France in Mind [Paperback]

Alice Leccese Powers (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 11, 2003

In her third literary Baedeker, Alice Leccese Powers–editor of Italy in Mind and Ireland in Mind–explores France through the senses and sensibilities of thirty-three British and American authors.

The food and the people, the culture and viniculture, the architecture and the expatriates, the pleasures (and frustrations) of France are described by intrepid travelers who also happen to be brilliant essayists, poets, and novelists. From Gertrude Stein’s Paris to Ezra Pound’s Pyrenees; from Tobias Smollett, who grumbled, to Peter Mayle, who settled in; and from Edith Wharton on falling in love to David Sedaris on falling over French grammar–here is France in all its splendor in the words of some of the best and most entertaining writers in the English language.

Henry Adams • James Baldwin • Elizabeth Bishop • Mary Blume • James Fenimore Cooper • Charles Dickens • Lawrence Durrell • Lawrence Ferlinghetti • M. F. K. Fisher • F. Scott Fitzgerald • Janet Flanner • Adam Gopnik • Joanne Harris • Ernest Hemingway • Washington Irving • Henry James • Thomas Jefferson • Stanley Karnow • Peter Mayle • Mary McCarthy • Jan Morris • Ezra Pound • David Sedaris • Tobias Smollett • Gertrude Stein • Robert Louis Stevenson • Paul Theroux • Gillian Tindall • Calvin Trillin • Mark Twain • Edith Wharton • Richard Wilbur • William Carlos Williams

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Powers (editor of Italy in Mind and Ireland in Mind) does France in this collection of 33 letters, works of fiction and essays by British and American authors. The pieces stretch from the early 18th century to the present, but the omission of dates for some entries is frustrating. Dated or undated, itemized descriptions of sky, sea, vegetation and cathedrals can make for dry reading, as in the selections by Henry James and Ezra Pound. By contrast, the juiciest entries convey how being in that sensual country stamps out the conventions travelers sometimes bring. Most evocative are Adam Gopnik's excerpt from Paris to the Moon, which uses his wife's prenatal care in France to contrast cultural attitudes toward pregnancy, sex, parenthood and doctor's fashions; Ernest Hemingway's vignette of a starving writer's hunger from A Moveable Feast; David Sedaris's tale from Me Talk Pretty One Day, on the exasperation of learning to communicate in French; and, of course, the requisite Peter Mayle-who inspired so many to visit Provence that he himself had to flee-from A Year in Provence, on getting used to the French social ritual of kissing on the cheek. Earlier writings describing the desperation of poor Parisians before the French Revolution-Charles Dickens's broken wine cask scene from A Tale of Two Cities and Thomas Jefferson's 1780 letter to James Madison concerning his encounter with a destitute woman-do much to illustrate that era. A common thread runs throughout this mostly pleasant collection: as Powers puts it, "travelers in France are heavily freighted with the weight of home."
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

It seems to be a rite of passage for Anglophone authors: go to France and write about it. Americans and Brits have been going for centuries, as the selections in this anthology, with essays by such authors as Charles Dickens, Henry Adams, Joanne Harris, and Mary McCarthy, prove. There is enough variety in the collection that nearly everyone should find something to pique his or her interest, from reflections by Americans on France at a time when the U.S. was quite new, to Lost Generation musings by Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, to the wry humor of such contemporary writers as Adam Gopnik and David Sedaris. Editor Powers has included fiction and nonfiction, as well as two poems ("Avignon" by Lawrence Durrell and "Place Pigalle" by Richard Wilbur), and, as she notes in the introduction, made a conscious effort to feature selections from every area of France, not just Paris. The result is a delight to read for anyone in love with France and offers an invitation to seek out the sources of these selections for further reading. Beth Leistensnider
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; First Edition. pb original edition (March 11, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375714359
• ISBN-13: 978-0375714351
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.6 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,693,030 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You'll Enjoy Your Trips to France in This Great Anthology, March 29, 2003

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Bookreporter (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: France in Mind (Paperback)

"What is the draw of France to Anglo-Saxons?" To answer this question, Alice Leccese Powers explores France through the works of thirty-three British and American writers. She has compiled as diverse a selection of writings as is possible to have on the same topic, proving that every traveler experiences France in a different way --- even novelist Tobias Smollet, who found more to complain about than to embrace.

The selections in FRANCE IN MIND range from the eighteenth century to the present, cover territory from Paris to the Pyrenees and include fiction, nonfiction, letters and poetry. Some of the pieces are familiar and worth re-reading in the context of this anthology --- excerpts from Ernest Hemingway's A MOVEABLE FEAST, F. Scott Fitzgerald's TENDER IS THE NIGHT and Joanne Harris' CHOCOLAT. Also collected here are essays from noted travel writers like Peter Mayle writing about social rituals in Provence, M.F.K. Fisher on dining in Marseilles and Paul Theroux on exploring Arles in Van Gogh footsteps.

It's the unexpected selections that make FRANCE IN MIND come alive --- writings from James Fenimore Cooper, Mary McCarthy and David Sedaris. One of the best selections in the anthology is an excerpt from Washington Irving's TALES OF A TRAVELER. Irving, closely identified with New York's Catskill Mountains, penned several volumes of travel writing that were popular in both Europe and America. Those who have read Irving's THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW will see familiar elements in "The Adventures of My Uncle," in which he spins a ghostly tale set in a chateau in Normandy.

The biographies that precede each selection provide interesting details on the authors' connections to France. Thomas Jefferson succeeded Benjamin Franklin as the U.S. Ambassador to France and arrived at his post with his two daughters and a slave, Sally Hemming. Gertrude Stein, most famous for the literary salons she hosted in her Paris apartment for the Lost Generation of expatriate writers, was of Jewish descent. She refused to leave Paris during World War II and, not only was she forced to sell some treasured paintings to survive, she narrowly escaped being sent to a concentration camp. Journalist Stanley Karnow first went to France as a U.S. Army soldier during World War II. He later returned on the G.I. bill, enrolled at the Sorbonne and stayed for many years working for the Paris bureau of Time magazine.

Edith Wharton, at first wary of Henry James because critics often compared their work, became great friends with James and joined him on a motoring tour of France. Both are represented in FRANCE IN MIND: Wharton with a selection from one of her lesser-known novels, THE REEF, on falling in love in Paris, James with an essay on the cathedral town of Rheims.

Whatever the time or place --- whether it's Adam Gopnik in PARIS TO THE MOON strategizing on how to convince a taxi driver to make a U-turn to take his pregnant wife to the hospital to give birth, David Sedaris earning a few laughs for his attempts at mastering the French language, Ezra Pound on a walking tour of Southern France, or even Thomas Jefferson penning a 1780 letter to James Madison --- each selection brings us ever closer to understanding the source of France's allure. "What is the draw of France to Anglo-Saxons? It is the romantic possibilities. The manners, the body language, the cuisine, the religion hold the promise of another life away from the ordinary."

--- Reviewed by Shannon McKenna