Read Online La Seduction: How the French Play the Game of Life by Elaine Sciolino - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Elaine Sciolino
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heart of some young beauty by a hundred sweet attentions; to see yourself making some small progress with her every day; to combat…her reluctance to surrender, with tears and sighs and rapturous speeches; to break through all her little defenses…and gently bring her round to granting your desires. But once you are the master, there is nothing more to say or wish for: the joy of passionate pursuit is over.”
In the end, Don Juan goes straight to the fire of hell. But his appetite for a challenge and his rejection of Christian religious principles intrigued the increasingly freethinking public of Molière’s day.
A contemporary take on sex as the end of seduction is a line I heard from a young woman I know. Whenever a flower seller approaches her and a friend (male or female) in a restaurant, she responds with a straight face and a cutting line: “No thanks. We’ve already had sex.”
So how to play the game? Several weapons need to be mastered.
The first is le regard , the look, the electric charge between two people when their eyes lock and there is an immediate understanding that a bond has been created.
The concept is a classic component of French seduction, rooted in antiquity and developed in the love poetry of the troubadours. “The look is like an arrow that enters the Other’s body through his/her eyes and infects the body and soul of the person, rather like Cupid’s arrow,” explained Lance Donaldson-Evans, a French Renaissance scholar at the University of Pennsylvania. “It can have a spiritual dimension, but it is usually associated with erotic love.”
There is something chaste and pure about the look, as there is no sullying of the body. But there is also something inherently unfaithful about it, because with the look, you never stop falling in love. Stendhal, the nineteenth-century master of psychological and historical realism, defined le regard as “the heavy artillery of virtuous coquetry.” He explained why: “You can say everything in one look, and yet you can always deny the look, for it cannot be quoted word for word.”
I learned about le regard one day during a visit to a small museum in the Paris suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt, which houses a permanent collection of art from the 1930s. I was with the museum’s director, Frédéric Chappey, when we happened on a room with drawings and lithographs, including an advertising poster for the Salle Marivaux theater. I admired the poster’s tranquillity and Art Deco composition. Chappey told me I had it all wrong.
“This, this is seduction,” he said.
“What is?” I asked.
There was elegance, certainly, in the poster, which showed two couples in formal dress at the theater. The women were seated, and the men stood behind. But seduction?
Chappey explained that the men put the women in front of them so they could both look at the napes of their necks and search for other potential conquests. “They signal they are in pleasant company, but they are looking elsewhere,” he said. “The message is, ‘I have already had this one. I have already succeeded. What matters now is the next one.’ It’s saying, ‘I am very elegant. We are very elegant. I am a great seducer, and because I am such a great seducer, I can seduce again.’ I think it is full of humor!”
“This is too subtle for me,” I said.
My ignorance encouraged Chappey to go further. “The couples are not talking to each other because they have already sinned,” he said. “Seduction has already been tested and incarnated. So, the most beautiful victory is not this one but the next one. It’s not today’s; it’s tomorrow’s. He is saying, ‘See what a seducer I am? Are you ready? Are you free? Tonight, I am busy, but tomorrow? Are you free tomorrow?’ He doesn’t say anything. He talks entirely through his regard . And you, you cannot help but give in.”
“It’s too complicated,” I said. Seemed like too much of an investment of time and
In the end, Don Juan goes straight to the fire of hell. But his appetite for a challenge and his rejection of Christian religious principles intrigued the increasingly freethinking public of Molière’s day.
A contemporary take on sex as the end of seduction is a line I heard from a young woman I know. Whenever a flower seller approaches her and a friend (male or female) in a restaurant, she responds with a straight face and a cutting line: “No thanks. We’ve already had sex.”
So how to play the game? Several weapons need to be mastered.
The first is le regard , the look, the electric charge between two people when their eyes lock and there is an immediate understanding that a bond has been created.
The concept is a classic component of French seduction, rooted in antiquity and developed in the love poetry of the troubadours. “The look is like an arrow that enters the Other’s body through his/her eyes and infects the body and soul of the person, rather like Cupid’s arrow,” explained Lance Donaldson-Evans, a French Renaissance scholar at the University of Pennsylvania. “It can have a spiritual dimension, but it is usually associated with erotic love.”
There is something chaste and pure about the look, as there is no sullying of the body. But there is also something inherently unfaithful about it, because with the look, you never stop falling in love. Stendhal, the nineteenth-century master of psychological and historical realism, defined le regard as “the heavy artillery of virtuous coquetry.” He explained why: “You can say everything in one look, and yet you can always deny the look, for it cannot be quoted word for word.”
I learned about le regard one day during a visit to a small museum in the Paris suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt, which houses a permanent collection of art from the 1930s. I was with the museum’s director, Frédéric Chappey, when we happened on a room with drawings and lithographs, including an advertising poster for the Salle Marivaux theater. I admired the poster’s tranquillity and Art Deco composition. Chappey told me I had it all wrong.
“This, this is seduction,” he said.
“What is?” I asked.
There was elegance, certainly, in the poster, which showed two couples in formal dress at the theater. The women were seated, and the men stood behind. But seduction?
Chappey explained that the men put the women in front of them so they could both look at the napes of their necks and search for other potential conquests. “They signal they are in pleasant company, but they are looking elsewhere,” he said. “The message is, ‘I have already had this one. I have already succeeded. What matters now is the next one.’ It’s saying, ‘I am very elegant. We are very elegant. I am a great seducer, and because I am such a great seducer, I can seduce again.’ I think it is full of humor!”
“This is too subtle for me,” I said.
My ignorance encouraged Chappey to go further. “The couples are not talking to each other because they have already sinned,” he said. “Seduction has already been tested and incarnated. So, the most beautiful victory is not this one but the next one. It’s not today’s; it’s tomorrow’s. He is saying, ‘See what a seducer I am? Are you ready? Are you free? Tonight, I am busy, but tomorrow? Are you free tomorrow?’ He doesn’t say anything. He talks entirely through his regard . And you, you cannot help but give in.”
“It’s too complicated,” I said. Seemed like too much of an investment of time and
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