I never would have guessed that in 2012 the hip publishing story of a random week would be an expat memoir about being young and living in Paris. I thought that Francophilia had become obsolete, not to mention unprofitable. Because it's silly, right? isn't it weird that even when Hemingway et al were there they were following a template that was already generations old? that we can't think up anything new?
So I can't figure out how it is that Rosecrans Baldwin's memoir, Paris I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down (titled after an LCD Soundsystem song, groan), is getting so much buzz. The excerpts and reviews I've read suggest that it is, well, drôle, but I haven't seen anything that seems super-insightful. Foreign people do things different, and French people do things different in a frustratingly charming way, that is different than the frustratingly charming way they've always done it.
I suppose it is a testament to the durability of France's cultural gravity. I'm sure not immune: the precise moment my own case of Francophilia appeared came right before freshman year of high school, when I had to pick a language course. I knew already that Spanish would be infinitely more useful, that Latin would bump up my SAT scores, but I just liked the way French sounded. And it would probably impress girls, right?
Four and half years of near daily French language classes followed. Even today, I am amazed that I can read French newspapers and listen to France Inter without too much effort, which is a true tribute to the language-learning capacity of young brains. In my life I've spent approximately 10 days in French-speaking parts of the world, and can't remember the last time I actually spoke French to anyone. That's a stark and painfully ironic comparison with Russian, a language I have fought with for more than twice as long, over the course of years I've spent in Russian-speaking places.
Learning French was as pure an aesthetic thing as I've ever done, so France has been a kind of cultural beacon for me. I loves its books, music, poetry, and still do. I spent a lot of my very modest disposable income on the occasional pack of Gauloises and bottle of Pernod. My first trip abroad was when I was 24, after grad school, and there was nothing disappointing about it. My most sustained and conscious effort at career networking was an effort to find work there when I was still young and unattached.
Along the way, a weird quirk I picked up was a real aversion to other Francophiles. Partly, it was based on resentment and envy of those who were better at it than me, and the subsequent sense of injustice because they clearly understood it at a much shallower level. I once met a graduate student who was studying contemporary French literature, which involved reading lots of books and getting Fulbrights to study in Paris for months at a time. I guess to be fair, he was an okay dude, even though he wore very fancy shoes. One time I asked him just what it was that inspired him. Why France? Perhaps there was something wrong with my ears, but I think his actual response was that, "the French people simply have a certain joie de vivre." I've yet to resolve whether he was really that shallow, or if it was grad student condescension to a self-evidently "dumb question."
I often say, my Russophilia cured my Francophilia. Russia is difficult, does not surrender its charms lightly, and demands a heavy piece of your soul in exchange for a kind of honest, powerful grace that I won't even try to explain here (this is the "Russian soul" I'm often joking about. Or am I joking?). France, on the other hand, seems like a place trying very hard to be the France you want it to be. It is eternal, yet it reinvents itself. It clings to tradition, yet feels achingly modern. It ignores you, even mocks you, but clearly wants your attention. It flirts with you. You feel that a golden past and brilliant future are all right there, together, in the same neat package which is, in its simplest way, just an airplane ride away. (I'd mention Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris here, a movie specifically about Paris and nostalgia which has somehow become one of his highest grossing films. I've already written about how stupid and gross I think that movie was).
America, Russia, China are all wrestling with their own vision of hyperpuissance. Hungarians and eastern Europeans are busy with the hard work of scraping by. France is full-time in the business of radiating Frenchness, which is a shorthand for a variety of very nice things like culture, good food, a beautiful language, perfect gestures, and a self-conscious sense of time and priorities. Of all the rides in God's amusement park, this earth, who could say this is not an important thing?
So says the guy whose cellphone ringtone is "L'Anamour."
So I can't figure out how it is that Rosecrans Baldwin's memoir, Paris I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down (titled after an LCD Soundsystem song, groan), is getting so much buzz. The excerpts and reviews I've read suggest that it is, well, drôle, but I haven't seen anything that seems super-insightful. Foreign people do things different, and French people do things different in a frustratingly charming way, that is different than the frustratingly charming way they've always done it.
I suppose it is a testament to the durability of France's cultural gravity. I'm sure not immune: the precise moment my own case of Francophilia appeared came right before freshman year of high school, when I had to pick a language course. I knew already that Spanish would be infinitely more useful, that Latin would bump up my SAT scores, but I just liked the way French sounded. And it would probably impress girls, right?
Four and half years of near daily French language classes followed. Even today, I am amazed that I can read French newspapers and listen to France Inter without too much effort, which is a true tribute to the language-learning capacity of young brains. In my life I've spent approximately 10 days in French-speaking parts of the world, and can't remember the last time I actually spoke French to anyone. That's a stark and painfully ironic comparison with Russian, a language I have fought with for more than twice as long, over the course of years I've spent in Russian-speaking places.
Learning French was as pure an aesthetic thing as I've ever done, so France has been a kind of cultural beacon for me. I loves its books, music, poetry, and still do. I spent a lot of my very modest disposable income on the occasional pack of Gauloises and bottle of Pernod. My first trip abroad was when I was 24, after grad school, and there was nothing disappointing about it. My most sustained and conscious effort at career networking was an effort to find work there when I was still young and unattached.
Along the way, a weird quirk I picked up was a real aversion to other Francophiles. Partly, it was based on resentment and envy of those who were better at it than me, and the subsequent sense of injustice because they clearly understood it at a much shallower level. I once met a graduate student who was studying contemporary French literature, which involved reading lots of books and getting Fulbrights to study in Paris for months at a time. I guess to be fair, he was an okay dude, even though he wore very fancy shoes. One time I asked him just what it was that inspired him. Why France? Perhaps there was something wrong with my ears, but I think his actual response was that, "the French people simply have a certain joie de vivre." I've yet to resolve whether he was really that shallow, or if it was grad student condescension to a self-evidently "dumb question."
I often say, my Russophilia cured my Francophilia. Russia is difficult, does not surrender its charms lightly, and demands a heavy piece of your soul in exchange for a kind of honest, powerful grace that I won't even try to explain here (this is the "Russian soul" I'm often joking about. Or am I joking?). France, on the other hand, seems like a place trying very hard to be the France you want it to be. It is eternal, yet it reinvents itself. It clings to tradition, yet feels achingly modern. It ignores you, even mocks you, but clearly wants your attention. It flirts with you. You feel that a golden past and brilliant future are all right there, together, in the same neat package which is, in its simplest way, just an airplane ride away. (I'd mention Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris here, a movie specifically about Paris and nostalgia which has somehow become one of his highest grossing films. I've already written about how stupid and gross I think that movie was).
America, Russia, China are all wrestling with their own vision of hyperpuissance. Hungarians and eastern Europeans are busy with the hard work of scraping by. France is full-time in the business of radiating Frenchness, which is a shorthand for a variety of very nice things like culture, good food, a beautiful language, perfect gestures, and a self-conscious sense of time and priorities. Of all the rides in God's amusement park, this earth, who could say this is not an important thing?
So says the guy whose cellphone ringtone is "L'Anamour."
No comments:
Post a Comment