Sex works for Parisienne writers

The Paris publishing season has just kicked off with the release of 500 new French novels and once again we see that sex sells -- in its most literary form of course.

Two women are making a splash above the mass of competing authors because both are famous -- or notorious -- for the lurid reporting of their own love lives. Catherine Millet and Christine Angot are especially fascinating in a voyeuristic way for the Paris chattering classes because they write about the real life antics of their own tribe. Identities are barely, if at all, disguised.

Millet, 60, the editor-in-chief of Artpress, a high brow review, has produced a sequel to her world-wide best-seller of 2001, La Vie Sexuelle de Catherine M. Ostensibly a novel, that book was a clinical account of Millet's life as a voracious libertine and habituée of the more exotic sexual pursuits that France has to offer.

   

The follow-up, Jour de Souffrance (Day of Suffering), has prompted some satifaction among the envious because it describes the jealousy that suddenly engulfs the orgy-loving Millet. After tolerating one-another's dalliances, she becomes tormented over les aventures of Jacques Henric, the photographer-writer who is her longstanding partner. As Bernard Pivot, the popular critic, says in today's Journal du Dimanche, "The heart suddenly comes into play for this grande libertine and she panics."  Millet's lucid, rigorous book is getting good reviews but it's hard-going unless you are keen on the chronicles of introspection that have been a French speciality since the 1980s -- or maybe that should read the 1780s.

Christine Angot, 49, is another matter. She has been the shock chick of Saint Germain-des-Près since writing L'Inceste, about a relationship with her father, in 1999 [and before the regulars here jump in to point out that Angot lives on the Right Bank, I'm using the Left Bank term in the figurative sense]. Her stock in trade, as we have seen here before, is recounting her latest love affair in brutal and often excruciating detail.

Angot calls herself a novelist and she rejects the label of "auto-fiction", although she is a high priestess of that genre. Her books are certainly social comedies but the characters and events are straight from her life. Her last lover-victim was a pompous, married banker. This time, she herself becomes victim with a painful on-off affair with a famous rap singer called Doc Gynéco (with her in top photo). His real name is Bruno Beausir. His pals gave him the nickname as a teenager because he is a smooth operator with women (un gynéco is a gynacologist).

Le Marche des Amants, the new book, had been awaited since Angot fell into the arms of Doc Gynéco in a discotheque during a book fair in the town of Brive in November 2006. Other men pass though her bed in the book, but the literary star tells us that she really fell for the dreadlocked rapper from the north Paris ghetto, who is 15 years her junior. Her theme is the ethnic and class frontier that she transgressed and the disapproval of her own snobbish Left Bank milieu. The title, The Lovers' Market, refers to the idea that a black lover is worth less than a white.

Her friends in the publishing world warn her that she is being used by Bruno Beausir because he wants intellectual respectability. But it's also clear that Angot is also using Beausir, whose parents come from Guadeloupe. The young black stud would make a good shock hero for the next book. But Angot is under his sway. He does not come over as the dopey lay-about of his media image (he has been discredited in his own set since 2006 when he embraced rightwing politics and campaigned for Nicolas Sarkozy).

Angot has a phenomenal memory for dialogue -- or else she invents it well. The book is quite fun with her usual scalpel-like dissection of her partner and herself, but it lacks the tough punch that she usually wields and the fans like. She seems to have gone a litle soft, even on the sex scenes. She keeps bursting into tears all the time. The reviews are mediocre to poor,  but she is guaranteed a best-seller, if only because people are keen to have the low-down on Doc Gyneco's skills.

And finally, Angot has been hoist with her own petard. Frédéric Andrau, another novelist, has written Quelque jours avec Christine A (a Few Days with Christine A), an account of a brief affair with the high priestess of kiss-and-tell. In this case we suppose the liqison is imagined.

   

 

Below: Bruno "Doc Gyneco", the rapper-lover, is demolished on Laurent Ruquier's TV talk show.

