smile.
“John, it’s Paris !”
She was too polite to append “you idiot!”
But she would have been justified in doing so. I’d ignored the oldest rule of marketing—sell the sizzle, not the steak.
Berliners are adamant that something called Berlinerluft— Berlin Air—seeps up from swamps under the city and has the power to inspire creativity. Angelenos will tell you there is for sure something in Californian sunshine that confers on movies made there a special gleam. And anybody who loves clothes will insist that nothing equals the cut of a suit made by the tailors of London’s Savile Row. So a writer might think that Paris, which had stimulated so many literary figures in the past, could do the same for them. Our capacity for self-delusion appears almost infinite. Cannibals believed that if you ate part of your enemy, you acquired his courage and skill. We still believe some grains of fairy dust settle in the wake of the mighty. A Hollywood producer, walking along the beach at Malibu, saw Steven Spielberg sitting on the sand, staring at the sunset. He watched from a distance and, when Spielberg got up, slipped into the hollow left behind. Well, who’s to say?
I waited for Dorothy to order a café crème and explain why she had summoned me. An invitation in the very middle of seminar week could only foreshadow a favor. To Dorothy, my role was twofold: as a friend and colleague, but also as part of her réseau.
“Doing anything this afternoon?”
Ah!
“Nothing in particular. Why?”
“You know we hold these literary walks . . .”
Nobody in the seminar cared to study every minute. Two hours a day was the limit; after that, attention wandered. For the rest of the time, they wanted to enjoy Paris—albeit while doing something literary. To accommodate them, the seminar devoted afternoons and evenings to optional extras—readings, art shows, and literary walks.
“Who’s doing the walks this year?”
“It was hard to find somebody good, but we finally got . . .” And she named a moderately well known American academic: call him Andrew.
“Doesn’t he teach at Harvard or someplace?”
“Stanford. But he’s in Paris on a sabbatical.”
“You lucked out then.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Why? Is there a problem?”
“I’d rather not say. But do me a favor and tag along on his walk this afternoon. I’d be interested in your opinion.”
Chapter 15
The Freedom of the City
The traces of American expatriates, refugees, heroes and rascals are discoverable throughout this city.
WALTER J. P. CURLEY, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO FRANCE, 1989–1993
N ext to environmental tourism, cultural tourism is the leisure industry’s major growth area. For every person who hikes across Bhutan or counts butterflies in the Brazilian rain forest, another longs to plunge into the thickets of literature, unaware that it’s just as full of surprises, agreeable and otherwise, as any Amazonian jungle.
Spain, Switzerland, Italy, even countries of the old Soviet federation—all host summer events for wannabee authors. Dorothy had shown me some of their brightly colored brochures. I’d examined them with disbelief. One in Spain taught the literature and aesthetics of bullfighting, including visits to the corrida , though hopefully only as a spectator. Another in Rome, devoted to “The Literature of Cuisine,” was simply a pretext to eat an enormous dinner every night. The only required reading was the menu.
Others were stranger still.
“ ‘Enforced café sitting,’ ” I read. “ ‘The students choose one of the city’s historic cafés and remain there for no less than two hours, during which they observe and record the passing scene . . .’ ”
“I wondered if that would work here,” Dorothy mused. “We have the cafés, but the proprietors don’t like you to just sit. It could cost a fortune in café crèmes .”
“Here’s a woman who teaches ‘Writing as Dance.’ You don’t actually
“John, it’s Paris !”
She was too polite to append “you idiot!”
But she would have been justified in doing so. I’d ignored the oldest rule of marketing—sell the sizzle, not the steak.
Berliners are adamant that something called Berlinerluft— Berlin Air—seeps up from swamps under the city and has the power to inspire creativity. Angelenos will tell you there is for sure something in Californian sunshine that confers on movies made there a special gleam. And anybody who loves clothes will insist that nothing equals the cut of a suit made by the tailors of London’s Savile Row. So a writer might think that Paris, which had stimulated so many literary figures in the past, could do the same for them. Our capacity for self-delusion appears almost infinite. Cannibals believed that if you ate part of your enemy, you acquired his courage and skill. We still believe some grains of fairy dust settle in the wake of the mighty. A Hollywood producer, walking along the beach at Malibu, saw Steven Spielberg sitting on the sand, staring at the sunset. He watched from a distance and, when Spielberg got up, slipped into the hollow left behind. Well, who’s to say?
I waited for Dorothy to order a café crème and explain why she had summoned me. An invitation in the very middle of seminar week could only foreshadow a favor. To Dorothy, my role was twofold: as a friend and colleague, but also as part of her réseau.
“Doing anything this afternoon?”
Ah!
“Nothing in particular. Why?”
“You know we hold these literary walks . . .”
Nobody in the seminar cared to study every minute. Two hours a day was the limit; after that, attention wandered. For the rest of the time, they wanted to enjoy Paris—albeit while doing something literary. To accommodate them, the seminar devoted afternoons and evenings to optional extras—readings, art shows, and literary walks.
“Who’s doing the walks this year?”
“It was hard to find somebody good, but we finally got . . .” And she named a moderately well known American academic: call him Andrew.
“Doesn’t he teach at Harvard or someplace?”
“Stanford. But he’s in Paris on a sabbatical.”
“You lucked out then.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Why? Is there a problem?”
“I’d rather not say. But do me a favor and tag along on his walk this afternoon. I’d be interested in your opinion.”
Chapter 15
The Freedom of the City
The traces of American expatriates, refugees, heroes and rascals are discoverable throughout this city.
WALTER J. P. CURLEY, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO FRANCE, 1989–1993
N ext to environmental tourism, cultural tourism is the leisure industry’s major growth area. For every person who hikes across Bhutan or counts butterflies in the Brazilian rain forest, another longs to plunge into the thickets of literature, unaware that it’s just as full of surprises, agreeable and otherwise, as any Amazonian jungle.
Spain, Switzerland, Italy, even countries of the old Soviet federation—all host summer events for wannabee authors. Dorothy had shown me some of their brightly colored brochures. I’d examined them with disbelief. One in Spain taught the literature and aesthetics of bullfighting, including visits to the corrida , though hopefully only as a spectator. Another in Rome, devoted to “The Literature of Cuisine,” was simply a pretext to eat an enormous dinner every night. The only required reading was the menu.
Others were stranger still.
“ ‘Enforced café sitting,’ ” I read. “ ‘The students choose one of the city’s historic cafés and remain there for no less than two hours, during which they observe and record the passing scene . . .’ ”
“I wondered if that would work here,” Dorothy mused. “We have the cafés, but the proprietors don’t like you to just sit. It could cost a fortune in café crèmes .”
“Here’s a woman who teaches ‘Writing as Dance.’ You don’t actually
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