Each Wednesday, I review a French-related book. The subject varies, from culture to film to memoir to biography to whatever the heck I feel like reading that week and whatever strikes my fancy at the library or bookshop.
Lately, books by expats in France have begun to irritate me. When I fell in love with my first Francophile narrative — Peter Mayle’s A Year in Provence, bien sur — I couldn’t get enough of the stories. The words exuded warm sensuality, the food he so lusciously describes just sliding off the page and into my mouth, so evocative the writing (yet so simple, in its own quiet way) that I could taste the pate, the rich wine, the sweet apricots on my tongue.
I remember reading excerpts — whole chapters! — to B. on long drives, delighted to be able to share this slice of French country life with my new husband. I could have borrowed the books on tape from the library and spared my throat the ordeal, but I guess I just wanted to be able to roll the words around in my mouth, lingering over my favorite passages, imagining ourselves driving not through dry Texas scrub but rather through the sunny roads of southern France.
Fast forward five years later, and quite frankly, while I still enjoy the occasional book or two about yet another American expatriate discovering life and love in France, I realize that if I were to stack up my small collection of such books, I’d actually feel not a little resentment welling inside me rather than vicarious delight. A little jealousy? A little sour grapes? Maybe. But I think part of it simply lies in the fact that, well, quite a few of the writers just seem so…smug.
You know what I mean? Oh, life is so perfect here in France! I never knew what a miserable experience America was until I landed in the Cote d’Azur! I can’t believe what a wonderful, romantic, intelligent, poetic, rich, witty, handsome, brilliant husband I’ve married! And of course, he’s French! American life was so meaningless — now I’ve truly seen the light, and it’s bright yellow and emanates from the most perfect moon! Oh, Frenchwomen are such paragons of perfection! American women are such cows in comparison to them!
Ahem. You see where I’m going with this.
It was thus with some hesitation that I approached Kristin Espinasse‘s book, Words in a French Life, published by Simon & Schuster in 2006. The book originally began life as posts on Mme. Espinasse’s blog called French Word a Day, which still continues today (although it appears that Mme. Espinasse now has time only for a thrice-weekly post rather than the daily schedule the blog title indicates).
For the most part, I was happy to be disabused of my growing prejudices against expats-in-France books. Mme. Espinasse writes with a simple, delicate grace, her love of her adopted language obvious in the care with which she takes to define each French phrase or word she uses in each chapter. The “bonus” terms she adds at the end of each chapter, to further elaborate on the linguistic uses for the “word-of-the-day,” are a testament to her dogged and admirable attempts to plumb the depths of this precise, exquisite language.
The book is divided into very short (perhaps two or three pages in length, at the most) chapters, each of which is devoted to a particular French word or phrase, 100-150 in total. This isn’t a vocabulary book but rather a loosely arranged collection of short-short stories of Mme. Espinasse’s life in France, each of which serves as an extended example of the chosen word’s usage. In a less gifted writer’s hands, it could have been a real clunker of a book, but Mme. Espinasse has a firm grasp of her native tongue, and each story stands on its own as a tightly written glimpse into her charmed life as a gorgeous Frenchman’s wife and the mother of two precocious (and aren’t they all?) children.
I enjoyed the book’s unique arrangement of the stories. There’s really no overarching theme other than the usual “Look at how quirky, how funny, how utterly wonderful my new life in France is!” Mme. Espinasse, however, can be forgiven for the occasional forays into self-satisfaction as she waxes lyrically about her incredible husband and her equally amazing children. The many, many little anecdotes she shares with her readers about everything from French housekeeping to the Frenchwoman’s aforementioned perfection to the harrowing experience she and her oldest, Max, encountered while walking through a supermarche parking lot, allow one to indulge in a tiny bit of French provincial life — albeit vicariously — a hundred (or more) different times in a hundred (or more) different ways. Nothing here will surprise the devoted Francophile, but anyone looking for a casual, enjoyable read on a lazy dimanche apres-midi will appreciate the good writing and good living that this book promises.
Of course, I’m waiting for a different kind of expat book, one that will cast a different light on France, a more realistic and ultimately more insightful scrutiny into modern French life. Where are the immigrants who make up an increasingly large proportion of the population? Where are the angry, disaffected suburban residents left out of the Sunday-lunch-in-the-country-house experience? Where are the urban professionals feeling the painful pinch of globalization and the realization that their privileges of days gone by (35-hour workweeks, two-hour lunches with three glasses of wine) are fast disappearing? Where are the “expats” (usually Asian) who make the leisure class’ life so very, well, leisurely? Where are the feminists who aren’t enamored with the idea of maintaining perfection 24-7? Where’s the snark?