Comments

[rocket]

As the saying goes, those who speak the most usually do the least and the French certainly do love to speak about it.

[Mary Fernandez]

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....

Sons comme nombrilistes merde pour moi.

I am reading a (probably dated -2006) book by Stephen Clarke called 'Talk to the Snail: Ten Commandments for Understanding the French'. It's written by a Brit expat journalist in France. (Maybe Charles knows him [or maybe it's a nom de plum!])

It's absolutely hillarious. Dot might like it.

[Mary Fernandez]

Why do all television 'sets' - whether talk shows or news programs - look like they came out of 2001: A Space Odyssey? Everything's so SciFi.

[Joan Arles]

The writing of Christine Angot has a gruesome fascination... As you say it's voyeurisme. Millet is more bizarre, with her mixture of intellectual and sex maniac.

[rocket]

Mary

Stephen Clark is hilarious and hits the nail right on the head. May I also suggest "a year in the merde"

[Rick]

Is it possible to unite cleverness with the most profound, unshakable, self-regarding dimness - both within a single person? Of course, look no further than your average Parisian intellectual. They should get out more.

[azloon]

so millet's book is a sort of 'i lost my heart at the orgy' sort of thing? i hate when that happens.

is their an age limit for participation in french orgies? she must be getting close, if so.

[azloon]

it occurred to me that organizers of french orgies might consider a 'senior' division.

[Mary Fernandez]

Rocket -

I grabbed that one first! I read it in a day and it led me to this. I also picked up the sequel (In the Merde for L'Amour). I ended up starting Talk to the Snail before In the Merde though.

I was at a yummy French restaurant in Seattle on Friday, La Campagne --My Motto: Don't tell me what it is (if it's cute and furry, I might not be able to eat it), just put it on my plate, pretend I can get it at a 'normal' grocery store, then just back away slowly...

Dodo should know I spent $100 on Clos de L'Oratoire de Papes just to stave off the recession over there. Not quite Omaha Beach, but don't say I never did anything for you. ;-)

[Judith]

Those books described by you above Charles sound infinitely tedious and so can only wonder why such writing should be so popular.

I enjoy much of French culture, history and politics. Compared with some of the cultural treasures of France, these books seem tawdry.

Perhaps someone can explain their attraction.

[Maggie]

[and before the regulars here jump in to point out that Angot lives on the Right Bank, I'm using the Left Bank term in the figurative sense]. (CB)

Oh my! Could it be John CB is worrying about?

The terms Left Bank and Right Bank aren't good anyway. Everyone knows that it depends on which direction you're going whether something is on the left or the right.

I'd call it "the side towards Belgium" or "the side towards Spain".

[Joan Arles]

In answer to Judith who says these books sound tedious.... Yes but I would say they are an acquired taste. Angot has a sort of slash-and-burn writing style that people like, even if she is astonishingly self-obsessed. They say it doesn't really work in her new book. Millet's first effort was a tour de force because of the absolutely detached way she wrote about a sex life that most people would see as extreme, if not just sordid. I haven't read the new one and I don't think I'll bother.

[Daniel Strohl]

This kind of books, written by "intellectuals", smack of feminime exhibitionism. But they do money - probably their main purpose. L'argent n'a pas d'odeur ...

[Pierre]

Unsurpisingly a contemptuous & conservative approach of sex related novels seems dominate the posts. Et pourtant... Writing (well) on/about sex&sentiments is a difficult exercise. Not everyone succed in different ways as DH Lawrence, Jean Genet, Sade, Vian, Apollinaire and (sevral) others.
And recently many writers indeed (not all as famous as Angot &Millet, or before those Reyes and Houellebecq) tried to achieve it. Some with style. Before the summer (a traditionnaly favorable period) la Fnac proposed a special selection of 60 erotic novels.
For those interested a few links

http://livre.fnac.com/a2228374/Gaelle-Guernalec-Levy-L-amant-inacheve?Mn=-1&Ra=-1&To=0&Nu=3&Fr=0

