Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong

Posted on July 18, 2012 by smellincoffee

Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong: Why We Love France (But Not the French)
© 2003 Jean-Benoît Nadeau & Julie Barlow
351 pages

France stymies Americans. They eat what they want, but seemingly don’t get fat. Their government is happily involved in health, education, industry, and business, but they have one of the most robust economies in the world. How do they do it? What makes them tick?  Jean-Benoît Nadreau and Julie Barlow were dispatched by a government foundation to find out just that very thing. Having lived in France for several years and made a study of it, they represent their findings in  the fascinating Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong: Why We Love France but Not the French

All of Gaul, Julius Caesar wrote, is divided into three parts — and so is this book. The first examines the personal aspects of French culture:  notions of privacy,  the importance of language,  the art of cuisine, the deep connection the French have with their land. Part II, “Structure”, examines the culture of civics and governance,  and part three demonstrates how those elements of French culture are adapting to the future.  Although it covers a wide range of topics, the editing is such that the three parts fit neatly together to present a solid and comprehensive picture.  That picture is formed in part by the centrality of the State. Although Americans might interpret a central state as a an overwhelming powerful central government, the State is more fundamental in France. It is not an outside thing that people relate to: it is the environment. France is the state: its very creation, a pillar of order erected from the chaos of feudalism.  The French republic is not a federation of provinces and cities it is the Public Thing in itself, wielding enormous power and expressing that through a strong military or money but through the way it enmeshes itself in the lives of the French, creating in part the French culture itself. Most striking for me was the use of language:

When French mayors talk about their constituents, they never use the word ‘citizens’. No one talks about the ‘citizens of Lyon’ or ‘the citizens of Toulouse’ Mayors speak of their administrés, (literally, their ‘administereds’). The French can only be citizens of one thing, the one and indivisible Republic, and that entity ‘adinisters’ them at the local level through mayors.” p. 146

Although in America the state mostly exists as an apparatus for economic interests, in France it seems to exist more for the public welfare, not just business. The idea is at least easy to take seriously, as the French government takes an interest in the lives of its people, providing plenty of support for new parents.  What a delightfully exotic idea to American ears, that the state is there to enhance the quality of life!  Quality is another strong theme — the opening sections address the French fondness for grandeur and eloquence. Life is to be savored, not merely purchased. Another choice quotation:

‎”The way the French see it, the economy should serve the social well-being of the country, not the other way around. Former prime minister Lionel Jospin is famous for having said “Oui à l’économie de marché, non à la société de marché” (Yes to a market economy, no to a market society).” (p. 276)

The powerful State and the emphasis on quality are joined in the French attitude toward education: there exist in France several academies which exist just to produce an elite caste of people to ensure that this powerful state is being run correctly. The civil service is fashioned along the lines of an army, and this elite is its officer corps. Americans who see higher education as elitist would be positively scandalized by the idea that the French seek to create it deliberately, but in France governance is too important not to be taken seriously.

In general,  the French way is presented as neither better nor worse than the English and American systems, but simply different. I for one am both attracted and disturbed by the aspects of French culture revealed here because of the varying attitudes I have for individualism and the role of the state. One can’t deny the results, though, and after reading this and various other works about French culture I can’t help but think they have better priorities.

And with that, my reading and reviews for Bastille Day is finally done. Until next year, anyway!

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This Week at the Library (16 July)

Posted on July 16, 2012 by smellincoffee

So, last week was fun. I think I may have overdone it with no less than five reads for Bastille Day, but they certainly put me in the mood for celebrating France. I think it will be a few weeks before I can go somewhere without having accordion strains lingering in my mind!  Food was a pervasive theme, but as I haven’t had lunch yet I don’t think I should dwell on that!  As fun as last week was,  I’m anticipating more variety for the next few weeks. I’ve got a science book waiting for me at present — The Ghosts of Evolution: Nonsensical Fruit, Missing Partners, and Other Ecological Anachronisms.  I also have Food, Inc, but I think I’ll let it keep for a while, as I’m burned out on criticism for a while  I’m also well versed with the material from previous readings of Eric Schlosser and Michael Pollan, so I will enjoy it more as a refresher later. Reviews are still pending for A People’s History of the Civil War and Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong.  I’d figured to post those yesterday, but wound up playing a game of Civilization III as the French instead. (The French focus bled over into everything last week: I wound up watching movies set in Paris, listening to the “Edith Piaf” station on Pandora, and playing French scenario in my various games..)

