in the city. As she sits on a park bench taking in all that is around her, she thinks:

Sitting there, alone in a foreign country, far from my job and everyone I know, a feeling came over me. It was like remembering something I'd never known before or had always been waiting for, but I didn't know what. Maybe it was something I'd forgotten or something I've been missing all my life. All I can say is that I felt, at the same time, joy and sadness. But not too much sadness, because I felt alive. Yes, alive. That was the moment I fell in love with Paris. And I felt Paris fall in love with me.

Ah, oui. Paris, je t'aime!

Into a Paris Quartier

Read all day. In one sitting finished Into a Paris Quartier by Diane Johnson. Another in the National Geographic series.

What I learned was that Edith Wharton lived at 54 rue de Varenne and that is where she wrote French Ways and Their Meanings (which I just finished yesterday). I must have walked past her apartment in September 2010 many times as I stayed for a week at the Hotel De Varenne, on rue de Bourgogne, just around the corner. Johnson refers to Wharton's book which she wrote as an explanation of the French to the American soldiers stationed in and around Paris in World War One.

Johnson lives in the St.Germain-de-Pres area on the Left Bank. As of the 2005 publication date of the book, she lives in Paris for six months and in San Francisco for the rest of the year.

Good news. Downton Abbey Season Two begins tonight on PBS. I don't have a television but can watch episodes on my laptop. I rented the DVD of season one and was enchanted. And lustful for that way of life. Who wouldn't be? And now have rewatched the season on PBS. I even took the quiz as to which character I most resembled: Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham, of course.  Dame Maggie Smith gets all the best lines.

Plummy.