http://livre.fnac.com/a1767384/Theo-Stern-Va-ou-ta-queue-te-mene?Mn=-1&Ra=-1&To=0&Nu=1&Fr=0

http://livre.fnac.com/a10413/Philippe-Brenot-Eloge-de-la-masturbation?Mn=-1&Ra=-1&To=0&Nu=1&Fr=0

http://livre.fnac.com/a2236918/Monique-Ayoun-Viens?Mn=-1&Ra=-1&To=0&Nu=3&Fr=0#avisfnac

PS Rocket: sometimes those who write often do practise often and Vice(s) versa

[Marguerite.]

J'aime bien l'ecriture a bout de souffle d'Angot qui correspond a sa recherche desesperee d'un apaisement dans l'autre (homme ou femme ) par la comprehension de sa personnalite, par une demande d'etre reconnue et par l'epuisement dans la relation sexuelle. Apaisement jamais trouve (on
l'a cherche nous aussi ). Mais elle, cela lui permet d'ecrire...

[christopher muir]

Azloon -

Regarding orgies for seniors, le Marquis de Sade died at the age of seventy-four, a rather long life in those times, although he did finally land in the austere Charenton asylum. Still, judging by his various tomes, he seems to have never regretted his wicked interests.

[Dodo]

I didn’t read the last Mrs Ango’s book.

A great author, but ... Mrs Ango, full of complexes is without any doubt most arrogant, most antipathetic and curiously most fragile person that I could watch on TV

I suspect that if France is well know for to be the world champion in the consumption of Anti depressive pills, she is one of the main culprit, either because his own consumption, or by the imperative need we have after reading her book.
Again : A great author, but I don't like who she is.

[Mauvezin]

le Marquis de Sade died at the age of seventy-four
*********************
Le marechal-duc de Richelieu, libertin des libertins, mourut à 92 ans et se remaria pour la troisième fois à l'age de 88 ans.
Se plonger dans le stupre et la fornication est comme se baigner dans la fontaine de Jouvence.

[Antoine Delord]

Dear Charles,

Really, this post is disappointing. The 2008 rentrée littéraire (French for 'Paris publishing season') seems to be one of the richest in recent years, with an inflow of new books that go far beyond introspection and tell well-constructed, ambitious stories. Think "Zone", by Mathias Enard, "Les Accommodements raisonnables", by Jean-Paul Dubois, «Là où les tigres sont chez eux», by Jean-Marie Blas de Roblès, etc. They are in all French newsmagazines these days, so I'm sure you've heard of them. But I'm afraid you are not interested in those, and Judith and some other readers who may want to discover 'cultural treasures of France' will have to find other sources than your blog.

This is not to say that Mesdames Angot and Millet don't exist, and that they don't represent an important segment of the French 'marché des écrivains'... But only referring to them hardly does justice to the richness and variety of France's literary production these days. Besides, it comforts the worst stereotypes about navel (and below)-gazing French authors, their sterile writing and utter irrelevance. With your approach, you encourage the lack of curiosity and intellectual laziness of some your readers, who think that reading 'A year in the merde' is the best they can do to introduce themselves to French culture and mentality.

Can't you do better than this Charles? Can't you write about really good authors such as the ones mentioned above, or others such as Jean Echenoz, Catherine Cusset, Lydie Salvayre, Jean Rouaud? Je vous en prie!

[Daniel Strohl]

MAUVEZIN,

"Se plonger dans le stupre et la fornication est comme se baigner dans la fontaine de Jouvence"

LOL - comme vous y allez ! .)

[dot king]

Not one comment about Doc Gynéco!
Interesting . . . ;D

I haven't read any of Angot's books and now I probably shan't. I didn't care for her reviews either when she was a regular on "Esprit Libre" - pretentious.

