Customer Reviews

Secret Life of France

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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.

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.

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.

First of all I live in Paris, so when a friend recommended this book to me, which by the way there are thousands of books about Paris and/or France, I was hesitant. I thought for sure it was going to be another one of those books where someone comes for a short visit or stay and become experts on French society. Especially Francophiles who view France through rose tinted glasses as if it were some kind of utopia because of all the clichés. Living here versus visiting here so incredibly DIFFERENT. It takes years to get into the French psyché to understand all the social mores and attitudes of their culture and its people. I was pleasantly surprised the author "got it," warts and all. Don't get me wrong, it's not a bash France book, but takes a long hard look at, the good, the bad, and the ugly. I have a love/hate relationship with Paris as most Parisians do, but something definitely pulls me to her... Excellent book, the author did an excellent job of capturing life in France from an ex-pats point of view. Note: you haven't gone through the rites of passage until you experience the "Prefecture." It's sort of like "psychological hazing."

This book was a surprising delight. The author has a wry self deprecating way with words that captivate you. If you have ever wondered about what, to us Anglo Saxon Protestant work ethic driven planet dwellers, is going on in the minds of the French (And so some extant French Canadians, this is the book that will give you a lot of answers. Any summary will not do justice to how she argues:

The French (Chattering classes ) love the idea, but not often the implementation

There is liberty - except if you transgress the unwritten codes:

* All French are created equal - except if you are an immigrant who is unfortunate enough to love in a ghetto
* We are all equal , but I will fight to the death my particular perks that I enjoy that you do not have.
* Working for the State is the highest form of service - but that means I am better than you and I can be rude
* Team play takes a distant second seat to me winning
* France remains a patriarchal society- feminism did not take root, men run the country and women wait for men to make their move.
* To be seen is to be better than to do.
* You can divorce, but why not have affairs- changing husbands is just moving t e furniture in ten years.
* All are allowed their secret garden and the press will not inquire into your private lives - at least not until Sarkozy made it a celebrity life.
* The press is free , but the government really interferes, and most French people do not read it anyway
* The Republic is not a democracy - it starts as a Socialist state and then pushes left
* Only the govt can get in debt - it is frowned upon with regular folks, just try to get a loan.
* All are equal but a sub current of racism means Sarkozy talks about his Hungarian fathers roots, but not his mothers Jewish roots.
* Parisian views are diametrically opposite to the views of the country people (who eschew capitalism)
* You have Liberty but Muslim women can not wear the head covering etc, because displays of ethnic, religious difference are not allowed. You are all free to look the same - perfect French, perfect French people.

A good coast to coast airplane read- Very useful if you ever have to deal with The French. You will understand your lack of success better.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book.I have been to France many times and have experienced some of the rude behaviors described in the book;especially in Paris.This happens much less in areas such as Provence;Nice,Antibes,etc.
I feel this is a very honest appraisal of France by a person who loves France,and has chosen to live there,in spite of some of the rude behavior about which France is stereotyped.
The author explains many of the behaviors of the French which are a mystery to Americans[and others],such as adultery,pride and refusal to acknowledge their bad behavior toward the Jews during WW II and continuing anti-Semitism. It is also a humorous,very readable book.

As a confirmed Francophile, I ABSOLUTELY LOVED THIS BOOK, from which I learned so much more about the cultural mores of France.

Wadham herself had been married to a Frenchman for close to 20 years, with whom she had 4 children (all of them educated in the French educational system), and, though divorced, continues to live and work in France. While shedding insight into French attitudes toward religion, politics, education, race, relationships, history (France continues to be very conflicted about its wartime behavior under the German Occupation), the French language, the law, and the nation itself, she intersperses the book with some of her own experiences with her French family and friends, which also gives the book the feel of a diary and an anthropological case study. Further, Wadham's contrasts of French attitudes with comparable Anglo Saxon cultural norms and practices (as exemplified by Britain and America) I found both startling and intriguing.