Books in the news….today’s EconTalk features an interview with Gary Taubes on the book, Why We Get Fat.  His interview on Good Calories, Bad Calories absolutely fascinated me, so I’m looking forward to this one.

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Q in Law

Posted on July 16, 2012 by smellincoffee

Star Trek TNG #18: Q-in-Law
1991 Peter David
252 pages

A feud  between two families of space gypsies is about to end in marriage, as their children have decided to tie the knot and give Captain Picard the honor of marrying them. Although this species never been heard of before, and indeed never will be again, the ceremony is attracting guests from throughout the Federation, including…Lwaxana Troi. That certainly puts a damper on Picard’s spirits, but then Q decides to invite himself to the festivities to explore the age-old question: what is love?  Poor Picard. Poor, poor, Picard.  If surviving a week of tense relations and petty bickering between future in-laws weren’t bad enough, he has to do it in the company of the two people in the universe who drive him absolutely mental.

It’s the setup for what is easily the funniest Star Trek novel I’ve ever read. Although the premise isn’t stellar (aliens wanting to know about human love is rather tired), the execution was perfect. Lwaxana and Q are powerful, prickly characters — a lot of potential, but they’re easy to misuse. In David’s hands, they’re dynamite together, even when Q isn’t sniping at Worf (“Oh, you’ll all have to forgive Worf. He’s just discovered opposable thumbs, and he’s feeling overly confident.”) and neither of them is giving the good captain fits. David also weaves in a couple of running gags and throws a  very earnest and very naked young woman in Wesley Crusher’s quarters.  Even his mother can’t help but laugh.

Were I in the mood for an adventure or some poignant comments about the human condition, Q-in-Law might not have been appropriate. But I wanted to relax, and it delivered magnificently. I’ve never enjoyed Peter David this much before: small wonder he was asked to write other Q books. If you like Star Trek TNG in the slightest, look for a used copy of this. It’s nothing less than a riot.

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The Age of Napoleon

Posted on July 14, 2012 by smellincoffee

The Age of Napoleon
© 2004 Alistair Horne
218 pages

Napoleon Bonaparte cast a long shadow over history, considering the relative slightness of his origins. Who would expect a boy from a conquered island to rise to the height of power and command one of the greatest empires in history, and leave a legacy even grander?  Alistair Horne’s contribution to the Modern Library Chronicles series discusses that legacy in part, although it is a mere sample of what one might say about the Emperor. Horne himself has written larger, more exhaustive works on the same subject, but this series consists of compact introductions. Horne’s account focuses on life in the empire away from the war,  treating military affairs in general as background material only to be referenced occasionally.  A story told in eleven short chapters (including an epilogue), Horne  discusses Napoleon’s rise to power, his ambitious vision for both France and Europe (unified and modern),  how society responded to him both at home and abroad, the corrupting effects of hubris as his influence grew, and eventually his downfall.  Other books on the Modern Library Chronicles series have succeeded in meaningful summaries of broad subjects by focusing on a few key points, like Karen Armstrong’s treatment of ummah (political-spiritual community) in Islam. Horne’s reach is more broad, and not quite as potent.  Even so, I don’t know if the emphasis on society and culture in the Napoleon era is one covered by many other books, which would tend to focus more on politics and military games.  On the whole, The Age of Napoleon is a short but  enjoyable read, its ideal audience being lay persons who are faintly curious about Napoleon but who have little interest in reading about military maneuvers.

Related:
“Paris”, from The City in Mind by James Howard Kunstler, in which Napoleon’s architectural legacy is discussed more thoroughly.

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Bringing up Bébé

Posted on July 14, 2012 by smellincoffee

Bringing up Bébé: One Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting
© 2012 Pamela Druckerman
304 pages

When Pamela Druckerman moved to Paris to start a life with her new husband, she noticed something rather odd about French children: they behaved. Long accustomed to the whining, shrieking, squirming, picky eaters in the United States, she couldn’t help but wonder how the French did it…especially seeing as they didn’t seem to be harsh disciplinarians. Indeed, the children seemed to enjoy a fair bit of leeway…but then again, they also seemed to merit it. Druckerman flinched when a group of children ran ahead of their teacher on a busy sidewalk, but the teacher wasn’t bothered in the least – nor should she have been, since the children stopped at the crosswalk to wait for her, just as the teacher knew they would. The French and their children seem to have made a golden peace with one another…but how?  When Druckerman’s own marriage produced a baby, she began finding out how. Bringing up Bebe is the delightful result of Druckerman’s observations and direct experience with childhood and parenting in France, reflections with a lot of offer parents wondering what kind of approach to take with their own bébés.

