Although it was a challenge to find Kyoto within these four walls (without access to the public library, still in lockdown), it was easy to find Paris for May’s Here and Elsewhere. And if my calendar image looks familiar, it’s because a photograph of the same scene has frequently adorned my Mavis Gallant posts.
In fact, the title story of my current Mavis Gallant collection, Across the Bridge, features Paris: the restaurant on Montparnasse where Sylvie and Arnaud meet for lunch, Trois Quartiers, the eponymous bridge from Place de la Concorde to Palais Bourbon, and the view of the Church of St. Augustin through the window.
And in her “Forain”, in the same collection, there’s the Saint-Vincent de Paul convent, Place Saint-Michel, Angelina’s on rue de Rivoli, the Hôtel de ville Métro station, and Père Lachaise cemetery.
The latter also appears in Eugenie Mahyere’s I Will Not Serve (1959; translated by Antonia White, 1984), which I read with Madame Bibi’s NADIM (Novella a Day in May) in mind. We also visit the garden of the Palais-Royal, avoid a puddle while crossing the Rue Vavin, and walk “beside the black water of the Saint Martin canal”.
Sylvie’s story is Paris-soaked, but more about her than Paris:
“During the ten years and more that her parents had lived in the Boulevard Montparnasse, there had never been a week when she had not crossed the Luxembourg Gardens, but never yet had they looked to her as they looked that day. It is events that suddenly transform certain places into a stage-setting for our lives. She stared at the trees, the Medici fountain, the statues and the passers-by as if she had never seen them before. They had become the unforgettable scenery and the walkers-on in the drama of one hour, the hour of hope.”
Ultimately, I Will Not Serve is about moments of transformation, stage-settings laid out and disrupted. It’s an unexpectedly moving story.
Now I am reading Christina Stead’s The Beauties and Furies (1936). It’s Stead’s second novel of twelve, the third of hers I’ve read.
Elvira Western has left her dull husband behind and gone to Paris to meet her young lover, Oliver, who loves the idea of introducing her to Paris:
“That’s the Régence when Napoleon played chess-Alekhine too, the champion. This is the Louvre. Look at the Tuileries, like the Garden of Eden at night: that double chain of jewels is the Champs Elysées: those two great bland clockfaces are the Gare d’Orsay. Look, look at the silky, sulky Seine.”
He expounds, on their way to the Royal Odéon, where they’ll check in at Mr. and Mrs. Fenton, because the French “are human on human relationships”, concerned only whether one pays their bills, not about infidelity.
Oliver’s enthusiasm is infectious and his love of France limitless. “I want you to get Paris into your blood,” he says to Elvira.
“Forget everything you’ve seen up to now, forget everything you’ve read, heard, imagined, and just look. I want to see you soak up Paris.” And, along the way, I’m soaking up the stories of Elvira and Oliver, along with Paris.
For viewing, I enjoyed Paris Is Us (directed by Elisabeth Vogler, who is also one of four writers on the project), a 2019 film starring Noémie Schmidt and Grégoire Isvarine. The story opens when our heroine is alone in a nightclub, when a friend of a friend recognizes her; he’s alone, too, and they marvel at the coincidence and embark on a romance.
Their story is woven throughout the city streets; nearly everywhere that they argue and kiss seems familiar (Gare du nord, L’arc de triomphe, bridges along the Seine, Canauxrama cruises, Place de’ l’opera, Librarie des alpes, Pâtisserie Gilles Marchal, Gallerie Sfeir, Except that everyone is dressed in ordinary clothing and going about the business of their lives. What makes the story remarkable is the way that the scenes are cut together, so that you cannot catch hold of the timeline, so you feel suspended in that love/heartbreak vibe, feeling all the feelings in Paris.
In listening, Life of a Female Bibliophile put me onto Lauv’s “Paris in the Rain” and, in other online reading, I thoroughly enjoyed this peek into the reading habits of famous writers in Paris.
In other months, in Here and Elsewhere, my desk calendar from Made in Brockton Village (eco-friendly and sometimes bookish) has inspired me to travel to Copenhagen, London, Havana and Kyoto. You can widen your world by glancing at a calendar: why not reach for a new story.
But although this project was intended to pull me into unfamiliar territory, I’ve travelled on the page to Paris many times:
FICTION: Marguerite Abouet and Clément Oubrerie’s Aya de Yopougon 4; Edem Awumey’s Dirty Feet (2011, translated by Lazer Lederhendler); Cara Black’s Murder in Belleville (2000); Benjamin Constable’s The Three Lives of Tomomi Ishikawa (2013); Patrick DeWitt’s French Exit (2018); Monica Dickens’ Mariana (1940); Esi Edugyan’s Half-Blood Blues (2011); Rawi Hage’s De Niro’s Game (2006); the first story in Paul Headrick’s The Doctrine of Affections (2010); Nalo Hopkinson’s The Salt Roads (2003); Cynthia Ozick’s Foreign Bodies (2011); Lydia Perovic’s All that Sang (2016); C. S. Richardson’s The Emperor of Paris (2012); Gabrielle Roy’s The Hidden Mountains (1959; in translation by Henri Binsse, 1962) NON-FICTION: Jeremy Mercer’s Time Was Soft There: A Paris Sojourn at Shakespeare & Company (2005).
The good thing about Paris is that there’s so much to choose from! The not-so-good thing is that it’s not very new to you. But oh! you must have reveled in the choices!
(I can’t believe how far behind I am on your blog…)
There’s always a balance of factors, isn’t there. Mostly I was relieved to have more choices than I’d had for the previous month in Kyoto (though, by now, my library requests for Kyoto have all arrived, from ages ago).
