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Paris Was Yesterday

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Like many other American tourists, when I visit Paris I am searching for the Paris of Hemmingway and Fitzgerald. Amazingly enough, even though over 50 years have passed, a lot of that Paris has survived and is just waiting to be rediscovered. A lot of what I can't find on my own I find in those columns that Janet Flanner wrote from 1925 to 1939 for the NEW YORKER and which have been collected for PARIS WAS YESTERDAY.

Janet Flanner (pen name "Genet") was the resident Paris Correspondent for THE NEW YORKER. Her assignment was to write columns about "what the French thought was going on in France," Flanner became much more than a mere observer of the Parisian scene. she was an active participant. Be it a death, an opera premiere, a swindle, a political disaster, a bit of gossip about a celebrity, or nostalgia for an even earlier era, Flanner wrote about them, and wrote with wit and an occasional tongue-in-her-cheek.

The following example of her tongue-in-cheek approach, one among many, comes from a 1928 column entitled "The Italian Straw Hat." It seems that the French wanted parity with Hollywood when it came to Motion Pictures and wanted to pass a law requiring the acceptance in the U. S. of a French Film for every Hollywood made film shown in France. The first picture they wanted to export to the U. S. was a film entitled, in translation, THE ITALIAN STRAW HAT. Her comment about this film was, "While THE ITALIAN STRAW HAT is not, as touted, the funniest comedy in Europe today, it is the funniest comedy about a straw hat to be seen on the boulevards,"

In Flanner's columns you can read about Chevalier and Josephine Baker (not together), about the excitement when the Louvre got a new Berthe Morisot and a new Monet Painting donated the same day, about more excitement over the premiere performance of a Ravel Piano piece, about a mysterious murder and a new political pecadillo, and finally about more somber times when World World II and Hitler loomed just over the horizon.

If you'd like to feel that you are in LES DEUS MAGOTS, or CAFE FLEUR, and listening to Sartre or Cocteau wax elegant or if you'd like to hear the gossip about the gendarmerie asking Marlene Dietrich to leave Paris because she had the audacity to wear trousers in public or if you'd like to meet James Joyce in THE SHAKESPEAR AND COMPANY BOOK STORE, or if you'd like to attend one of Gertrude Stein's intellectual discussion and meet her companion, Alice B. Toklas, then this book is for you.

I highly recommend PARIS WAS YESTERDAY to anyone who is interested in a different view (not that of Hemingway or Fitzgerald) of the era of the "Lost Generation." I recommend it to anyone who likes a book for its wit and charm. If you're not interested in Paris, but just like a bit of celebrity gossip, there's still a lot here for you. There's a reason that Janet Flannery's column ran for so many years. She'sgood!

There are rare pleasures in reading, one of which is stumbling onto a 'new' author. Ms Flanner could craft a detailed word picture almost with a single stroke of her pen. She wrote what she saw, actors, authors, lives and deaths of Knowns and Unknowns. She was there at the events, both great and small in a Paris she knew well and obviously loved. She is able to give the period between the wars a flavor and texture that makes it live and breathe. In some ways it is a gossipy diary, in others a police blotter, a literal whos-who of the literary scene of the time. Entries vary from a few pithy lines to several pages, ranging from light and humorous to somber and serious. And all extremely well written.

Flanner (nom de plume: Genęt), a former New Yorker essayist and who lived in Paris for many years, describes the cultural and social life of Paris in the 20s and 30s. She pens wonderful glimpses into what Parisians were thinking, feeling, and doing -Parisian ways of living, wine, and art. C'est magnifique.

The Paris, France of Janet Flanner's time was quite different then. In between World Wars, Paris probably thought it was on the rise of maintaining the role in attracting the finest artists, writers, and cultural elite. The American expatriate artists flocked to Europe because of the dismal great depression. Janet left before the great depression with another divorcee, Solita Solano. Janet and Solita lived modestly in Paris. Janet would eat at Cafe Deux Magots with the likes of Ernest Hemingway. Janet foresaw Hitler's evil long before anyone else. Janet loved Paris unlike every other city. Paris is quite a feminine city by design. It's pretty and it attracted the likes of lesbian expatriates Natalie Clifford Barney, Romaine Brooks, Rene Vivian, Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, Sylvia Beach, Adrienne Monnier, Djuna Barnes, Nancy Clare Cunard who were all friends with Janet during this time. In Europe, people like Janet were accepted and tolerated especially in Paris where it was fashionable. Women like Janet and others got to be in control of their destinies. Although the 1920s were simply a time of sexual revolution, the great depression probably was the main reason for many Americans to go abroad. Anyway, Janet was a remarkable writer who worked out every word and sentence before sending it to be published. I would love to have lived in Paris between the wars where being a woman wasn't crime if you weren't married.

Janet Flanner's dry sense of humor, combined with her keen reportage, make this a great read on your flight to Paris, or to just pick up and read now and then. The historical perspective and insight is priceless.