Although at times Bringing up Bebe seems like a straightforward story of what happens when an American woman raises a child in France (Druckermen comments on her daughter Bean’s early bilingualism, freely mixing English and French in the same sentence), the chapters are organized more by subject, following Druckerman’s move to Paris and her following pregnancies.  The chapter titles (“paris is burping”) establish Druckerman as a storyteller with a quirky sense of humor, ever entertaining to read. The sections cover diet, disicipline, daycare, food culture, language, and so on, but there are at least two concepts which emerge as a foundation of French parenting and are reference throughout. The first is that of ‘éducation:   according to Druckerman, the French treat babies not as angry and hostile things that need to be tamed, but as little tiny people who simply need to be taught what is right. They communicate constantly with babies in the belief that the infants can understand them. (This seems dubious to me, but given that humans are social creatures, such communication can’t help but be healthy.)  What’s interesting is that since babies are regarded as people in their own right, they’re expected from the start to conform to certain conventions of society, like the idea that you are just one person among many and are not the center of the universe, even if the only thing you can do is lie in your crib, wait for your cells to divide, and ocassionally fill your diaper. One parenting trick Druckerman learns early on is “The Pause”: instead of running every time a baby cries, French parents wait a few seconds to see what happens. Often, the baby will go back to sleep (or was merely making noises in her sleep in the first place), and it is believed the delay between the baby crying and the parents responding establishes in the baby’s mind that she is not the center of the universe.  Although children are granted certain indulgences for being young, in general they are expected to conduct themselves in a civilized manner, and are constantly groomed in this direction in every aspect of their lives. “The Pause” also teaches babies patience, and patience is emphasized so consistently that it allows children to dine with their parents in an adult restaurant, sitting for hours and behaving themselves.  ‘Education’ is constantly enforced, not by punishment but by communication.

Children respond to this, partially through a second concept —  the cadre, or framework.  This establishes a few firm rules that are never to be violated, while giving children a free hand everywhere else. For instance, French parents teach their children that adults must have time to themselves, so the children are made to go to their bedrooms at a certain hour…but they are not forced to go to bed if they are not sleepy. The children thus learn to entertain themselves instead of constanting demanding their parents’ attention.) The cadre allows children to explore and learn about the  world on their own, but within certain safe limits.  They are treated like adults who simply need to be taught the right thing, and they grow into adults who do it.

Although I’m not a parent, nor do I anticipate becoming one at this point in my life, I found much to appreciate here. The French parenting approach is in line with my own values, and seems quite sensible.  Definitely entertaining and nicely written: those who are interested in considering it as parenting advice might want to read customer reviews at Amazon or some other place to get an idea for how successful the approach has been in other people’s lives. I bought this book to start off my Bastille Day reading set, and it’s definitely a keeper.

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French Lessons

Posted on July 11, 2012 by smellincoffee

French Lessons: Adventures with the Knife, Fork, and Corkscrew
© 2001 Peter Mayle
227 pages

Peter Mayle is to be envied. Some people’s work involves overseeing hundreds of people and managing the affairs of a business that skirts bankruptcy other day. Some put their life in peril, fighting fires or confronting criminals. Some are pushed to their physical limits putting in long hours on the factory floor.  Mayle, on the other hand, must roam France and subject himself to its most extraordinary pleasures, then regale readers with stories of  this most dreadful task. Mayle is an author who loves France, and after dining with him vicariously through French Lessons, it’s easy to understand why. How can one resist a people who love food this much? A retired barfly refers to cuisine as the religion of France, and it’s a religion that’s quite robust. Mayle visits festival after festival celebrating local delicacies — truffles, snails, vintage wine — and immerses himself fully in the traditional celebrations of these foodstuffs. It’s either the French gift for cooking or Mayle’s for writing, but he does manage to make the task of delivering a slug from its shell sound not only fun, but appetizing. Part of the fun of the book is that Mayle always finds someone passionate to dine with, and they both drink themselves silly.  Although the book seems written mostly to entertain,  Mayle’s emphasis on eating quality food for pleasure supported the principles Mireille Guiliano demonstrated in French Women Don’t Get Fat.  This is a quick, zesty, and entertaining read.

