Anyone who’s been to France knows fairly quickly…they are definitely not in Kansas anymore. There’s a pretty hefty bibliography of books that can help you bridge this culture gap you’re bound to hit when you visit France. We’d like to help you get from “what the heck?!” to “vive la difference!” in as short a time as possible.
While you usually think of the travel section of your bookstore as the place that sells guidebooks, we’d like to bring your attention to the other part of the travel section, named, rather uninspiringly, Travel Essays. When I go to the bookstore, this is usually where you find me. Or better yet, I’ll squirrel the best of the lot under my arm and haul them over to the cafe portion of the store for inspection, browsing and sipping coffee for hours. One commentator call a good travel essay the ultimate “escape fiction”.
There’s many different kinds of travel essays, but you’ll probably get the picture if I mention the two best known examples: “A Year in Provence”, by Peter Mayle and “Under the Tuscan Sun” by Frances Mayes.
Essentially, in a good travel essay, you get a great writer writing about their personal travel (or in the case of both Mayes and Mayle, their personal planting of themselves down in one spot, and trying to make a new life). There are varieties on that theme, of course: the good trip, the terrible trip, the “rules of etiquette” once you’ve reached your destination, etc.
It’s probably no surprise that, with the volatile mixture that occurs when French and English-speaking cultures come together, there are many books chronicling the efforts of English speakers to fit in to French life. Here are a few of our favorites:
- A Year in Provence
:(Peter Mayle, 1Elizabethkillough9) the classic of this genre. Peter Mayle and his wife take early retirement from their jobs in Britain and move to France, where they attempt to fix up an old Provence farmhouse, while dealing with the vagaries of French construction, land-owning, bureacracy, and their neighbors. Their efforts make for entertaining reading. Mayle wrote quite a few more books, all about the South of France. The subsequent boom of expats invading Provence was attributed to his books’ success and A Year in Provence’s run as a BBC television series. No one can say Mayle can’t write. He has a humorous, yet affectionate, eyebrows-raised view of the French, which can be perfect way to frame-up your next trip to France. You’ll almost certainly encounter situations where you can honestly say, “Oh, this is what he was talking about.” And moreover, no one talks piffle more amusingly than Peter Mayle.
- Almost French
: (Sarah Turnbull, 2004) Google books summarizes the plot of this Australian author, who meets and marries a Frenchman, and settles outside Paris, thusly: “Sacrificing Vegemite for vichyssoise, the feisty Sydney journalist does her best to fit in, although her conversation, her laugh, and even her wardrobe advertise her foreigner status.” Our favorite scene in this is where, one Saturday morning, she is about to dodge quickly out to the local bakery, clad in her sweatpants and hoodie. Her fiancee is appalled. The French emphasis on always looking one’s best, no matter how minor the occasion, causes Sarah and Frederic to have yet another cross-cultural conversation. Sarah says, at one point, “it’s just the baker!” And Frederic, trying to explain why going anywhere but the gym in sweatpants is taboo, wails, “But it’s not nice for the BAKER!!” In our house, that line has become a classic for when one wants one’s companion to dial up the presentable appearance factor. I have more than one memory of leaving the house with a teenage daughter (who spent her sophomore year in a Parisian high school…excellent training for snootiness) muttering behind me, “…not nice for the BA-ker!”
- Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong
: (Jean-Benoit Nadesu and Jean Barlow, 2003) This book actually answered a LOT of questions…some of which you might have as well. For example, why the French:
- Smoke, drink and eat more fat than anyone in the world, yet live longer and have fewer heart problems than Americans
- Work 35-hour weeks, and take seven weeks of paid holidays per year, but are still the world’s fourth-biggest economic power
- Would find the topic of money far more shocking, in a social conversation, than the topic of sex
- Have a completely (and we mean turn-your-brain-inside-out-difference ) different idea of the role of government
- Relate to food on an entirely different level than your average American
- A Year in the Merde
: (Stephen Clarke,2005) This is the story of a young Englishman assigned to Paris for a one year job. Clarke takes Peter Mayle’s affectionate skepticism towards the French quite a bit further, while simultaneously making merciless fun of himself. This could be the perfect read for the person in your social circle who’s not at all fond of the French. They’ll love the title…and will hardly notice, by the end, that Clarke, while acknowledging the consternation that French behavior can present to newcomers, ends up finding much to love in the culture he first ridiculed.
We can’t leave the topic without recommending everything and anything that Bill Bryson ever wrote. He’s a through-and-through American who’s lived most of his life in Britain and travelled extensively throughout Europe. We dare you not to laugh out loud at his adventures.
There are literally hundreds more in this genre, and a surprising amount of them are about France. Nearly all of the authors can be complimented for cottoning on to one truth that every traveller should know. When crossing cultures, be sure to pack your sense of humor.
What’s your favorite book about France?