[update below]
Historian David A. Bell has a review on the TNR web site of David McCullough’s new book on Americans in Paris. It is sure to be a best-seller stateside in view of the stature of the author. Bell’s review is generally positive, though says the book is not without problems
Unfortunately, the book is also often disappointingly superficial. Particularly in its latter half, Paris becomes little more than a colorful backdrop for a series of amusing but disconnected American stories…. Few French people receive sustained attention in McCullough’s book, and even then we only see them through the eyes of the Americans. In fact, McCullough has done little serious research on the French setting. His bibliography includes few of the standard scholarly studies nineteenth-century Paris, and no works at all in the French language. A particular shame is that he appears not to have visited the major research library for the history of Paris, the Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris, which contains, among its many treasures, a massive catalogue cross-indexing descriptions and travelers’ accounts of the city—the proper first stop for anyone working on a book such as this one.
Those looking for a treatment of the subject based on research from primary French sources may want to wait for the forthcoming work by historian and longtime American-in-Paris Nancy Green (disclosure: she’s a friend). Her book will be different from McCullough’s, focusing on the formation of the American “colony” in Paris, its elites, its businessmen, its “countesses” and its wayward youth, and more on the 20th century than the 19th. I’ll wait to read this one before looking at McCullough’s, that’s for sure.
UPDATE: Stephen Colbert interviews David McCullough (July 13th) on The Cobert Report (beginning at the 15th minute).
thanks for the information. I am greatly looking forward to reading the Pletzl since there are more than enough trivial books and articles about that city. See Woody Allen
Nothing but friends here! Nancy, Renée, David … it’s like a reunion! Hello to all. Renée, I couldn’t agree more about Woody Allen, yet everyone seems willing to give him a pass for Midnight in Paris. But as Simone Signoret said, “La nostalgie n’est plus ce qu’elle était.”
Thank you for the link to the review. Sounds like everything I really loathe about many books I’ve read that talk about living in France. This country is not Disneyland and France and the French deserve better than to be treated as supporting actors in a show where the focus is the fulfillment of foreigner’s fantasies about sitting in a cafe all day long, drinking kir and having deep conversations about existentialism. I’ll pass on the McCullough book and eagerly wait for Nancy Green’s book which sounds like a much better read.
Victoria, nice blog you have. I was just looking at it.
Thank you, Arun. I’ve been inspired recently by some of the topics you’ve talked about here. It’s a real pleasure to come here and read your work. Victoria
thank you, Arun. How thrilling to be among the great. Have you read Badinter Les Epines et les Roses? or Chez les Weil: André et Simone by Sylvie Weil?
cela vaut le voyage.