Being a slave to your sexuality and your need to "share" your experience / experiment isn't liberating, it's ultimately rather boring.
Anyone else remember when Rocco Si Fredi brought out his autobiography? There really is nothing more boring than listening to someone rabbiting on about the size of their zizi and how much they like masturbating it.
On "Le fou du Roi" Fabrice Lucchini took the pee out of him quite merciessly, (RSF said he hadn't seen any of Lucchini's films, but Lucchini said "eh bien moi, j'ai vu tous le vôtres") but best on RSF are Omar et Fred . . .

Any woman who would have a complete d-ckhead like Gynéco for a boyfriend will not find her way on to my bookshelves. If she hadn't been going out with that nerd-creature, would Charles have picked her for his Rentrée Review??

Mary, Rocket, I read " A year in the merde" (a present from someone) and didn't like it - can't remember why now - but I didn't. I can remember some passages I found quire amusing, bureacracy etc, but the rest, non).
On the whole I don't care for the "my France experience" type of book, they never seem to have any connection to France as I understand and/or experience it.

Eg I've just spent an afternoon in social services interpreting between a soc worker and a (yet another) totally dysfunctional Brit family who thought that living in France (without being able to speak the lingo and all that cheap wine) was going to solve their problems. Le désarroi des enfants n'entre jamais dans le calcul de base.

[Dodo]

"Not one comment about Doc Gynéco!" Dot King

I live in Brive and I remember an enigmatic report in "La Montagne" 2 or 3 years ago, may be 4 - La Montagne is our Correzien Times, you know.
The reporter were apparently aware of this Doc Gineco * Angot affair but did not gave the names.

The Masque et la Plume, yesterday on France Inter, allready destroyed the book.
Jean Louis Ezyne telling that while reading the book he remembered the history of "Bidouille et Violette"
http://www.bedetheque.com/serie-753-BD-Bidouille-et-Violette.html

[qwerty]

OK I have a comment on Doc Gyneco - a few weeks ago I saw him lounging on a bench (real sloth, this guy) with a woman in the Bois de Boulogne, but I have no idea if it was Angot or not. He may or may not have had a yorkshire terrier with him.

So you see the shady places where I hang out... actually, I go to the B de B to socialise my dog, and it's working well for him. He has some good friends there: he's chummy with a Sarkozy dog named Charlie (nice gundog), with a sweet young retriever belonging to a member of the family of a major car manufacturer... you wouldn't believe the topnotch encounters you make in the Bois. Also, he's friends with a cane corso and a nice aging pitbull retrieved from the streets of San Francisco, they belong to his dog trainer. Both are perfectly balanced dogs, they introduced mine to canine mores.

He doesn't swim in the duck pond in the Bois like the golden retrievers, the pitbull, etc, do, because he's a german shepherd and not very fond of water (however - I used to swim in the sea with one when I was ten).

So that was my dog story. Not much about Doc Gyneco finally. Doesn't Maggie do dog stories occasionally?

[Dodo]

"thought that living in France (without being able to speak the lingo and all that cheap wine) was going to solve their problems."
very well said Dot King.

Helas, many apparently believe to know all on France after reading this "great" set of clichés as the ones given - of course - by Madame Mary Fernandez.

"Tell me what you read, I will say who you are " :)

We used to call it in France "La méthode assimil - la méthode à Mimile"

Poor familie you are talking about.
The worst are often their own compatriots who know France and also how to swindle their compatriots.
We thus have many similar stories in Corrèze.
Last week a Brit family, ruined, sold half of the price a pond they bought two years before.
Today they know the word "Braconnier"

[Rick]

