Vive la France! #BooktagsBlogHop. My book this week: Paris Hangover by Kirsten Lobe

Okay, I've been right off writing ever since I heard about those #ParisAttacks on Friday 13th. Like many others, it took my breath away, leaving me no motivation to do what seemed frivolous things, like write for #NaNoWriMo or prepare a blog post. Then blogger friend Toi Thomas reminded me that today is the day I write about a book I've read recently. At first I thought I can't do this, then I thought, yes, I can. So everybody, and Toi, I'm sorry if this is going to be a little outside the square, but I'm presenting my reading my way.

Lobe tells us in a dedication at the beginning of the book that: "...mother taught me to believe in the words of Henry David Thoreau: 'Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.'"

Well, we saw on Friday 13th, that not everybody accepts the dreams we follow, seeing watching a game at a football stadium, eating at restaurants, walking down the beautiful Parisian streets, watching a rock concert where an American band was performing, are things to die for. Those 'soldiers' mowing down innocents with Kalashnikovs then blowing themselves and others away with suicide bombs obviously thought that dream of living and loving in Paris was anathema.

My favourite author, Ernest Hemingway, has a few lines in The Sun Also Rises, where he says, 'Fake European standards have ruined you. You drink yourself to death. You become obsessed with sex. You spend all your time talking, not working...You hang around cafes.'

That might sound like Hem would be on the side of the suicide bombers on Friday, but no, no one liked hanging around cafes quite as much as he did, so don't take it out of context. I deliberately included it as I think that it is a radical opinion of how Westerners enjoy themselves. Didn't we all think that hanging around cafes was not an action punishable by death? Until Friday, that is.

Which brings me back to Paris Hangover, the book I'm supposed to be talking about today. Okay, not exactly ISIS-preferred reading!


Definitely women's fiction, or chick lit, Lobe writes very autobiographically, so even though this is a work of fiction, it is obviously a pretty true account of her life. The premise (and what she did in her real life), was to ditch her super-glam life and apartment in New York City and relocate to a tiny walk-up Parisian apartment in Saint Germain. Fleeing her Big Shot boyfriend, the main character, Klein, starts over in Paris, plunging into the mysterious world of Gallic Men. She lives a life full of Moet and Gauloises, dating Frenchmen and waking up with a hangover most mornings.

Klein/Lobe describes her life in her chosen city: 'Living in Paris is an experience like no other. It's like being on a ride at an amusement park: wildly exciting, a bit scary, a little overpriced.' 

As she settles into her new apartment she considers her dream:

"This dream has the perfect soundtrack. To awaken each morning to the sound of doves cooing and church bells ringing. C'mon, it doesn't get any more beautiful than that...The first sounds I hear as I come into consciousness are usually the tender voices of mothers and their children, up early and out on their morning outing to the boulangerie down the street to buy brioche and croissants. The gentle, 'Maman...' followed by, 'Comment, ma cherie?' is like music.'

On re-reading this passage, I couldn't help wonder how Parisian mothers spoke to their children on Friday 14th. 'The President has asked us to stay indoors today, cherie. Something bad has happened.'

But back to Klein. This American in Paris never had it so good--vin blanc at Cafe de Flore, painting in a garret, afternoons in the Jardins du Luxembourg--or so bad. But Klein's passion for France and its men allows her to press on through some dastardly experiences.

There's something for everyone in this book. It's first and foremost a love story to Paris and its literary giants. Lobe peppers her story with quotes from French philosophers, French poets, and French writers. One of my favourites is her quote from Marcel Proust:

'We are not provided with wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness, which no one can take for us, an effort which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world.' 

Sadly, Friday's attackers' wisdom must be questioned. Have they discovered wisdom for themselves, where they see executing innocent civilians as somehow more holy than attending a rock concert or hanging around cafes, or have they been brainwashed into a point of view?

My feelings for Paris/France are not a well-kept secret. Tonight I will stand in solidarity with them at a special event in front of our City Hall, which once again will be bathed in the tricolour.

Books set in Paris are always so full of life and love, which is why I read so many, and am working on writing one myself. Thank you Kirsten Lobe for this quirky little love story to Paris. I hope you are safe in your chosen city!

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Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises - Travelling with Ernest Hemingway - and eating a meal in Paris' Latin Quarter.

Happy New Year!!

'You are all a lost generation.' Gertrude Stein

'One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh; but the earth abideth forever...The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down and hasteth to the place where he arose...The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually...All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.' Ecclesiastes

The above taken from the forward pages to The Sun Also Rises.

