Secret Life of France [Paperback]

Lucy Wadham (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 2, 2009

In this candid and funny account of her escape from English boys and her love affair with a Frenchman, Lucy Wadham describes the mutual bafflement and fascination that characterised both their subsequent marriage and her unfolding relationship with France. Using her own personal experiences over 25 years, Lucy offers a rare, insider's view of a nation that may be deeply incompatible with ours but is also, she thinks, chronically misunderstood. In "The Secret Life of France", Lucy leads us on a journey through the French moral maze, and examines French attitudes to a range of subjects from marriage and adultery to work and race relations. By taking apart the cliches she helps us gain a better understanding of this nearest and most alien of neighbours, and suggests that on some matters we have much to learn from them.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Lucy Wadham was born in London and educated at Oxford. She has lived in France for the past 20 years.Her first novel, Lost, was shortlisted for the Macallan Gold Dagger for Fiction. She is also the author of Castro's Dream and Greater Love.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Faber & Faber (July 2, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0571236111
• ISBN-13: 978-0571236114
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #935,103 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars TO STAY OR NOT TO STAY, August 31, 2009

By 

DAVID BRYSON (Glossop Derbyshire England) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Secret Life of France (Paperback)

That was the question that faced Lucy Lemoine (nee Wadham unless that is just a nom de guerre) when she ended her 20-year marriage to a Frenchman. She had to decide whether it was nobler in the mind to suffer the talk and habits of outrageous Frenchmen or to pull up stumps and cross the sea to England, and maybe find that better. She had actually once gone along to apply for French citizenship, and had been so appalled by the rudeness of the civil servant she encountered that she changed her mind on the spot. However when it came to the later decision she elected to stay in France after all, although significantly not in Paris.

Myself, I have been to France ten or eleven times, including my honeymoon in Corsica, but reading this book makes me think I probably know the place better from television and maybe a few films than from my stays there. Nothing Lucy Wadham says about France or the French surprises me, and although my knowledge of it all seems somehow second-hand I think I can understand to a fair extent what she is talking about. She starts her narration where she ought to start it as a young woman, with the relations between the sexes, partly but not mainly her own experiences. I am not going to précis her findings: I shall say only that she has a very interesting slant not only on the work/life balance of the French but on the balance between their commitment to marriage, their adherence or otherwise to Catholic moral teaching, and their attitude to sexual relations generally. A lot of the interest of this part of the book may be unintentional, by giving us insights into her own mental and emotional processes. She is obviously very sharp and analytical, for instance, but if the word `love' occurs at all in this context I think I must have missed it.

One very interesting, and for me quite persuasive, insight is her opinion that the French are hidebound in their inherited traditions from 1789 and also in a self-deceiving mythology about themselves. This point the author illustrates from so many different angles that I can't help being drawn into her mindset. She sees herself as freethinking and independent-minded, and I would call that realistic on the evidence here and not a pose or auto-suggestion. Being of this way of thinking clearly creates communication barriers with the French, and Lucy Wadham does not quite convict the French national mindset of outright escapism, but she seems to me to come very near to it.

The book covers a wide spectrum of cultural and political issues, and with one exception I found myself keenly interested in Lucy Wadham's take on them. The exception occurs near the end, and that may have something to do with the matter, say a deadline to meet that did not help her concentration and focus. I really thought that the chatter about M Sarkozy as something called a `sexual dwarf' was a right load of rubbish, but perhaps I ought to reread the passage in due course. One way or another it is not significant enough to influence the rating I am prepared to give this thoroughly intelligent, fair-minded, readable and enjoyable volume. What really impresses me is that not only does the book address so many difficult and contentious topics with gusto and insight, it even provides, on page 64, nothing less than `the key to the French identity'. Short of identifying The Meaning of Life, I think this is as lofty and ambitious a generalisation as I have encountered in many years.

To me a theme of this kind, when attacked with so much mental grip and expressed with such lucidity, is far more interesting and involving than many a novel. I gather the author is a novelist, although this is the first time I have encountered her work. On this showing it will not be the last time.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Now I understand them!, February 1, 2010

By 

J. Dugan "caltoparis" (Paris, France) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Secret Life of France (Paperback)

I have been living in France for 6 years and have frequently wondered about their behavior and their tendency to do things "en masse". They are a very particular race of people and Ms. Wadham does a great job of laying out the case for their complex and often irritating behaviors. She writes very well, the book is an easy and entertaining read- I found myself saying "Aha" and also laughing out loud at her characterizations. A must buy for anyone thinking of living here or any Francophile.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beady-eyed English view of life in France., March 12, 2011

By 

Linda Agerbak (Carmel Valley, CA, US) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Secret Life of France (Paperback)

As an American who's visited France over many years, I savored this book. The English author writes entertainingly and perceptively and personally, and that's what raises it above the run-of-the-mill books about France. As a young English student, she marries a Frenchman and raises a family in France, so it's an in-depth experience she's reflecting on, almost a memoir. And she is well-grounded in her own solid, protestant English culture, so views French posturing and pleasure-seeking with a gently-raised eyebrow. A fun read.