(You’re already caught up: see, that wasn’t so bad! LOL)
I’m glad you enjoyed that Lauv track. It’s so soothing. I’m starting to get into more of his music lately.Admittedly I think I’ve watched more movies and listened to more songs set in Paris, than read books. I’ll need to seek out more stories set in France.
Thanks for sharing it; I’ve got him on a playlist now and listen to it periodically. (For those who aren’t already following your blog, be warned that Rachel’s monthly roundup posts can pose a threat to your internet time and TBR!)
I went back & read your review of the Jeremy Mercer book–it is too bad it wasn’t more about Shakespeare & Co. You’ve probably seen the articles, but if not it seems they’ve found the lending library records from Shakespeare & Co. and have started digitizing them. Find out what Gertrude Stein was reading in 1929. It all looks quite fascinating.
The library is open for curbside pickup starting tomorrow. Yay! Now we’ll see how fast they get my holds there, of course.
It was probably a case of my poorly managed expectations too. Yes, I did: that’s so neat, isn’t it?! (Somewhere on this page, there’s a link to them. Great minds…)
There are a few waiting for me already, but they’re being held until July 17th and I’m not in a rush. (Most of them are Flannery books, Kyoto books, and short story collections, none of which seem so urgent right now.) I’ll be curious to hear how busy your branch and its staff are/aren’t.
One of my books is in transit, it says. For the rest nothing has even moved. I’ll be curious to see what it’s like as well, but it seems like I won’t be finding out any time soon either…
You got me wondering, so I’ve checked again as well. The items I returned on Monday are still checked-out to me and there are no new items on my “holds”. (And apparently you can’t request a pick-up when those items show as having arrived, not until you receive an email about those same items, as per the update on the site.) I find this reassuring, as they must be building in quarantine times, and reducing transport. Which you wouldn’t guess from the increased road and pedestrian traffic in the past couple of weeks.
I think if I was to look for Paris settings on my shelves I would probably find quite a few too! What a great way to travel via your bookshelves.
It’s a very popular setting for mysteries, too. I remember Cara Black’s mysteries being good fun and moving all through the different neighbourhoods.
So many Paris stories! I can’t think of many favourites now (beyond the Hemingway-themed pair of A Moveable Feast and The Paris Wife). Last night I started The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles, which is just out this week and may well be too twee for me, but is at least fluffy fun so far.
That reminds me, I read Morley Callaghan’s That Summer in Paris, earlier this year, which is actually much more about his friendship (or lack thereof) with Hemingway and Fitzgerald. Hemingway is probably one of the first writers who introduced me to Paris in fiction. Well, after the Madeleine picture books, of course! 🙂
I don’t need to ask how you are finding the Stead, because this is your third by her. (Just in case I miss it) can you please let me know when your write your review, so that I can add it to my Christina Stead page? Thanks.
LOL My French lessons are torture at the moment… we have been looking at this website https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZebFDvefOs&feature=youtu.be and of course when we are discussing it, everyone is talking about all the wonderful things to do and see in France…
Of course I will: and if I read more, I’ll keep that in mind as well.
That’s a fun little video. And I can’t speak for the rest of the locations, but the “Canada” mimicry is spot-on!
“Australia” is not bad, but hey, we’re the only place with kangaroos!
🙂
Hmm what is it about Paris that captures the imagination of writers? I spent a few days in Paris about 4 years ago and loved it, the cobblestone streets being the thing that sticks in my mind the most. Oh, and the bridges over water, that too 🙂 I think patrick DeWitt’s French Exit also took place in Paris too…that’s the last book that I can remember reading about Paris although i’m sure there’s others that i’m just not remembering…
I think you’ve answered your own question! Admittedly, I part of me was a little disappointed to find such an obvious choice for May, but the other part of me (the part that is missing the library’s collection) was content and relieved. It really is a common setting; when I started to make the list of Parisian settings I’d written about here previously, I wasn’t expecting half as many, even by Canadians, like DeWitt!
I spent only two days in Paris and meant to go back next year but stuff intervened and now I might never get the chance. My Paris is first and foremost the Paris of Maigret who I have read off and on all my adult life, but of course it comes up in every third or fourth book. I am tremendously jealous that you are reading the Beauty and the Furies, I have not been able to make the time to do so. Stead spent some important years (in the 1930s) in the early part of her relationship with William Blake living there and mixing with the crowd around Sylvia Beach’s Shakespeare & Co. bookshop.
Just recently I was reading that Maigret himself couldn’t even answer the question as to how many books he had written: that made me laugh! I’ve only ever tried to read one of his books and that was in French. Which was very painful (my vocabulary is very limited, especially with murder-mystery-related nouns!) and not-at-all entertaining. Which is not as it should be. But, because of that, I’ve never been drawn back to him, in English or otherwise. I don’t know very much about Stead, actually, but I think I will want to know more after this one (I’ve read The Little Hotel and Letty Fox, neither of which made me curious about her biographically, but that might say more about me than her/those books).
Lovely selection again. I have I Will not Serve on my tbr, I am looking forward to it. I visited Paris three years ago on a short coach holiday, I walked through the Luxembourg Gardens and bought an ice cream that I had to rush before getting back on the coach. I wonder if I shall ever return?
Mahyère’s novel would make a good one to sandwich between longer, more story-heavy options, in your August Virago reading project. You could read it comfortably in an afternoon or two. Isn’t it funny what sticks in our memories with rushed travel experiences?!
An interesting selection! I read I will not serve some years ago and remember it being very powerful. Paris is somewhere I’ve never visited but which exists very clearly in my mind – so I really should read Gallant’s Paris Notebooks!
It’s the kind of book that, having finished, makes you want to talk to someone about it immediately.
Do you have a copy of them? I thought you only had copies of her novels (which struck me as funny as it’s exactly what I’m NOT reading)!
I do indeed…
Lucky! It’s very hard to find.