I finished the book faster than I wanted to b/c I just could not stop reading. I have written alot about this previously so I will just try and summarize why one should read this book and why I give it 5 stars. It is intellectually stimulating. i don't always agree with the author's point of view but there is always something to consider in what he is saying. Secondly it doesn't just describe Paris' external beauty but also its inner beauty. Thirdly it gives a very accurate analysis of the French culture often juxtaposed the American culture. Much to ponder. Fourthly, it is terribly amusing to read if the reader has himself emigrated to a land with a "French culture". Finally, if one is going to visit Paris as a tourist, read this to know where to go to see some unusual spots. You will get a lot more out of your trip. Even with my stiffer demands for a five star book, this gets all 5. In the following are all my comments as I read throough the book. So now I have reached page 196 and I am still loving it, but there is so much to think about that really one should read one chapeter at a time and then stop and think so that you really have time to absorb the thoughts. I am reading it too quickly. Each chapter is an essay on a different topic. It is just amazing that I like it so much since I don't like essays or short stories usually! He talks about "haute couture" and French cuisine and even these topics which usually have no interest for me were very, very interesting. His struggles with French keyboards made me laugh. You know the French have changed the position of just a few letters. Just aenough to make typing really a mess until your fingers have been re-educated. I can't imagine this not being a 5 star book - even though I have decided to be REALLY restrictive with 5 stars. There has to be some class for those books that are and will remain amazing months after you have read them. Along with the author, I hate Barney too - read the book and you will know what I am talking about. The similarity between the French in Paris (which actually can be quite different from provincial French behavior) and the French speaking people of Belgium is amazing.. Half of the Belgians speak French and half speak Flemish, and these two cultures are VERY different. Oh, the phrase "C'est normal." is exactly the same here in Belgium. Also body language is identical. If you hear the words - "c'est normal" - BEWARE! Problems are ahead, and there is nothing you can do to alleviate them. The French speaker is saying loud and clear that there is absolutely NOTHING they can do to help you out from the problem that could very well occur. They are NOT responsible, it is the way of life. You hear it many times a day. There is so much in this book that captures the French way of looking at life, experiencing life. From my point of view, I like alot of it although some bits are infuriating. OMG, the bit about sports centers really made me laugh. I have had very similar experiences. And yes lotions are expunded as the ultimate answer to weight loss, not exercise. Every pharmacy advertises them. Christmas tree lights, girlander, yup, they are not strings but circles. This makes putting them on the tree so difficult. But this is the same everywhere in Europe, Sweden too! If you are born a Swede, you know how to deal with it. To an American it is the most idiotic system ever thought up. There is no way an American and a European will see eye to eye on this. I could go on and on, but if you want to see life from another perspective, read this book. If you are born in the US but have moved to a "French culture" you will laugh and laugh and laugh. I am on page 110 now, but GoodReads' "status box" is gone...... Anyhow you are allowed more space to write here than in the teeny status comment boxes. Back to the book. This is a good author - he writes for the New Yorker. Some people might be put off, but I love it.
