I have yet to master the art of tying a scarf so that I look chic rather than…strangled. Occasionally I get it right, but more often than not I end up with two loose ends desperate to meet but which can’t seem to do so without compromising my overall look.
I own a Fendi, but not a single Chanel, not even the perfume.
I drive a Geo rather than a Peugeot.
My French language skills is limited to what I learned in high school, although for some reason I remember more from those two years than I do from six semesters of college-level Spanish linguistics, grammar and conversation.
Being a Francophile means many things to me, not the least of which is pursuing a life of the mind, the spirit as well as of the flesh, but right now I seem to be doing a bang-up job with the two former, and a rather dismal one of the latter. It’s not that the aforementioned flesh is weak, mind you, and that the spirit is gung-ho, but rather that, as a true-blue geek and obsessive reader, art and politics and culture and literature represent creature comforts to me; in the fashion world, however, I’m still very much a virgin.
If you read any of the more popular books targeting American Francophiles, you can be forgiven for believing that plumbing the secrets of the French Woman (TM) means nothing more than buying an Hermes scarf, munching on a morning baguette with one’s cafe au lait, and keeping one’s Chanel Rouge lipstick tucked away, ever ready, in one’s Louis Vuitton handbag. For the vast majority of us poor Yankees without the budget or the inclination to walk around in six-inch heels and leaving contrails of Coco in our wake, however, it can be awfully demoralizing to think that a wardrobe of Gap tees and Levi’s jeans might disqualify us from ever being chic or being mistaken for French.
And it’s with this unhappy prospect that I approached Debra Ollivier’s new book, What French Women Know: About Love, Sex, and Other Matters of the Heart and Mind
Ollivier, who also penned the popular Entre Nous: A Woman’s Guide to Finding Her Inner French Girl
To my surprise and delight, this is not a book for the woman seeking diet tips or advice on how to tie a scarf, or even how to land a Frenchman, although the assumption is that by carefully studying this almost academic text, you’ll be better prepared to actually meet a real Frenchman than if you were to simply zip to Paris as your wild, unadulterated and untamed American self. It’s not that Ollivier doesn’t offer any insights as to, say, why French women don’t get fat (Answer? The culture doesn’t allow them to, dahling, as Mireille Guiliano herself pointed out in her books.), but that she has loftier ambitions with her carefully researched book.
The author offers not only personal experiences and that of her friends and acquaintances but also surveys, research studies as well as pithy quotes from everyone from Marlene Dietrich to Proust. She illuminates the French Woman’s psyche by pointing out that her very soul is driven by the understanding of “the brevity of time and the immediacy of pleasure,” a phrase repeated verbatim throughout the book. I suppose having that as one’s underlying philosophy explains the French passion for, well, passion and love and sex and food and all those other things that endow life with meaning.
According to Ollivier, what French Women know is that ambition, money, power, material consumption, profligacy, puritanism, sexual repression, and all those other things that so plague American culture and society, are but obstacles to the pursuit of pleasure and instead contribute to pain and suffering. French women enjoy a long and rich history of women who have “had it all,” not in the new American sense (work/life balance, professional success, equally successful and handsome husband, house in the ‘burbs, two cars in the garage, one bathroom for every household member), but rather in the very French sense of possessing a life overflowing with love and sex and intelligence and the respect of their men.
As if that weren’t enough to make you wish you were born in France, Ollivier goes on to point out that they’re also quite indifferent towards the goal of perfection that we American women so desperately seek; they’re pragmatic about the limits of love while at the same time are relentless in their willingness to push them; their deep and abiding respect for Freudian psychoanalysis (largely discredited in American psychiatry) has provided them with an understanding of human psychology that allows for the wholehearted embrace of our most primal (and thus most human) instincts; and, oh, they’re much, much more mature about the way they approach love and family and even adultery than we priggish Americans are, and are thus able to maintain remarkable social harmony despite all that infidelity and premarital sex.
No wonder we American women have such a love/hate relationship towards our French sisters. If we’re to believe Ollivier, not only do they have better sex and better marriages, they also aren’t plagued with the nasty inner demons of self-doubt, self-loathing and self-criticism that seems to come part and parcel of the aforementioned American Dream, at least for American women. Ollivier’s thesis seems to be not that we’ve been sold a bill of goods, but rather that we’ve brought much of our own problems on ourselves. Who wrote that awful, regressive book The Rules, after all? Two American women.
Now, if you’re beginning to suspect that I’m having some doubts about Ollivier’s thesis, you’re on the right track. While I applaud the author’s attempt to go beyond the superficial comparisons between French and American women, I have a serious bone to pick with her about her rather unsavory, condescending and — in some cases — downright mean portrayals of the latter.