I like to travel with a novel that says something about the country I'm seeing. Last trip to Paris I used Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast and followed his walks around Paris. I also learned that he always put his writing first. He claims he wrote every day from 5 am - 12 noon, when he put down his pencil (but not until he knew what would happen next), then meandered downtown to meet literary luminaries such as Gertrude Stein, Scott F Fitzgerald, James Joyce, Ezra Pound et al, and discussed his work/their work, helping each other's art. (Pretty cool critique partners!)  

My critique partners aren't travelling with me, but nothing suits my travels better than a Hemingway novel. Not everyone is a Hemingway fan - heck, he didn't write fantasy, sci-fiction, steampunk etc, genres that have huge followings today and are of the type many bloggers like to write. He wrote mainly chronologically, with sparse back story. He said he sweated over every sentence, every chapter, ruthlessly deleting any superfluous words. Some find his style sparse, but if you read and re-read his carefully-crafted stories you continue to find layers you previously missed. This is well expressed by the Evening News when they reviewed The Sun Also Rises -

'Hemingway captures atmosphere by reticence and breathes life into his characters by pages left unsaid...It is American; it is literature; and it is a first novel by a genius.' 

Hemingway stuck to realism with a dash of dystopian. I'm no huntin', fishin', hard drinkin' kinda person, but Hemingway's always been my favourite author for reasons I can't possibly articulate. He's real and gritty with no frills, which I'm sure he learned from his journalistic days and his passion for the short story. He wrote about the world he knew, the world in which he lived and played. It is hard to separate him from his characters. I find Jake in Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises, impossible to separate from Hemingway himself. As they say, many early novels are partly autobiographical.

I decided to make this novel my current travel companion, as it stars Paris and the louche characters that moved within its bars and restaurants, planning their next big adventure. The big adventure in this novel is, of course, the 'fiesta', the bullfight, in Spain. I've taken more notice of the bullrings in Spain this trip, and listened to the bullfight history enthusiastically propounded by locals and tour guides. In my ignorance I thought bullfighting had been banned, but it turns out it's only banned in Catalonia, capital Barcelona. The 'fiesta' is alive and well in the rest of Spain and the year seems to be dictated by where/when the next fiesta takes place. Madrid, the main bullfighting city, has a whole month of fiesta. 

I've photographed many bullrings, but I don't know about you, I'm sure I couldn't stomach attending a bullfight.

To the main point of this post...in the excellent how-to writing guide - Manuscript Makeover - the author suggests as a writing exercise to find a paragraph from your favourite novel/author, and re-write it your way...

I was reminded of this exercise when I read a few paragraphs in Chapter 19, p.204, of The Sun...when the main character Jake is having dinner in Paris. I decided to re-write it using my own experience of a dinner in Paris in the Latin Quarter...with apologies to Hemingway and vegetarians...

'The restaurant was all reds and blacks. It wrapped its dark arms around me, welcomed me back after a long absence. The meal was typically French - plain peasant's food - mussels marinated in red wine which were dealt with quickly, then I was eating onion soup with soaked garlicky bread and long, stringy cheese which stuck to my chin. But what could beat the shot of sweet onion fragrance on a bitter winter's night? I wanted to live in the bowl, to be revived by the nourishing juices.

The waiter offered a free cocktail. I held the tiny jewelled glass against the light. Then I held it close to my nose, took a sip. It tasted of rose perfume, a sweet flavour that clashed with the onion. I pushed it aside and ordered a rosé  to accompany the Beef Bourguignon which was delivered to my table. The sharp aromas of tiny roasted onions, carrot, and rich, red beef...my stomach danced. The onion soup was already a distant memory. I adjusted my linen napkin on my lap and inhaled before I lifted my fork and speared a cube of tender meat. The flavour of the red wine mixed with onion and herbs revealed to me, if the mussels and onion soup hadn't already convinced me, that I was back in France.

It was pleasant beyond words to be drinking good wine and eating excellent food - a bottle of wine and a plate of comforting food is always good company.

The attentive waiter saw I was immersed in my food and drink and left me to my joys.

It was good to be back in France.'

I enjoyed writing this and it proves that I do actually write while travelling, but apologies to Papa who would have slashed and burned many of my descriptions. To give you an idea of what I tried to emulate -

'I went in and ate dinner. It was a big meal for France but it seemed very carefully apportioned after Spain. I drank a bottle of wine for company. It was a Chateau Margaux. It was pleasant to be drinking slowly and to be tasting the wine and to be drinking alone. A bottle of wine was good company...' etc

How are you travelling? I wish you a wonderful 2014. Whether you make New Year's Resolutions or not (I don't), I invite you to join me in writing or illustrating something that could be classed as New Beginnings for Write...Edit...Publish's first challenge for the year. Sign up anytime from now until the 22nd...