That is the book I’ve been longing to read. In the meantime, however, there appears to be no dearth of expats-in-love doorstoppers filling the shelves at my local Borders, so there must still be an audience for yet another story about an American who discovers that life really does only exist in France.
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{ 14 comments }
I know what you mean about being irritated by expat books. I have never read Peter Mayle’s “A Year in Provence.” I started to listen to it last night on tape as a treat on my drive home and I am sorry to say I hated it. Ugh! It might have just been the narration or my PMS. But, I found it so distasteful I thought about throwing the tapes out my window
( I only chose not to so I wouldn’t litter). I am however not a country loving gal. Not for me.
My reaction was so strong that I started to question my sentimental love of France. I still feel a philosophical pangs of infection from the whole experience and fear I am going to have to delve more deeply into my romantic notions about Paris. Drats! I hate consciousness
Bonjour, LBR!
I’m so glad I’m not the only one! I do like some expat-in-France books, namely Adam Gopnik’s classic Paris to the Moon, but I don’t necessarily place his book in the same category as the many dozens that come out every year, all with the same theme of How I Bought a Piece of Rural France and Changed My Life. I mean, haven’t publishers tired of such me-too books already? I suppose it’s the same phenomenon as the sequel syndrome in films.
I really loved A Year in Provence, but I think that if I had read it after I’d already plowed through its many copycats, I would find it equally irritating as well.
I think I could learn to love the country, but I like the idea of living near enough to a big city to enjoy its many, many amenities. When I lived in Japan, I lived in a small rural area and loved it. I did, however, make sure to visit the big city (two hours away by air-con bus) at least once a month for my urban fix!
I think that you of anyone will enjoy Paris even more than many of these romantic expats. The Paris I envision for the likes of you and me is the Paris of Moulin Rouge, La Boheme, and the Existentialists. Not St. Germain or the Vuittion boutiques or the Lancome temple, but of the bookshops and out-of-the-way cafes and museums, the fringes that attract writers like moths to a flame.
Have you read Time Was Soft There, by Jeremy Mercer? You might enjoy that — it’s about his time as a homeless writer taking up space at Shakespeare & Co.
Salut,
Marjorie
This is why when I need my France fix, I read happy stuff like Baudelaire or coherent stuff like Mallarmé. As for the reality of life over there, I just chat online with my pal. She complains about stuff just like we do here, just mostly in French.
We really do want to romanticize the place and experiences we’ll have, even if we won’t admit it. But that’s true no matter where you want to visit or live.
Hell, I freely admit I want to sit in a Parisian park or along the Seine or outside Notre Dame and write some bad poetry on a cloudy day.
Hi Marjorie,
I discovered your blog several weeks ago and like you, I’m a 30+ Fil-Am. Aside from the two years of French I took in high school (and quickly forgot) and the occasional great film, I never gave the French a second thought -that is until I married one.
If these expat authors believe France is the place to be, they should talk to my husband. I’ve bugged him about living in France but under no circumstances will he even consider it (maybe retirement). He thinks the highly thought of and treasured french culture can be a hindrance to progress. Perhaps he and Zarkosy would get along.
Personally, I think there’s always a positive and negative side to wherever you are, be it France, the US or the Philippines. It would be hard for me to compare any of these places since they offer different things. And thank the Lord for that!
-a francophile by default,
Joanne
I’ve wanted to read this book for a while but I think I’ve O.D. on travel essay’s in general. I’m ready to write my own…good experiences or not.
I can’t find your email.
Hell, Marjorie, that’s the book I want to write!
Maybe it’s time I get off my duff and do it…
I too am annoyed by many expat books. I wasn’t crazy about this one, but it’s probably just jealousy. Espinasse had an idea, stuck with it, and made it — more power to her!
In the meantime, I have to rush off to work and drop my girls off to school. It’s only 7:15am — how’s that for leisurely?
Bonjour, Randal! I’m with you. I still long for the time when I can visit Parisian cafes and spend entire afternoons writing and reading. Will I stand out too much if I wear a beret?