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French Women Don’t Get Fat

Posted on July 11, 2012 by smellincoffee

French Women Don’t Get Fat: the Secret of Eating for Pleasure
© 2005 Mireille Guiliano
263 pages

You may have heard of the French Paradox. In an age of innumerable health crises (obesity, diabetes, cancer) tied to diet, where every item in the grocery store contains something that at least one nutritionist has declared will kill us, it’s not surprising that many of us approach the dinner plate with the dread caution of a lab rat that’s been shocked every time it tried to nibble on a food pellet. But not the French. Name one of the diseases of civilization, and the French have escaped it. Why this should be so is inexplicable, for they indulge — indeed, luxuriate in —  foods that have been put on the naughty list, from wine to butter to bread.  How is it they stay so slim?  Mireille Guiliano brings her own experiences to bear in trying to answer the question. A native of France, she once visited the United States as an exchange student and came back from her American summer looking very much like an American — portly.  Her distraught father’s first words at seeing his daughter were “You look like a sack of potatoes!”.  The weight gain increased until she met with the family doctor, who she terms Dr. Miracle, who scolded her for forgetting the French approach to food.  No sooner did Mireille return to the traditional ways than did the kilograms start following off, and soon she was as svelte as a model. French Women Don’t Get Fat offers the advice of her doctor to women everywhere, advice which emphasizes the joy of eating in moderation.

The French attitude toward food enchanted me as soon as I encountered it first in Bringing up Bébe, so the idea of an entire book devoted to it enthralled me. Alas, it wasn’t quite as powerful as I’d hoped. The French take food and eating far more seriously than do Americans (and everyone else, conceivably), and see mealtime as a ritual to be enjoyed to the fullest, appeasing all the senses. No scarfing down a burger and fries in the car for the Gauls:  food is to be enjoyed at the table, with full pomp — served in courses, and preferably with friends with whom one can linger for hours chatting.  Over the course of the book, Guiliano reveals a handful of sensible principles. To borrow from Michael Pollan, she advocates eating real food — not too much, not too quickly, and from a local market if possible. She also tacks on miscellaneous advice, like practicing breathing, and incorporating more exercise into your life.  It’s safe to say you’ve probably heard this advice before. Unfortunately, some of it is impossible to put into practice for Americans. We don’t have local food markets. I would wager that the overwhelming majority of people here obtain 100% of their food from places indexed on the stock exchange.  We can incorporate some of this advice by patronizing farmers’ markets and getting involved in Community-Supported Agriculture ventures, though.  The other principles can be put into action, and the strength of French Women Don’t Get Fat is that it makes rethinking our approach to food look like such fun.  I wish it offered more than anecdotes, though.

Related:
In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan
French Kids eat Everything, Karen le Billon
Bringing up Bébé, Pamela Druckerman
In Praise of Slow, Carl Honoré

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Mardi Teaser (10 Juillet)

Posted on July 10, 2012 by smellincoffee

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly event in which participants share excerpts from their current reads: the host is Should Be Reading.

Only a handful of the French population — one recent estimate puts it at 10 percent — goes to church on a regular basis. “The fact of it is,” said Monsieur Farigoule, the retired schoolmaster who gives regular dissertations from his perch by the village bar on the worsening state of the world, “the plain fact of it is that the religion of the French is food. And wine, of course.” He tapped his empty glass with a fingernail to indicate that he might be persuaded to take a refill.

p. 22, French Lessons: Adventures with Knife, Fork, and Corkscrew. Meter Mayle

Oh, look, I found yet another book to add to my set of French-themed readings…

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This Week at the Library (9 July)

Posted on July 9, 2012 by smellincoffee

I spent this weekend finishing A People’s History of the Civil War by David Brooks, which has the distinction of being the gloomiest book in the series I’ve yet read. Howard Zinn’s original work covering the United States forced the reader to confront one tragic episode after another, but it also  imparted to the sympathetic some revolutionary vigor, also telling how common people have time and again rallied against the powerful and advanced the cause of justice.  Although this treatment of the Civil War also contains scenes such as those, they’re meager and flickering lights engulfed by the great darkness of the war itself. I am looking forward to collecting my thoughts on it and then moving on to the general merriment of the French Revolution.

