Kathleen, Queen of the Desert

A place in Paris is a pedestrian walking area, like a square or large patio. Sometimes a place is hard to get to, such as the Place Charles de Gaulle at the Arc de Triomphe, which you enter and exit through an underground passage. France’s Tombe du soldat inconnu (Tomb of the Unknown Soldier) contains the remains of a soldier from the First World War. This memorial with an eternal flame is right under the arch. Faded floral arrangements are taken away and new floral arrangements are placed here every day.

A place can have benches, or not. A fountain and sculpture, or not. What all the places have in common is a respite from the motorcycles, buses, cars, and bicycles. Or not. Some places become congested with parked vehicles.

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My list of adult fiction set in Paris continues here. Where possible, I’ve listed the publication date of the book. 

JAMES, Henry. The Ambassadors.

JOHNSON, Diane. Le Divorce (1997), L’Affaire, and Le Mariage (2000).

KOEN, Karleen. Through a Glass Darkly (1987).  Caution: there is another book by the same title by Gaardner and the film by Ingmar Bergman.

KRANTZ, Judith. Spring Collection. 

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I’ve compiled a list of adult fiction books set in Paris from information from book clubs, publishers’ lists, book blogs, and my own reading. These are alphabetized by the author’s last name. I haven’t separated them into genres, nor do I sort the books as great or ho-hum or truly awful. When possible, I’ve indicated the original publication date in parentheses after the title.

You may be aware of a glut of recent books set in Paris. many in the chick lit category. I’ve read a lot of grousing about these books, but I suspect many are well researched and it’s the writing that’s bad, so choose what interests you.

ADLER, Elizabeth. Leonie.

AIKEN, Joan. The Girl from Paris. 

APPIGNANESI, Lisa. Paris Requiem.

BAGESHAWE, Louise. Sparkles.

BAKER, Sam. Fashion Victim. 

BALDWIN, James. Giovanni’s Room. 

BALZAC, Honore de. Cousin Bette and Le Pere Goriot (1853).

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Ernest Hemingway wrote that you carry memories of Paris with you as a moveable feast. But a moveable feast can bring on ants, thunderstorms, food poisoning, and other realities.  Living in the French capital is sometimes that kind of difficult picnic.

All this walking kills your feet. Tourists walk for hours a day. Even if you take the metro, you have to walk up stairs, down stairs, and through metro passageways: the metro doesn’t cut out the walking. If you’ve brought stylish heels, your feet will die. Bring flat heeled shoes with a good tread. Rest throughout the day on bus rides, benches, or in cafes. I take time out every day to care for my feet.

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I recently took Les Cars Rouges (a get-on-and-off red tourist bus with open seating on top) to the Eiffel Tower. My first move was to consume the best ham-and-cheese crepe in Paris at a street stand (see crepe preparation below). The crepe master pours the batter onto a circular black griddle and evens it out dragging a special T-shaped tool in elegant wrist movements. The filling is added, the crepe is folded and slipped into a paper wrapper, and voila.

My second move was to cross the busy street and walk around the tower’s piliers (pillars or feet) to check out the crowd. This is the kind of place you might meet someone you know. But, it’s also so busy, you could also miss seeing someone you know.

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Cafe de Flore and Les Deux Magots are famous because of who used to consume food and drink there. Long-gone waiters at these cafes served up libations to Breton, Hemingway, Picasso, Camus, Sartre, and de Beauvoir. The cafes now attract lots of tourists and many philosophy and English majors. I even saw an editor soliciting work outside Deux Magots with manuscripts spread out on a blanket.

Recently I had a perfect meal at Cafe de Flore (”caw-fay duh florr”). (”La flore” refers to the profuse flora–ebullient flowers and plants–sprouting from the windows over the cafe.) The waiter was efficient and kind, and he spoke lovely French even when he heard my American bumbling. He was patient with the difficult man next to me, baby-talked a dog in the arms of a passerby, and served a British family with two squirmy little boys their sandwiches and hot chocolates like they were royalty. This was a man who loved his job.

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A chilly morning near a Parisian monument in the Latin Quarter, and I’m talking with my ghost. 

It was 36 years ago on the steps of the Pantheon that I took a life turn. Arriving on one-way tickets in Paris, my California boyfriend was escaping the Vietnam draft and I was looking for adventure, I guess. At first we’d stayed with a friend outside Paris, eaten simple foods, and picked cherries. We then moved into the city and rented a cold-water fourth-floor walk-up with a Turkish toilet down the hall. I was going to be a maid–a maid with an English degree–and live in Europe forever. That was my sort-of plan. Hanging out on the Pantheon steps on that hot July day, perhaps I was looking for something to break me out of that plan.

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I had been searching for a certain tiny shop at 6, rue d’Echaude in the Latin Quarter for weeks. The shop features items from the not-just-for-children’s book Le Petit Prince. Sadly, the shop has changed idols. Number 6 is now “Pixi & Cie,” featuring books, cards, and dolls of the Belgian comic character Tin Tin. On my recent visit, I bought some Tin Tin items plus a little two-inch-tall Petit Prince doll (below) from a forlorn bin. With no Parisian shop left to honor him, what is essential is now invisible to the eye.

The Little Prince is the title character from author-aviator Antoine de Saint Exupery’s 1943 book, Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince). Though Saint Exupery wrote other books, Le Petit Prince brought him worldwide fame. My mother used to recite from the book which she had learned in her schoolgirl days in Cleveland.

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I’m not always out and about in Paris. I’m often back at my apartment by late afternoon. I read, write, clean up the place, do a load of wash, and watch TV. My apartment is hooked up to cable, so I get lots of channels. But only five of them are in English. I can enjoy watching “Law and Order” in French . . . for a few minutes anyway. With French voiceovers, I have also watched “That ’70s Show,” “Starsky and Hutch,” “The Simpsons,” “Hogan’s Heroes,” “Without a Trace,” “Bewitched,” “American Chopper,” “Dirty Jobs,” “Parental Control,” “South Park,” “Happy Days,” Bob L’Esponge (Sponge Bob), “Tom and Jerry,” “The O.C.,” “Dharma and Greg,” “Friends,” “Smallville,” and “Pimp My Ride.” I’ve seen the original American “Pimp” shows here with Xzibit and the International versions with Fat Joe.

The channels I get in English are France Anglais, CNN, BBC World News, BBC Prime (so I can get a fix of the brilliant British soap EastEnders), CNBC (to track how badly the dollar is doing), and Al Jazeera English. But those channels aren’t exactly veg-out viewing. They broadcast serious economic, political, environmental, and cultural stuff, plus specials on disturbing topics from child slavery in Benin to warriors for God to the missing monks in Myanmar. Al Jazeera English does particularly masterful programs about women around the world.

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And where are the French waitresses?

I had my first rude–or incompetent, or overworked, or poorly trained, or just dumb young male–waiter experience last Sunday afternoon. Otherwise Sunday was perfect with sunny skies, cool temperatures, and no wind. The tourists were out, the mood was festive, and I was winding up my walk in the St. Germain des Pres quartier (neighborhood). Restaurant and cafe business was booming around 2 o’clock.

I sat down at Cafe du Bucherie, a place where I’d enjoyed breakfast before, and waited. I wasn’t impatient. I had books, my journal, and my French dictionary. Ten minutes went by.

The table next to me was lively. A British family of four had come in five minutes after me and was celebrating a daughter’s 17th birthday. Our waiter gasped in mock horror on learning they were from England. (England had beaten France in rugby the night before.) The waiter brought over another waiter to banter with the Brits. It was oh so jolly at their table as they showed off to the teenaged daughters.

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