Recently, I enjoyed two books that readers have recommended, both reflections on spending time in France: Map of another cityBy MFK Fisher (1908-1992) and From here, you can’t see ParisBy Michael Sanders. Both writers are Americans, but their books were written forty years apart.
Different moments, contrasting experiences
MFK Fisher was mainly known as food writer. She directed a nomadic existence and lived in France several times. This includes several stays extended with their two daughters in Aix-en-Provence, the theme of Map of another city.
Fisher’s book is not really Aix. Althegh, she mentions some of the characteristics of the city, such as the sources in the Mirabeau courses, it is more about the people she finds and their reactions to them and life in postwar France.
Michael Sanders, his wife and little daughter, spent a year in the town of Les Arques in the early 2000s. The place is famous for his museum dedicated to the sculptor Ossip Zadkine, who lived there, and for his restaurant, the record. A visit to Les Arques is very exaggerated and is definitely on my list.
Sanders’ original intention was to focus on the restaurant, but its reflections vary widely on life in the rural areas of France and their relationship with local people. Interestingly, Hey barely mentions Zadkine, saying that his work leaves him cold and seems to be emotion (I do not agree).
The experiences of Fisher and Sanders were, or of course, different. France greatly changed the duration of forty to fifty years that separate its stays. Fisher lived mainly in a bustling city, Sanders in the deep field. The exodus of rural France that had begun after the world that had greatly intensified when Sanders arrived. However, both provide interesting ideas to be a stranger in France.
Be an outlander
A passage in Fisher’s book, where he talks about being an outlander, caught my attention. I doubt the word, since people associate it today with the books of Diana Gabaldon and the subsequent television series. However, I seemed to capture better than the word ‘foreign’ the idea of being a stranger in the country and culture of another person.
Fisher was single with two young daughters and an American in postwarfing. What bothered her about the subliminal attitude of the French towards her was that “the people that I really liked would never accept me as a person of perception and sensitivity, perhaps the same as his. I was always very stake.
This opinion was, Fisher felt, directly related to her as American and did not extend to people of ‘major’ civilization.
Positive vision
Sanders takes a more positive vision of their relationship with the French. First, he is there in a mission. The restaurant and its then owners, Jacques and Noelle Ratier, appear prominently in the book. Sanders helps at the restaurant in busy moments, so he really experiences work instead of simply observing it. Jacques and Noelle become friends.
Second, Sanders is left alone. This gives you enough time to develop a connection with some of the locals, but perhaps not enough to arise the disenchantment you can establish. Towards the end, it is particularly satisfied that some begin to tutoyar it (the less formal medium).
Upon his return to America, Sanders and his wife find the skin of his French experience difficult. The reflections on the incompatibility of modern life (speed, technology, individualism) with the life of the village (community, respect for the past and the greater good). He does not see to romantize France, collecting instead the difficulties and challenges of rural life: depopulation, a population that ages, a rural economy in decline, the lack of comfort.
As ‘Outlander’, I can identify with aspects of Fisher’s opinions and Sanders: the attitude of sponsoring occasionally balanced by the satisfaction that comes from acceptance as part of a group. We are never more than permanent visitors in the country and the culture of another person, but we accept it as part of the life we have chosen. Together with the desktop Cracy (see the previous publication).
Mfk fisher, Map of another city It is available in rustic and editions of electronic books.
Michael Sanders, From here, you can’t see Paris It is exhausted but second -hand available from the resellers.
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