Ollivier does have a beautiful capacity to not only showcase what it is about French women that foreigners find so exciting and alluring, but also to carefully explain why they are what they are. She pulls out the gamut of experiences and examples, from the love story of Heloise and Abelard, to the writings of Edith Wharton and Ralph Waldo Emerson, to the example of the Marquise du Chatelet. Numerous French sociologists, journalists and philosophers are quoted at length, including the writers of Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong: Why We Love France but Not the French
Alas, however, when Ollivier turns her attention to the flaws and foibles of her American sisters, the book often reads like a high school paper (albeit a well-written one) on pop culture, with its liberal use of quotes and examples from very American cultural symbols such as The Bachelor, Something’s Gotta Give, The Graduate, New Yorker cartoons, Spanglish (???), Helen Reddy, Sex and the City, the ubiquitous Happy Face, Desperate Housewives, Doris Day, and yes, The Rules. In other words, while the French are allowed Baudelaire, Colette and Flaubert, we get…Adam Sandler, Bill Maher and Marlon Brando? (We don’t even get the sexy, smoldering Marlon Brando in his On the Waterfront heyday, but rather the fat and aging Brando of Last Tango in Paris.) Even the very American, Brooklyn-born Mae West is described not as American, but as an “Honorary French Girl.” (We can’t even claim Mae West as our own.)
That’s not even including the rather tasteless joke that opens Chapter Six: Art de Vivre, one of those digs at global stereotypes at the expense of Americans, especially the American woman, and which in this book is somehow employed as a sociological explanation of why we Yankee females can’t keep a man. I wouldn’t be surprised if this joke were to be found in any of those countless Web sites that promise to introduce American men to “Oriental women.”
If that’s all Anglo-Saxon culture and history had to offer its female citizens, well, yes, it wouldn’t be too far-fetched to believe that we are indeed culturally and intellectually impoverished, but obviously, despite our relatively young history as a country, America has contributed quite a lot more to literature, film, music, and even philosophy, than Ollivier gives it credit for. And despite what she may believe, movies — especially those produced by Hollywood’s major studios — do not usually reflect the messy, complex nature of intimate life in America.
I would really like to recommend this book, and frankly, Ollivier’s writing alone is worth even just a quick read. Despite the book’s flaws, it’s obvious that it was written with a great deal of care and forethought, and that she has spent considerable time studying and researching her chosen subject. Also, there’s still a great deal that one can learn about why the French woman attracts such attention; why we Francophiles devour these kinds of books; and why we believe that our French sisters possess the secret to happiness. Ollivier offers us plenty of food for thought, if not the answers we seek.
I just wish that she would give American women at least some credit, and not elevate the French woman at our expense. After all, despite all the fawning over Segolene Royal, all the comparisons between her and our own female politicians, how much more self-assured and self-possessed and unabashedly womanly she is…lest we forget, she did ultimately lose the election. And surely there’s a reason why our favorite ambassador of French femininity, Mireille Guiliano, has chosen to make her home in the United States rather than in France. (And yes, I realize I’m repeating myself, but I’ll reiterate once more my theory as to why Guiliano is so well-loved in our country, and that’s because she can teach us a thing or two about the secrets of French women while at the same time celebrating what makes us uniquely American.)
And of course, I’m quite proud of the fact that Muslim women can wear their head scarves and even burqas here in our country without fear that their choice of dress will be the subject of legislation. The impression that I have is that France is a wonderful country for white women, but religious and ethnic minorities — especially those who aren’t members of the middle-class and who desire to maintain some of their native traditions and customs — live a very different reality.
Read this book with the intention of understanding more about the French woman, beyond the expensive scarves and overpriced creams and lingerie. Ollivier does offer keen insights into what makes the French woman tick and how one might be able to achieve some of that allure and self-confidence. Be forewarned that Anglo-Saxon women do not fare well under her sharp pen, but if you can ignore the not-so-subtle poison digs at us, you’ll find some great, French-inspired tips on how to approach “love, sex and other matters of the mind.”
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars. Not a waste of time and still worth a read, but could have been much better with a more even-handed portrayal of American women.
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{ 2 comments }
Bravo. I liked your review. It sums up a lot of what I've been thinking as I re-read this book for the umpteenth time.
I do think, however, that a lot of the how-to-be-like a Frenchwoman books have a bit more depth than just lipstick, scarves, and food, despite their sometimes simplistic titles.
Ollivier herself says writing a book such as hers "runs the risk of exalting French women and, by default, dissing American women." And that is what she ends up doing, including not-so-subtly dissing her fellow authors in this genre or not giving them the credit they're due.
Of course, I have my own bone to pick with the author and publisher in that regard…
Bonjour, Polly and merci for your comment!
You're absolutely right, I should clarify that I don't think all (or even most Francophile books commit the sin of superficiality. Some of my favorites (Harriet Welty Rochefort's come to mind) not only present a fuller picture of the French Woman (TM), but also offer a more balanced comparisons between French and American women. And I suspect that the titles and covers (with the ubiquitous Eiffel Tower and line drawings of mono-dimensional women sporting stockings and high heels) are mostly out of the writers' hands but are instead provided by publishers who somehow equate these books with nonfiction chick-lit.
Having said that, I can totally see where you're coming from vis-a-vis Ollivier's book and her lack of attribution to your blog post! I just scanned it today again and found just that passage. I find it difficult to believe that someone who calls herself a journalist — and backed by a major publisher, to boot — wouldn't have the intelligence to simply Google a line from the quote and trace its source. I've done it countless times with movie quotes, why not for blog posts?
Courage, mon amie!
Salut,
Marjorie
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