Mr Antoine Delord would appear to have taken you well and truly to task in his ‘élucubrations’, Charles. He certainly seems to know his ‘oignons’… suspiciously so, considering the flawlessly idiomatic English. Might he have some connection with the Paris publishing trade? [‘inflow’] Could he even be a paid underling writing at another’s behest?
So not all literary novelties are about navels or ‘willies’... So much the better! Everyone likes a good yarn. But hang on, these new books apparently ‘go far beyond introspection and tell well-constructed, ambitious stories’. Does this mean we get ‘willies’, plus introspection, with a story about a stimulating subject thrown in as well? Or is it instead of? In which case, some of us might opt for the dirty bits.
I’m sure we all owe a debt of gratitude to Antoine for bringing those titles to our attention. Though quite why he should feel the need to do so, since they are ‘in all French newsmagazines’, is not at all clear. Please, don’t take this amiss, Charles, but your column is not the place that I for one would make my first port of call if I wanted to learn of forthcoming literary offerings in French. Consequently, the charge that you, in some way, have short-changed Judith is quite unjustified.
And, far from pandering to your readers’ baser instincts (Would you!), your intention has always been to write about things that interest your readers… unlike many a French literatus struggling to survive on a few subsidies.
Does the double-negative indicate that Antoine doesn’t disown these lady novelists/protagonists/boudoir-athletes? Indeed, he seems to suggest they’re a bit more than of minority interest. And yet you, Charles, you stand accused of failing to do justice to the wealth of literary outpourings, ‘inflowing’, nay drenching the literary scene!
And similarly some of us, co-bloggers, stand accused of being short of ‘curiosity and intellectual laziness’ on the subject of French Lit. front! Ouch! How unkind! Antoine, old fellow, you’re a bit of a sad case (in the French sense), aren’t you?
Please don’t go all ‘precious’ on us, Charles. We much prefer ‘robust’.

[rocket]

So Catherine M and Chistine A did the orgy circuit. So what! This is France. It's like eating a camembert.Really not a difficult task if one puts their mind to it and has an accent. All that shows is that there is an enormous "vide" in their lives and when they do fall in love they crack.

So not so liberated after all.

[Mary Fernandez]

Dodo,

"Tell me what you read, I will say who you are."

That quote refers to a person's library of books. If you were to make hasty judgments based only on a few books, you would be 'judging a book by its cover'. ;D

I thought Clarke's books amusing and he clearly likes France. In the third book, he comes to America - Maybe I won't like him then! Lighten up a bit.

The two books Charles mentioned are more likely to confirm negative French stereotypes - and that's before you even read them (if you can even plough thru them).

[Lex]

"Last week a Brit family, ruined, sold half of the price a pond they bought two years before."

Am I understanding this correctly? A British family sold a 'pond' -- a small body of water -- for half the price that they had paid for it?

Forgive my schadenfreude, but do tell us more.

I am assuming in this instance a 'braconnier' is someone who has cheated another in a financial transaction.

[Rick]

DOT, I’ve long suspected that the enthusiasm of a certain kind of Anglo for all things French is predictable: the less (s)he understands the lingo, the greater the enthusiasm. As Sam Johnson might have put it: ’tis the triumph of inexperience over dopes.

[Rick]

Several decades ago, I attended a course on the Modern French Novel. Seated around a table, the class was discussing Natalie Sarraute, Michel Butor or Alain Robbe-Grillet, when our tutor fell to the floor. (He’d been sitting with his chair tilted at a dangerous angle.) Being decorously English, we didn’t laugh.
He meanwhile did not get up. As I recall, there was the tiniest trickle of blood on his brow. After what must have been two or three minutes, our tutor then explained that all the while he’d been lying on the floor he’d been trying to recapture his feelings during the occurrence and analyse them. What’s more, he informed us, this was just the sort of thing that French intellectuals did. We were properly impressed.
Now that I look back, I’m struck by what didn’t happen. The tutor had neither apologised for the disturbance; acknowledged that he’d done something daft; nor admitted that he’d looked a fool. Instead he’d impressed us by what can only be described as a ‘performance’.
Later, at what the youngsters now call ‘uni’, there was the lecturer who claimed that ‘street-walkers’ were very ‘philosophical’… in their way. (Had it never occurred to him that they weren’t the brightest of girls?) Please forgive my rambling on, Charles. The fact is, when I read of you of you being taken to task for ‘lèse-littérature’, I saw red.
The reason why people read Mr Bremner’s column is because – be they Transatlantics, Brits, or even French – they share an altogether healthy disregard for ‘vaches sacrées’.

