Book Review: All You Need to be Impossibly French

Can one really be “impossibly” anything? Doesn’t that sound like a word made up by a grammatically-challenged simpleton? If the word “impossible” is an adjective used to denote something that isn’t, well, possible, then how can be be, say, Impossibly French? As Audrey Hepburn said in at least two films, “The mind reels.”

Anyway, that’s a rather silly preface to the review of a book that, in some ways, is rather silly itself. And I realize that I’m trampling on quite a few toes, namely those belonging to fans of the inimitable Helena Frith Powell, doyenne of all things French for her British compatriots. (In the U.K., the book is published under the decidedly more risque and therefore more interesting title Two Lipsticks and a Lover: A Year in Suspenders.) It’s not that I didn’t care for the book — indeed, I read it in less than two days. It’s a quick, easy read, and one that will undoubtedly be on the shelves of many a wistful Francophile, right up there with Entre Nous and French Women Don’t Get Fat. (Good books, all.)

However, I did wonder if perhaps, in the mad rush to make it to American bookshops and therefore into the hands of desperate American women longing to be “impossibly French,” the publishers surrendered certain standards with regard to quality control. Perhaps I’m being a stick-in-the-mud, but I find the American title moronic (and did I mention illogical?), and to be frank, the text needs serious editing. It’s not as bad as the very slipshod Chic & Slim series by Anne Barone, but large parts of it did make me wince.

But enough about the minute details (and considering that one of the author’s points about being “impossibly French” is that one must always attend to the smallest detail) and on to the crux of the narrative. Frith Powell is a breezy, if not brilliant writer, her style mirroring closely that which you’d find in any glossy women’s mag. It works well as a sort of non-fic chick lit, dishing up all kinds of girly advice on how to seduce, stay slim, avoid temptations, carry on an affair, engage in intellectual (read: interesting) conversations and debates, and most important of all, select the proper underwear (Job One: they must always match). Seasoned Francophiles will find little here that they haven’t discovered elsewhere, but it’s still a fun read all the same. The author throws in anecdotes of conversations with such iconic Frenchwomen as Ines de la Fressange and Segolene Royal, as well as numerous Parisian and rural friends she’s made in the years since she moved to the Languedoc region in southern France with her husband and five children.

She can get annoying at times, particularly when she expresses shock at certain differences between Frenchwomen and their British and American counterparts. She refers often to the British woman’s habit of “letting herself go” by “occasionally” going on a bender, which to me seems not a bit appealing but rather bordering on alcoholism. She reveals a funny naivete, such as when she marvels at how Frenchwomen begin shaving their legs at the average age of eleven. When I was in junior high — fresh off the boat from the Philippines, where at the time a small amount of leg hair was considered sexy — I was taken to task by several girls in my gym class who observed the little tendrils curling off my shins. I still remember the humiliation. Yet Frith Powell seems to be under the impression that only Frenchwomen subject their prepubescent peers to such treatment. Nuh-uh.

Worse is when she takes on a slightly patronizing tone of voice, as when she admits to occasionally wanting to scream at her French friends and their complex beauty regimens, smoking habits, iron-clad parental discipline, and breastfeeding aversion. I wanted to throw the book across the room whenever I sensed that she was about to adopt a holier-than-thou attitude. Sure, breastfeeding is fantastic and should be recommended to most postnatal women, but does she have to be so judgmental about it? The fact that the French live longer, healthier lives than her fellow Brits and my fellow Americans should be testament enough that, regardless of what we may think about their nursing practices, they’re doing something right.

Still, I enjoyed the book and would recommend it to any Francophile, including men. She dissects the art of seduction with both male and female friends, Brit and French and even a Hungarian or two, and even introduces a bit of mystery with the introduction of a dashing French MP (is there any other kind?) who seems to take more than an intellectual interest in Madame Frith Powell (photo at left). She offers lots of useful tips and insights into the Frenchwoman’s legendary beauty, including the very comforting fact that most of them — even among the very discriminating Parisians — can’t afford most of what the haute couture houses offer and satisfy their sartorial needs at mass retailers such as Zara and Hennes (better known here as H&M). As my own budget can only accommodate designer pieces sold at consignment shops, that little factoid alone is worth the price of the book.

Of course, I loved the chapter narrating the elevated status of intellectualism and its practitioners in France (yay, Simone de Beauvoir!). Right up there with the knowledge that one can dress with threads from Target (my favorite chain shop) and still be chic is the insight that beauty can never be enough — you must have brains to go along with it, or you’re just an pretty, but empty vessel. Not that I find this especially earth-shattering — women have known for millenia that a handsome face can only take a relationship so far. Pretty boys with dull conversations do not successful relationships make. I would imagine that men — the ones worthy of our attention anyway — feel much the same way.

Overall, a good, delicious read, especially when one’s Inner French Girl needs a little inspiration. I — and I imagine most readers of this book — live nowhere near a culture or society that supports women’s beauty, ageing, and intellect to the extent that the French do, so one definitely does need books like this one to shore up one’s courage and self-discipline when they flag (as they often do, especially when confronted with massive amounts of holiday food and those horrendous Christmas sweaters that actually play music when a cord is pulled. Shudder.). If you need any more excuses to pamper your body, your mind, your face, and your spirit, this book has plenty for you.

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