I’m all for romanticizing a place. It’s just that, well, I guess I’ve grown very tired of the slew of expat books that paint such rosy pictures of their life in France. Very smug, very self-satisfied. At some point, they all start sounding exactly alike.
Bonjour, Joanne! Thank you so much for visiting and commenting! It’s so cool to meet a fellow Filipina Francophile. There’s actually another one whom I’ve met through her blog. Her name’s Lucille, and her blog is http://cherishdreamlive.blogspot.com/. She’s married to a Frenchman as well but does live in France.
I’m curious as to why your husband thinks that traditional French culture is regressive. In some ways I agree with him, but what do I know? I’m just an observer. I’d love it if you shared some of his thoughts on Sarkozy and the future of France and the EU.
Colleen, I think that’s why I rarely read travel books. At some point, I realized that I was tired of reading about someone else’s adventures abroad and was ready to make some of my own. Now that I’ve a few under my belt, I need to just sit my butt in a chair and start writing the damn thing.
As for my email address, it’s myinnerfrenchgirl at gmail dot com. Merci!
Betty, oh please write it! I would love to read it. Based on what I’ve read so far in your posts and comments, you seem to have just the right amount of snark to create a really unique “expat” book.
And I agree, I think part of my reaction to Espinasse’s book was pure envy. However, like you, I admired her tenacity in not only doing the research for each of her vocabulary words, but also in writing her blog, self-publishing two books, and finishing the third one (the one I reviewed). Discipline, discipline, discipline.
Salut,
Marjorie
Thanks for the link to Lucille in France. I think I’ve actually visited her site but have yet to comment. I’d like to share Xavier’s (my husband) opinions about his home country but as it may be a long post I thought email might be a better medium. Luckily I noticed you gave your email address to another visitor. I don’t want to be presumptious so if it’s okay would it be fine to write you?
-joanne
Hi, Joanne! Sure, no problem. Feel free to email me whenever you wish. I only actually put up the address just this morning, after Colleen’s comment alerted me to the fact that it wasn’t posted. Anyway, I look forward to chatting with you!
Salut,
Marjorie
Snarky…that is what I wanted Cassoulet Cafe to be
To be honest, I too was sick of reading about how utterly PERFECT everything French is, and wanted to write about the good, bad and ugly of France on CC. I just need more material now, maybe I’ll get it when I spend the month there soon.
I’ll buy it!!!!! I love your writing style and wit. 
I think YOU should move to France, and then write THE book you want to read.
Think about it.
The book “A Year in the Merde” wasn’t all good, but not really non-fiction.
But a part of the travel essays are to feed ones dreams. We might have outgrown them and therefore need a different type of travelog. I loved being on the “France is so awesome” bandwagon for a long time. Reading the dreamy books were great as a placebo. Now, I want facts, good and bad.
However, I’m not all convinced that there WERE some not so good things in most of the Frenchy travel essays…I just don’t remember the bad so much now.
Marjorie, that’s part of France’s allure, that she has warts too. All nations do, which is why, like you, I find a lot of those books hard to slog through. Unless you’re raking in insane amounts of cash, you’re going to have mundane problems. And the last time I checked, Utopia hasn’t been invented yet.
France can still be groovy even with some of that bad. Plus, that’s real.
Dear CC, and that’s why I love your blog! As Randal says above, every country has its share of positives and negatives. What I don’t appreciate about the conventional expat books is their rose-colored visions of France that they try to sell to their readers. Surely that’s not the whole story? ‘Cause if it is, well, then I hate them.
I’m so looking forward to your trip and your reports about France, especially the snarky ones!
As for my moving there, well, that probably won’t happen for a good long time. But trust me, I’m a-thinkin’ about it.
Colleen, I don’t remember much of the negative stuff either, but perhaps the bucolic passages just overwhelmed them in my memory banks. I never read Year in the Merde, although I’ve heard of it.
Randal, the book I’d love to read about France right now would be written from the perspective of an expat-of-color. (Ugh. What an awkward phrase. But there you go.) I would be interested in viewing the environment of, say, rural France through the eyes of someone like Langston Hughes or Josephine Baker, an artist with an independent spirit and a rich talent, if not wallet. Someone like a Zadie Smith transplanted into the heart of Paris or the soul of Provence. A working class artist navigating the complicated world of French life.
I think Peter Mayle actually retired to Provence after a long and successful career as an advertising executive. Definitely not the working class.
Salut,
Marjorie
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