(I have twice visited Paris, and though my French is very far from fluent, I had not met with any outward shows of derision or contempt from any Parisians I encountered during my daily pereginations in the city.)

For the reader of this review, I'd like to cite 2 passages from the book, which may give you food for thought ---

"Television is [for the British] ... a medium naturally given to the worship of reality. In line with our love of reality and our taste for the comic over the tragic, the British are excellent watchers and makers of television. The French, on the other hand, with their love of grand ideas and their contempt for reality, make execrable television. Hours of French airtime are devoted to the spectacle of people (anybody will do) sitting around discussing ideas. There is none of the British mistrust of 'talking heads'. Talking heads are seen as a good thing in France, and the louder they talk the better."

"It is strange to me to watch my own children struggling, for the first time, with the very facets of their own culture that I found so infuriating when I first arrived twenty-three years ago. While they were growing up, I was blind to my own influence upon them. They seemed to me so wonderfully French that I would never have guessed that their Englishness would one day come and bite me on the bottom. Now that they're getting ready to leave for England, I find myself buried so deeply in this culture that I doubt I can ever escape it. France has swallowed me up, but not my children.

"My relationship with France began with my relationship with Laurent. When the marriage ended, I assumed that my link to France would lessen in intensity. I was no longer speaking French all hours of the day, dreaming in French, arguing in French, loving in French. I thought I was no longer bound to this place. My children were grown up, so I could now choose: England or France. And then I discovered that I didn't want to leave. I know France now and in knowing her, I love her. Like the long-suffering spouse who realises, after all those years, that in spite of everything, there is no one in the world she would rather be with. I adore and despise this country in equal measure."

Books instructing Britons and Americans on the mysteries of the French could fill an entire bookstore. Just last month Elaine Sciolino's excellent La Seduction: How the French Play the Game of Life arrived to try to clarify French customs. Almost French: Love and a New Life in Paris, Fifty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong, French Women Don't Get Fat. We not only want to understand the French, we want to BE French. But Mark Greenside is the most realistic, as he acknowledges in his book, I'll Never Be French (no matter what I do).

Lucy Wadham grew up in England, but wasn't yet out of her teens when she went to France, fell in love with a French man, and made a new home in France. Though she is no longer married to the French man, she has four French children, and has spent over half her life in France.

It took Wadham many years of living in France and dealing with everyday situations to become comfortable and confident. She is a long-time resident of France, but she will never be French. The French will be the first to tell her that, and they have.

Distilling her two decades of experience into an informative combination of memoir and anthropological guide, Wadham explains French health care, French attitudes toward personal appearance, entertaining in Paris, French attitudes toward extramarital affairs, the French education system, government, spying, and more.

What starts as a memoir sometimes turns into history, politics, and even philosophy. I think The Secret Life of the French is better when it sticks to memoir and personal experience rather than analysis. But Wadham shows how although she can never be French, she is getting pretty comfortable doing a fair imitation. She tosses names of French philosophers such as Guy Debord and Jacques Derrida into her discussion as casually as any real French person does.

As hopeless as it seems, we can't stop trying to understand the French. As former president Giscard-d'Estaing bluntly told Elaine Sciolino in La Seduction, "You cannot."

I second the reviewer who said "Aha" to many of Lucy Wadham's observations. From having French in-laws to raising children in Paris, to realizing that apologetic English politeness got her nowhere in shops, her day-to-day experiences with Parisians over the years give credibility to those moments visitors have found odd or uncomfortable. Her observations on the pervasive psychological theories underpinning her children's state schooling expanded my view of all the psychology-based French intellectual thought that burgeoned in the 1970s and 80s. The commentaries on more recent political figures seemed less thought through (Sarkozy and Royal), but her general thread of Parisian sexual mores casts further light on the Parisian reaction to the Strauss-Kahn arrest in New York.