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66 of 66 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
What the French Thought Was Going on in France, May 28, 2000
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!
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by Gertrude Stein
by Shari Benstock
by Sylvia Beach
by Janet (Genet) Flanner
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