[dot king]

QWERTY - OK if it's dogupmanship stories, count me in!
My mutt, I should never have called him César but that turned out to be his name - I got him from the SPA and gave him a name which he refused to acknowledge, so I tried a series of typical French dog-names on him and he did that cute thing with his ears on "César". Result: a King and a César in the same household.
He's a nice little dog (possibly Labrit des Pyrénées/Tibetan terrier/caniche), friendly and smiley and waggy, so when we are out walking, everyone we meet coos "Adieu César" and if I'm lucky, they notice I'm on the other end of the lead.
César frolicks daily with Fleur, a beautiful big black Schnauzer (sp?) who belongs jointly to a member of a famous rock group and a concert pianist. They too now say "Hello César" (shouldn't that be "Hail"?) first - I told them "you just have to get wise to the protocol" ;).

DODO I've seen many families immigrate to France thinking it's a new start for their failing marriage, new retirement, whatever, and I've seen lots settle in and enjoy their new life, but I've also seen others go broke, split up, divorce, fight over maintenance and custody of kids, school failure and etc.
For some reason France is portrayed in Britain as a kind of Paradise - and it can be wonderful (as we know), but not in the way the "lifestyle press" expresses it - at least not for everybody. No one ever seems to advise people to examine what it is they really want before moving abroad (France, Spain, Portugal - everyone seems to think it's the climate that will make everything all right). It's amazing how people don't realise that problems need facing, not fleeing from - they always catch up anyway.
It will only work if the base is stable - financial and family.
I think what I saw yesterday must have been all wrong before France entered the equation.
Sounds like your Brit family example were easy prey for someone. I always have thought that many a Brit threw caution to the winds when they set foot on French soil.

To LEX - not in Paris nor in certain other sought-after provincial regions, but the property market generally is somewhat in the doldrums. A Brit family wanting a country property "to do up" will often buy something that needs more "doing up" than they have the budget for, and no amount of telling them will make any difference. The have "Le Rêve français".
They will also want all the features they associate with living in the French countryside, including possibly "un pigeonnier, un bois et un plan d'eau", all/any of which might be coveted by their neighbour.
I can well imagine how the people in Dodo's story came, in extremis, to sell a part of their property, just the pond. Maybe they did or didn't take into account that they probably reduced the value of the whole in doing so. Slippery slopes, all that . . .

[Dodo]

LEX

It is called "Carp-fishing" or something like. A lot of people spending money on it here in Limousin.
I was told that it is fashionable. One week in a lost part of France, a pond, Carps, bungalow, tea and pudding at five; some natives can be noticed.

A Braconnier is a fellow who visit your bond, during the night My dictionary gives "poacher"

[Mauvezin]

LOL - comme vous y allez ! .).....
*************
.........de ce pas ! :)

[Mauvezin]

For some reason France is portrayed in Britain as a kind of Paradise -
***************************
Il faut etre francais pour vivre et jouir en France.
Acheter un chateau fera de vous un proprietaire de chateau mais jamais un chatelain.

[Lex]

Thanks Dot. A timeless and universal story. At least they aren't having another child to try to save their marriage, as people sometimes did in previous generations. A neglected farm house is more forgiving and more easily repaired.

The disposable income of the British in the last decade or so has been amazing. The extent of their ubiquitous presence in Iberia and Florida has been astounding. Or was it all easy credit and booming shares that have now dried up?

Rick--

Are the British given to introspective and detailed books and novels about the thoughts, emotions & peccadilloes of the academic and/or chatting classes? I daresay Charles was thinking, "Hullo, here's something we don't do at home that people might find curious.", rather than trying to recommend this season's 'must read.'

