A French Affair

America and France have always had a special relationship. In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the two have enjoyed a love affair of sorts, with all the love/hate dynamics that suggests. From Benjamin Franklin charming Louis XVI to Jackie Kennedy enchanting Charles de Gaulle, the two peoples have fascinated and repelled each other. Mary Blume has cultivated her own love affair with this often inscrutable land -- France. It is an affair that spans more than thirty years, from the time Mary Blume first came to Paris, beginning her renowned columns in the International Herald Tribune with a fine eye for the charms, and no aversion to skewering the pretensions, of her adopted home. As with the best chronicles of a time and a place, the narrator begins to emerge through the text. Only Mary Blume could have written these essays. Hers is a unique voice that has won her a devoted audience who have turned religiously, over decades, to her weekend features. Quintessentially American, she has managed that fine trick of not assimilating, and yet coming to know, in the fullest sense, the place and the people in all their often sublime and sometimes ridiculous complexity. In the pieces themselves, whether she turns her penetrating lens on Frenchemen or their money or their socks, whether a bearded lady or Simone de Beauvoir, street performers or members of the Académie Française, whether the newest chic potato or the eternally chic St. Germain de Prés, whether the events of May '68 or the last presidential elections, she sees what would pass unseen -- were she not there to notice it. In the simplest things, Mary Blume reveals the telling detail. In a piece ostensibly about cooking lessons given by two well-meaning aristocrats, she lays bare the acute French sense of class; in a deadpan explanation of the byzantine process of changing street names, she captures the Kafkaesque French bureaucracy; in looking at one beloved Left Bank bistro, she gives us the essence of every such restaurant; by describing the French art of window shopping, she gives us a reflection of how the French see themselves. Whether plumbing the nuances of their language, their rites, rules, or rituals; whether looking at the Mona Lisa or the political arena, film-makers or winemakers, the places and personalities come alive with an uncanny ring of truth. Illustrated by Ronald Searle with the unique wit and delicacy for which he is world famous, A French Affair gives us not only a unique perspective on a time, a place, and a people, but a France that we can digest, distill, and revisit without ever leaving the comfort of home.

Mary Blume is a columnist at the International Herald Tribune and author of Côte d'Azur: Inventing the French Riviera. Born, raised, and educated in New York City, she lives in Paris, France.

Contents Preface PARIS FRANCE When Paris Put On Its Best Dress Men Will Be Boys Genêt: French Rigor and American Gusto The Friends of Mona Lisa A Rueful Glance Ahead at New Face of Paris The Last Old-Time Soup Kitchen in Paris A Struggle for the Soul of a Paris Restaurant Paris in a Bottle: A Wine Grower's Dream Animating Paris, City Hall Style Cooking Classes by Princess and Countess Potato of Snobs, Dainty and Newly Chic, Captivates Paris Daniel Cohn-Bendit: Ten Years After the Events of May Happy Memories of Gray Paris in the Fifties Vionnet, Last of the Great Couturiers The Fine Art of Window Shopping Saint-Germain's Latest Brainstorm Simone Signoret: A Memory RITES AND RULES Paris -- La France Profonde Comes Back to Town Money Speaks in France Getting Through France's Linguistic Jungle Exemplary, Bearded Clémentine The 2 CV: They Laughed, Then Loved It Age-Rated French Encyclopedia on Sex Luminous Ideas of the Concours Lépine Assembly Line Vacations French Pursuing the Right Number How Long Is Long? The Meter Turns 200 The "Rustproof" Candidate for the French Presidency Virtuosi of the People's Piano French History: Past and Present Clash An Election in Which the Scofflaw Wins 1944: The Many Who Were Forgotten Letting Loose and Holding Down Be Careful, It's Mushroom Season Again Monsieur le Perpetuel to the Rescue of English Why a Leopard Cannot Change Its Spots WORDS AND IMAGES A Vintage Year for Duras Simone de Beauvoir Talks, and Talks V.S. Pritchett's Cheerful Laments Elisabeth Lutyens: "A Dog Barks and a Composer Composes" Erich Salomon's Eye on Clever Hopes Keeping Berlin Berlinisch "Love Ya": Voznesensky and His Collages Brassaï, Among Friends Robert Doisneau's "Little Scraps of Time" Photographer Don McCullin: "The Dark Side of a Lifetime" Christo in Search of a Perfect Umbrella Peter Brook: "One Has to Do Everything as Lightly as Possible" Robert Morley Has Just Had Fun Before "Paradise" and After -- Carné's Prickly Recollections A Renoir Air of Family François Truffaut -- Love and Children Alain Resnais: The Rhythm of the Ear and Eye In Raul Ruiz's Cinematic Labyrinth Wertmuller: "I Love Chaos" Fate, Fellini and Casanova Ingmar Bergman: A Shadow of the Future Marcel Ophuls, Professional Memory Man Bertrand Tavernier and the War That Never Ended Ella Maillart at Her Journey's End A Lost World in Paris