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A couple of years in the past, a younger Japanese vacationer approached me on the Boulevard Saint-Germain. In a shy voice, she requested, “The place are the writers?” I didn’t perceive what she meant. “I want to see the writers,” she added. “In my guidebook it says that Paris is filled with them.” After all, I smiled and defined to her that instances had modified and it was moderately uncommon to see well-known writers working in cafes. However I wouldn’t have dreamed of creating enjoyable of her, as a result of that’s what I got here to Paris for too.
As a teen in Rabat, Morocco, I hung a photograph of Simone de Beauvoir on the Café de Flore on the wall of my bed room, together with one in every of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway on a terrace in Montparnasse. Once I arrived in Paris on the age of 18, I had in thoughts the individuals’s parade for the dying of Victor Hugo and the cafes on the Grands Boulevards the place Émile Zola’s characters drank themselves right into a stupor. For me, Paris was literature, its coronary heart and its capital — town of exiled writers, cursed poets and existentialist philosophers. And even immediately, I consider that there isn’t any different metropolis on the earth that offers a lot significance to writers: these of the previous, whose ghosts proceed to hang-out the streets, and people of the current, too, whom passers-by acknowledge as they’d a singer or an actress. I’ve by no means lived in one other metropolis the place literature was so vital.
What ought to I learn earlier than I pack my baggage?
I’d advocate a basic, most likely Victor Hugo’s masterpieces “Les Misérables” or “The Hunchback of Notre-Dame.” Hugo was and stays one of many best geniuses of all time. And he captured, higher than anybody else, the soul of Paris and its individuals. For a extra up to date imaginative and prescient, I really like the “Vernon Subutex” trilogy, by Virginie Despentes. With the character of Vernon, a homeless report supplier, we uncover the Proper Financial institution of Paris — the bars, the loopy events, the blended neighborhoods. It is usually a rare depiction of a gentrified Paris the place cash guidelines.
What books or authors ought to I convey together with me?
In my view, it is best to learn one e-book per district. Zola for the Grands Boulevards and the Ninth Arrondissement; I significantly like “Nana” and “L’Assommoir” (which has had numerous English-language titles). His description of the Parc Monceau in “The Kill” can be extraordinary. Patrick Modiano for “La Place de l’Étoile” (the primary of three novels launched in English translation as “The Occupation Trilogy”) and a dive into the Paris of the Occupation. Marguerite Duras’s “The Struggle,” to relive the time when the Lutetia Lodge welcomed Holocaust survivors coming back from the camps. James Baldwin’s “Giovanni’s Room” for Les Halles. I additionally love “Good Morning, Midnight,” by Jean Rhys, for its gorgeously evocative scenes of the Fifth Arrondisement within the interwar years. It’s good to learn whilst you’re in Paris: The story is so unhappy, but so completely stunning, following a lady who returns to town after an extended absence to reckon with a tragedy from her previous. I additionally advocate “Disturbance,” by Philippe Lançon, a masterpiece and a heartbreaking e-book a few man who survived the Charlie Hebdo assaults and recounts his restoration on the Val-de-Grâce hospital.
If I’ve no time for day journeys, what books can take me out of town as a substitute?
I really like Normandy, solely two hours from Paris — a land of nice authors, equivalent to Gustave Flaubert and Man de Maupassant. I particularly like Maupassant’s “A Lady’s Life,” an nearly good novel. And when you go to the seaside, it’s essential to learn the passages that Marcel Proust devotes in “In Search of Misplaced Time” to Balbec, an imaginary city impressed by Cabourg. And, after all, Michel Houellebecq’s “The Map and the Territory” for a imaginative and prescient of latest France: It’s a good, humorous and merciless e-book a few France that’s disintegrating and whose cities are being remodeled into museums.
What books can take me behind closed doorways and present me hidden aspects of town?
I really like “Pigalle Individuals,” by Jane Evelyn Atwood. Atwood, a photographer, met a gaggle of intercourse employees in Pigalle on the finish of the Seventies. She images them with none voyeurism however with nice tenderness and tells the tales of those girls who stay on the margins, who take medication, and who’re additionally devoted mates. It’s deeply transferring.
“The Margot Affair,” by Sanaë Lemoine, is splendidly Parisian with out resorting to any of the same old clichés. It’s a glimpse into the world of politics and journalism. The main points of French meals, each day routines and structure are very nicely captured by the creator.
Which author is everybody on the town speaking about?
Annie Ernaux! She’s been writing autofiction for greater than 30 years and has turn into an actual feminist icon in France. There’s additionally numerous speak about Constance Debré, a radical author who left her husband and her bourgeois life and who now embraces her homosexuality and complete freedom. Her newest e-book, “Nom,” has brought on a sensation.
What audiobooks would make for good firm whereas I stroll round?
Hearken to poetry — in French! Poems by Charles Baudelaire or Paul Verlaine, whereas strolling alongside the quays of the Seine. Or poems by Jacques Prévert, when evening falls and also you stroll by way of the streets of Montmartre. You don’t want to know all of the phrases. It’s like listening to music!
What’s a superb place to twist up with a e-book? Any bookstores I ought to go to?
My favourite bookshop in Paris is Shakespeare and Firm — for the selection of books, the welcome and the kindness of Sylvia Whitman, the proprietor. She is great and gives you excellent recommendation! However you may as well learn on a bench in a park. My favourite is the backyard of the Palais Royal when the magnolias are in bloom. In winter, I like to recommend sitting behind a restaurant, ingesting a glass of wine whereas it’s raining exterior.
And for younger readers, any suggestions?
“The Mona Lisa Thriller,” by Pat Hutchins, during which kids crew as much as work out who stole the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, and “A Hundred Million Francs,” by Paul Berna, during which mates who play on the streets of Paris are shocked when a stranger affords them some huge cash for the damaged previous wood horse they use of their video games. When it’s stolen, they got down to uncover why it’s so particular. In any other case, “Rooftoppers,” by Katherine Rundell, is a good journey story. And naturally “The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsène Lupin,” by Maurice Leblanc, lately made right into a Netflix sequence with Omar Sy.
Leila Slimani’s Paris Studying Checklist
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“Les Misérables” and “The Hunchback of Notre-Dame,” Victor Hugo
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“Vernon Subutex” trilogy, Virginie Despentes
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“Nana,” “L’Assommoir” and “The Kill,” Émile Zola
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“La Place de l’Étoile,” Patrick Modiano
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“The Struggle,” Marguerite Duras
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“Giovanni’s Room,” James Baldwin
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“Good Morning, Midnight,” Jean Rhys
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“Disturbance,” Philippe Lançon
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“A Lady’s Life,” Man de Maupassant
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“In Search of Misplaced Time,” Marcel Proust
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“The Map and the Territory,” Michel Houellebecq
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“Pigalle Individuals,” Jane Evelyn Atwood
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“The Margot Affair,” Sanaë Lemoine
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Autobiographical fiction by Annie Ernaux
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“Nom,” Constance Debré
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Poetry by Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine and Jacques Prévert
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“The Mona Lisa Thriller,” Pat Hutchins
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“A Hundred Million Francs,” Paul Berna
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“Rooftoppers,” Katherine Rundell
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“The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsène Lupin,” Maurice Leblanc