[dot king]

"Il faut etre francais pour vivre et jouir en France.
Acheter un chateau fera de vous un proprietaire de chateau mais jamais un chatelain."

Je ne suis ni française ni châtelaine, je vis en France, et pourtant je suis heureuse;
Désolée de vous décevoir . . . de nouveau :)

[azloon]

["basically the rapper guy had written this book, and disagreed with the other guy about people in the Banlieu, which is the outer parts of Paris, and a general term for disaffected ghetto dwellers.

This Rapper guy has some more conservative viewpoints that seemed at odds with some of the people on the panel. Much of the discussion was about what was 'left' and what was 'right' politically.

That Bremer guy said he was 'destroyed'. I don't think it was quite that bad. Basically the rapper guy wrote a book, and didn't want to defend or explain some parts he wrote so he walked off. That's the jist."]

my son's reaction after listening to the linked video clip (i couldn't get much out of it with my kindegarten-level french)

[azloon]

MF, Rocket

i loved 'a year in merde'.

my son, who lived in france for awhile, thought it was mildly amusing, but not as hilarious as i did.

[Christopher Wright]

The French just ain't sexy no more. They have become enmeshed in this horrible multiculti Eurosplurge of an 'Old Continent'. Recommend Brazil instead - or indeed various parts of Asia. Mlle Ooh La La went into retirement about 20 years ago.

[Dodo]

"Je ne suis ni française ni châtelaine, je vis en France, et pourtant je suis heureuse;" Dot

Moi j'ai la double nationalité française et brésilienne, et comme vous je suis heureux ici, sans désirer être châletain!

[Antoine Delord]

Rick, you are magnifique! How artfully you laid down the gauntlet to me!
I think I partly deserve your sarcasm - and I'm not being graceful only because I seem to be 'several decades' younger than you... Reading it again my message was probably a bit over the top - but like you, I 'saw red', not so much after reading Mr Bremner's post, but mainly the first reactions he provoked. Unlike you, I do think that Charles should use the space and freedom he enjoys with his blog to challenge the perceptions of some of his readers, to broaden their horizon and give them access to segments of French culture that are not reported elsewhere. Of course he does that quite often, but not here - which I found disappointing.
Because you see, you can find lots of interesting French writers these days (no, I'm not giving you another list...), and I don't think they are as well-known in the UK or the US as Ian McEwan, Jonathan Coe or Philip Roth can be in France. And yes, this has to do with some lack of curiosity and a stereotypical view of French literature - something you display yourself by referring to "a French literatus struggling to survive on a few subsidies". But I can understand your trauma if you had to read Robbe-Grillet and Butor ;-)

[dot king]

"my son, who lived in france for awhile, thought it was mildly amusing, but not as hilarious as i did."

le fiston est plus évolué que le papa :)

[Mary Fernandez]

Azloon -

You'll probably like 'Talk to the Snail' then. It compares and contrasts French and Anglo Saxon ways without the whole 'Paul West' story. (Before the French here get defensive, in many instances - like food, health care, working to live not living to work, etc., he admits your way is better).

Dot -

I've seen the same phenomena with people who vacation in Hawai'i and then suddently want to move there thinking their life will be wonderful. Their lives will be the same just in a tropical enviroment. They don't take into account that their experience was so wonderful and carefree because they were on vacation. Eventually every vacation ends and people have to face their problems again.

[Daniel Strohl]

Mary,

"Before the French here get defensive"

They could even become offensive :). For instance, are you able to imagine the Anglo-Saxon comments on the blog if the Republican VP story had happened in France ? Les fantasmes refoulés se seraient libérés, surtout chez les messieurs :)

More seriously : "people have to face their problems again" : I agree totally with you and Dot on the matter.

"working to live not living to work" : "Il faut manger pour vivre et non pas vivre pour manger" (L'avare - Molière).