I really liked reading this book. Gopnik is a wonderful writer, he still writes frequently for The New Yorker, and is always worth reading.Mostly the chapters could be read at random. There is a progression in them as his son Luke ages from one year old to six (1995-2000), and thus grew from a toddler to a youngster in Paris (there were a few visits back to the States). In some chapters Gopnik's family, especially his son, play major roles (see particularly the delightful chapter The Rookie). In most their role is minor or almost non-existent.Some of the incidents and episodes are hilarious. Two I remember are the adventures he has in signing up for a gym membership, and his description of the Bibliotheque Nationale, where Gopnik actually wanted to do research, as well as just look around. The former deserves an extended quote (from the chapter The Rules of the Sport). Gopnik at first has no luck at all finding anything like the gyms Americans frequent.Finally, someone suggested a newly opening "New York-style" gym, which I'll call the Regiment Rouge ... One afternoon Martha and I walked over ... At the top of a grand opera-style staircase ... were three or four fabulously chic young women in red tracksuits - the Regiment Rouge! - that still managed to be fairly form-clinging. The women all had ravishing long hair and lightly applied makeup. When we told them we wanted to abonner - subscribe - one of them whisked us off to her office ... (she told us) they had organized a special "high intensity" program in which ... you could visit the gym as often as once a week.... though she had a million arguments ready for people who thought that when it came to forme, once a week might be going overboard, she had nothing at all ready for people who thought once a week might not be forme enough ... (we told her that) some New Yorkers ... arranged to go to their health club every morning before work. She echoed this cautiously ... They rise from their beds and exercise vigorously before breakfast? Yes, we said weakly. That must be a wearing regimen, she commented politely.... then she said wonderingly, "Ah, you mean you wish to abonner for an infinite number of visits?" ... she arrived at a price for an infinity of forme ... She opened dossiers for both of us; you can't do anything in France without a dossier opened on your behalf.... A few days later I went back again to try to use the gym, but ... I was stopped by another of the girls in red tracksuits ... it was necessary that one have a rendezvous with a professeur. When I arrived the next day for my rendezvous, the professeur - another girl in a red tracksuit - was waiting for me ..."Aren't we going to demonstrate the system of the machines?" I asked."Ah, that is for the future. This is the oral part of the rendezvous, where we review your body and its desires," she said. If I blushed, she certainly didn't.(The equally funny description of the Bibliotheque appears in the chapter Lessons From Things.)This is really a must-read if you, an American, find yourself posted to Paris (or elsewhere in France) for an extended period of time.
Do You like book Paris To The Moon (2001)?
My husband and I decided to be appropriately literary on our last trip to Paris -- he took Hemingway, I took this book because I love travel memoirs. The basic premise is that Gopnik, a writer for the New Yorker, flees to Paris with his family to save his young firstborn from the insidious influence of Barney the dinosaur. It's well written, more complicated sentence structure than my usual vacation reading but engrossing. It travels an arc beginning with successfully conveying his naivete about the French and ending with his acknowledgement that he now understands very little about the French but more than when he started. It was a lovely accompaniment to a trip in which I think we learned a teeny bit more about the French, or at least about their obsession with reservations for lunch. It would also be a different, more sophisticated choice for an armchair traveller.
—Paula
This book is actually a collection of essays from the New Yorker, and they're very insightful. His arguments mostly stem from his own family's experiences and are naturally just small scenes from which he draws grand conclusions. Like most other authors.However, his awareness of the political scene and the major infighting going on culturally speaks of a very sharp mind. His essays have enough political analysis to show his intelligence, but then will transition into a colorful story about his son. One essay is about Adam Gopnik and his wife's attempts to keep Barney out of his son's life, and it's absurd, but it makes its point.In other words, a lot of it is fanciful, but in a charming almost fin de siecle style that I just adore. If you know anything about French culture, you'll laugh many times. :)
—Kelly
This book was fine, but I didn't particularly enjoy it. I was certainly interested in the subject matter: living in paris, the expat life, culture clashes, etc. But the author's style is rather long-winded and unnecessarily dense; some passages reminded me of esoteric literary criticism I used to have to read in college, not particularly suited to light observational journalism. Perhaps I'm too critical as I just finished a Bill Bryson book of travel essays that were thoroughly entertaining and often LOL funny. I don't mean to say that I didn't like this book at all or that it was totally uninteresting. It just wasn't much fun. Another thing: Mr. Gopnik often reiterated that New York was really home. He lived in Paris five years, which is certainly long enough think of a place as really home, especially when that's all your child has ever known. So for him to keep reminding us that his real home was in New York and this Paris "experience" was just a temporary experiment, I, as an expat myself, felt this made his "expat" experience seem more like an extended vacation. It's a different mindset when you know that you'll be going back to your "normal" life, home, job, friends after a few years as opposed to leaving nothing behind and having no firm plans to return. I kept wondering if he would have seen and written about Paris differently if he wasn't on a temporary assignment but thought of it as his real, long-term home. Lastly, it felt very dated. So much of his experience was influenced by his job as a journalist, documenting of-the-moment events. Many times, I'd read something that seemed so off, but then I'd remember that he lived in Paris from 1995-2000. It may not seem like things can be so different in only 10-15 years, but they are.
—Tanya D
