No place like Paris

When I first met Bryce Corbett, he seemed articulate and quite funny. As such, I was looking forward to reading his book A Town Like Paris. Like a lot of other readers, I love reading Paris memoirs, and there have been a good number of them for awhile now. The latest of the bunch is Bryce’s book. Originally from Australia he moved to London to follow his childhood sweetheart. Alas the romance doesn’t work out and his job turns out to be a dead end one. With not much prospects in the horizon, he decides to accept a job offer, and it’s a rather cushy one at that, in Paris. He embarks on his new life with great gusto and his book essentially details his adventures and scrapes in the city of light.

His writing style is quick and breezy and you quickly get the impression that he writes exactly as he speaks. Nothing is safe from his frequently acerbic observations of French life or foibles and often the tone is arrogant and all too smug. Granted, his experience of moving to a new country where he has neither family nor friends couldn't have been an easy one, but the book would have made for a better reading if he had written it with a lot less sarcasm and more genuine warmth. What somewhat redeems his heavy handedness is his obvious affection, love even, for Paris and la vie parisienne.

Reading the book made me recall my initial experiences when I first moved to Paris. And it was interesting to note the differences between them. One of the things that struck me was the anecdote about the French attitude towards alcohol at dinner parties. He found it strange that at French parties, no one ever made the first move to pour drinks and as a consequence all the bottles were waiting at the table while people mingled and circulated without drinks. Needless to say, he soon succumbed to pouring his own drink at such parties despite the frequent gasps of horror he heard when he did it. Funnily enough my problem in the beginning was that copious amounts of alcohol always flowed so freely that it was all I could do to refuse the umpteenth refill of my drink! I am of the firm belief that no self-respecting French man or woman who invites people over, for either a dinner or a party will ever commit the mistake of not opening the bottles of wine right away and letting it flow till everyone has had their fill. Then again, that's just my experience talking and Bryce is certainly entitled to his own.

That said, I do agree with Bryce on one thing. We share the inescapable experience of the expatriate in Paris. Neither he nor I will ever be Parisian, but our home now is Paris.