…or not. No, the French Revolution would also make for grisly reading*, which is why I’m glad this year’s French reading is more geared toward cultural literacy than history. Oh, I’ve The Age of Napoleon by Alistair Horne, so I’ll read about the revolution eating its children, but I have three — count them, un, deux, trois — others that are interesting in a delightful way instead of interesting in a morbid, impressively catrastrophic way. First will be Bringing up Bebe, which is an excellent example of how a book can utterly take me by surprise. It came out of nowhere, I started reading the preview, and the next thing I knew I’d bought it and was carrying it around reverently with me all week. I finished it before I finished my Independence Day reads, actually. Great fun and something to think about if I ever become a parent. Following up on that I have French Women Don’t Get Fat, which I borrowed from the library and only half-interested in. What keeps distracting my attention is Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong: Why We Love France but Not the French, which is an exploration of French culture in general.  There seems to be quite the market for Americans who want to be judged by the French, with book titles like French Women Don’t Sleep Alone and French Children Eat Everything.  I could not find any similar titles for the English, or the Germans. (The books on German culture I found were mostly written for businessmen who find Germans inexplicable, and not for people who wish they were living on some colorful strasse in Hamburg rather than the suburbs in the ‘States. )

Although I’ve found this set of reading toe-curlingly-pleasing so far, it has had the side effect of lodging Edith Piaf’s “La Vie en Rose” in my head for days on end. I can  go nowhere without hearing that beautiful melody playing in my head. Wherever I go, I’m followed by the strains of an accordion. I’ve since discovered that Dean Martin and Louis Armstrong both did covers of the song, with English lyrics but incorporating the French title (like Pete Seeger did with “Die Gedanken sind frei”).

So, on the agenda this week: a couple of reviews pending, my French set to continue reading, plus possibly the new Rick Riordan Egyptian fantasy novel.

* Like Simon Shama’s Citizens.

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Independence Wrap-up

Posted on July 8, 2012 by smellincoffee
This year I continued in my tradition of reading some appropriate books around the Fourth of July, starting with the excellent Founding Brothers by Joseph Ellis and moving on to two collections.

The first, Our Sacred Honor by William J. Bennett, collects the thoughts and advice of the ‘founding founders’ on such themes as patriotism, frugality, industry, civility, friendship, romance, and faith, adding his own commentary as introductions to each section. It is something of a patriotic canon in that it contains excerpts from not only the Declaration of Independence, but works like the Ballad of Paul Revere and the famed story about Washingtoncutting down a tree with his hatchet. The collection is weakest here: though Bennett lightly acknowledges that these accounts are not true to fact, they’re included more for the way they make him feel, which is patriotic. What makes up for this is the wealth of material taken from the letters of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and company. (These three and Franklin provide most of the material.) The section on piety seems superfluous given how abundant references to providence are throughout the text, but the religious sentiments of these four are a world apart from those of the current strain of politicians who try to enlist God as a running-mate.  I found the collection informative, though I suppose any collection of letters from Adams and Jefferson would be superb.  In short,, this collection offers a slightly naïve appreciation of the founders’ thoughts, but still enjoyable.

The Good Citizen, a collection of essays about citizenship in modern America, was a far more demanding and meatier read – challenging, in fact, more for the ideas than the language. The modern America the contributing authors address is one increasingly polarized, struggling to adjust to technologies which are radically altering the way we relate with one another, juggling massive issues, both domestic (social injustice) and foreign (struggling to compete in the ever-changing global market), and attempting to do so while not being entirely united. The standout essay for me was Michael Lerner’s piece on values in America, though I also greatly appreciated Robert Bellah’s piece on polarization and Barbara Christian’s “The Crime of Innocence”, which chastised Americans who try to excuse themselves from responsibility by remaining willfully ignorant about the problems present in the country today. 

At the library, my American Independence Display proved only lightly popular. Another Joseph Ellis book, American Creation, and David McCullough’s 1776 were among those checked out. Ellis is an author I intend to read more of this year,  and I’m thinking I might also tackle McCullough’s classic biography of John Adams. 
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