[Gill]

Mary, I think you have hit the nail on the head with your comments about holidaymakers. They are seduced by the seemingly idyllic way of life in France but don't seem to appreciate that it is idyllic precisely because they are on holiday and do not have to deal with the usual daily grind.
But I think one of the main problems for many Brits setting up in France and later becoming disappointed is their scant knowledge of the language. It is fine during a holiday if all you have to do is check in to your hotel (many of which have English speakers on the staff) order a meal and some wine in the local restaurant or do some shopping using sign language or pointing where necessary, but (as Dot will know) it is quite a different scenario when it comes to living there permanently, dealing with the authorities, making friends and, of course, earning a living.

[dot king]

"and I don't think they are as well-known in the UK or the US as Ian McEwan, Jonathan Coe or Philip Roth can be in France."
Antoine Delord

This is a very good and pertinent point - recently I wanted to make a gift of a French book I'd read, in translation, to a couple of friends. In the UK there was only one outlet for it, the rest were in the USA, all were second-hand copies. The book I wanted exists in translation but no-one non-French I know has heard of the writer (Andrée Chédid in this case). Both friends loved the book.

[dot king]

Mary, Daniel, Gill, Yes it's all of that, but more than that, there's a whole "cottage industry" (possibly castle-sized by now) that developed in the UK over the 1990's selling French "lifestyle" as a preliminary to selling a property.
The lifestyle is presented as such an idyll that of course people want it for themselves - they think it's just what their failing marriage, boring social circle, stressful work situation, etc needs.
There are also those who come because they (think they) can live "The Good Life" with a couple of hectares for légumes, a donkey, some chickens, a goat, and all in all be "self-sufficient" - then they discover taxes foncières and taxes d'habitation, rules and regulations about the upkeep of land, grazing - you name it - possibly taxe professionnelle if they want to sell any produce or take in guests, have "a couple of gîtes". On that level, there is no "Good Life". It needs careful planning, very careful.
Couples who no longer get on, think that moving to France will give them a new start - and especially if they have a ruin to do up as a distraction (that's how good the lifestyle press is at selling the idea!), the children, they're convinced will get a better education (all downhill in the UK they say, well, it'll be all uphill in France perforce) money problems, language problems etc.
France will solve everything with it's idyllic lifestyle.
I've even seen couples of which one is an alcoholic think that France is the answer - the mind boggles. Then there's the whole set of clichés as to how the French live - apéritifs before every meal, endless all-night banquets, cheap wine, fancy markets etc.
And I think "A year in the merde" annoyed me because of being rather cliché-ridden - because there's another set of clichés about Paris living.
Those who do stay because they have enough money or management sense, often have hardly any contact with the French and there's a whole Brit G&T set which it is perfectly possible to avoid. :)

[Mauvezin]

Désolée de vous décevoir
******************
Ce n'est pas ce que je voulais dire mais peu importe.

[azloon]

[They don't take into account that their experience was so wonderful and carefree because they were on vacation.] MF

very occasionally i'll stay at a very good hotel (e.g. the peninsula in beijing) and my reaction always is, 'i wish i could live here.'

basically i don't want the reality of life in an exotic clime -- new insects, irritating neighbors, broken pipes, et al.

a great hotel, i think, is the answer. i am looking for a time-share type program, where, for about $5-7,000 a month, you can have an anytime, extended-stay room at a variety of cushy hotels around the world.

same idea: a guy i know (the guy who sold his yacht to the russian kleptocrat) just bought an apartment in a ship that continually cruises the world (no, it does frequently put into port) . it's about 2000 square feet with all amenities. cost: $2.5 million, well out of my price range.

[dot king]

Christine Angot was an invitée in the first part of "Le grand journal". She was on the defensive and prickly and even managed, in a roundabout way, to compare herself to Molière.
It was a relief to see Yann Barthès still there for the second half of the programme; seeing the way she was eyeing him, I had feared for his safety, the little cutie-pie :)