Customer Reviews

French Toast: An American in Paris Celebrates the Maddening Mysteries of the French

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

This is a book I wish I had written. As a long-time Paris denizen -- now a dual-national with US and French citizenship -- I can attest that French Toast is on the mark when it comes to understanding a certain French world (there are as many, perhaps more, worlds here as there are in America). It's also funny and a delight to read. Harriet's humor and insight bubble up in every sentence, and I love the tidbits provided by her husband, Philippe. On sexiness: Give a French woman perfume, an American woman a bar of soap. This is classic stuff. I look forward to reading her next book on France! Encore, encore!...

I found some of her insights interesting, and a few caused me to chuckle. But this book really serves to reinforce French stereotypes, so it's not very illuminating. The writing isn't great, and in some places, it's just plain sloppy.

I'd recommend "Almost French" by Sarah Turnbull over this book. It's more thoughtful, better written and more insightful. Her husband does not come off well in the book, as other reviewers have noted. Not recommended.

What a fabulous little book. Easy to read and packed with every day, helpful information. Even though my wife and I are devout francophiles, and live part of every year France, we still are astounded by the little nuances that can bring a conversation or meeting to a halt. For example, when four people say goodbye never cross each others hands when you shake - it seems to invoke the devel.

This book is now standard issue in our family for any friends who come to stay with us in France. Five stars for entertainment and practical information. Let's hope there is a sequel.

After years of misunderstanding my French sister-in-law, the mystery has been cleared up thanks to Harriet. I read this book in one sitting, laughed quite a bit and came to understand many things which have puzzled me over the years: differences in child rearing, eating habits and attitudes toward people, life, marriage and many other things. I even lent the book to my sister-in-law and she thought it was amusing and insightful.

This book is not bad for light reading. The anecdotes are quite amusing but the author doesn't really provide deeper insights into French culture. Some of the author's interpretations of French behaviour are too simplistic - nothing you've never heard before. A better buy would be Polly Plat's French or Foe. It also appears that this book was written in haste - the jokes in dialogue format at the end of each chapter do not seem well integrated with the book. It seems like they were placed there because the author did not put in much thought as to how to insert them well into the chapters.

Having recently returned from Paris, I was eager to keep my memories of this magical city fresh. Described by one reviewer as the Peter Mayle of Paris, this book sounded so good I purchased both this and "French Fried."

Ugh! It's the first time in my life I wanted to throw a book away. She is negative, humorless and a mediocre writer.

She apparently moved to France and spends her days wishing the French were more like Iowans. She wallows in her ignorance and is proudly ill-mannered, unschooled and unable to cook. After 20 years in Paris, the best she can do is work her pressure cooker! Avoid this book if you like (or think you might ever like) Paris.

I thought this book was terrific. Harriet Welty Rochefort tells of Parisians and their idiosyncrasies with a sharp eye and a lively wit. I laughed all the way through.

After reading a few of the other reviews, I wonder if some readeres just don't get Mrs. Rochefort's sense of humor.

One or two people claimed the book was terribly negative, and I don't think it was negative at all. Mrs. Rochefort, for the most part, clearly loves Paris and Parisians. It's just that she also makes fun of them.

Mrs. Rochefort also makes fun of herself in a most amusing way, implying she's a loud, ill-mannered, Iowa bumpkin compared to the French. Apparently, some readers took this literally, judging from a review that calls her "narrowminded." Once again, I think it's her playful sense of humor exaggerating for effect.

My only criticism is that I don't believe Mrs. Rochefort's explanation for French merchants' rudeness to their customers. She suggest that it's a byproduct of the French attitude toward money. I think it's more likely a byproduct of the negative attitude toward the world outside of the family, combined with a system that makes it difficult to fire people.

I bought this book because I've always wanted to go to France. I am an avid reader and usually breeze through books, but this one was different. It took me a long time to actually finish this book (and it's not that long!). This overpriced book is not something I'd give anyone interested in France. The odd "interviews" with her husband at the end of each chapter didn't fit at all. She follows constant negative statements with "but I love the French, afterall I married one" statements so many times it made me crazy! Just becaue the culture isn't "American" doesn't make it bad. I would think someone who chose to live in another country would have a more open mind to the culture. I did not find Mrs. Rochefort's writing at all interesting. The book does not flow and seems rather forced and repetitive. The only redeeming parts of this book were the few funny anecdotes she manages to include without completely putting down the French. My advice, read French or Foe. It's a much better book for your money! Or at least try another book on French culture. I wish I had.

This is an amusing book of its type, but it could have been much, much better. Some of this is the fault of the publisher who evidently prepared this 119-page book in haste. (Why? To beat Peter Mayle's latest effort, "Encore Provence," by a few months?) Rochefort constantly refers us to anecdotes that will appear later in numbered chapters. But the chapters are not numbered, either at their beginnings or in the index! Too, I waited fruitlessly to see how it is that her sister-in-law, wearing a silk blouse and no apron, manages never to be spattered by grease when she stands over a sizzling frying pan. ("See chapter 3." Huh?) A much better view of Americans living in Paris is given by Diane Johnson's brilliant novel "Le Divorce."

I am neither American nor French. As an Asian woman, I lived in the United States for more than a decade, and I have been living in France for exactly one decade. I had been married to an American and now to a European. With my former training in cross-cultural psychotherapy, and having lived and worked with people of various racial backgrounds, I have a great interest in inter-cultural relationships.

I had read French Toast the first time in 1999, shortly after moving to France, and I was quite amused at the author's descriptions of the French. I read the book again very recently and her account has confirmed my own observations of both the Americans and the French. She said that she had only a "bird eye's view" of the French during those past twenty years. To me, her bird eye's view was remarkable. What had struck me the most when I first arrived in the United States more than thirty years ago was the "individual" versus the "family'. The author has lived through and felt that experience. As an American woman living in France and being married to a Frenchman, she talked about the cultural gap getting bigger and not smaller, and how deeply cultural differences run below the surface. I myself can certainly identify with those dilemmas.

The author has a fabulous sense of humor. Very few books addressing cultural conflicts can be written with such tolerance. What I really admire in her book is her ability to laugh at herself and at her own mistakes. Very few of us can do that.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in understanding French behavior, whether they are tourists or planning to be long-term residents in this country. Reading this book is both entertaining and enlightening. I also think the book cover design is quite charming.