* * * * *
L'exception française–usually uttered without the slightest irony–is a phrase heard frequently in France. Case in point: the New Year. Of course, like most of the world, the French officially start theirs January 1. But, l'exception oblige, our true New Year arrives in September and is fondly called la rentrée, featuring all the promise of a rebirth without the attendant guilt of those untenable January resolutions.
 During la rentrée, grateful parents return kids to school before getting themselves back to business. Newspapers are filled with cabinet ministers promising to make good on their June commitments. New fashions, films, and plays appear, and a collective ebullition ensues during which even Parisians manage to be pleasant to one another for a few blessed weeks before falling back into the routine of metro-boulot-dodo.1
And with the flood of newness arrives that much-awaited event: the awarding of literary prizes.
The subject of Who Will Win seizes the country.
Amid the stalls of our 1872 covered market, literature temporarily replaces cuisine as the main subject of conversation, a conversation in which a lack of acquaintance with the books in competition does not impede participation. The antique dealer, who has for the past fifty years made it a point of honor to read one book a year–that is, each year's Goncourt prize winner–is a font of disreputable information on the intricacies of the Parisian literary scene. Our bartender deftly doles out cheap Bordeaux as he extols the talents of Émile Zola while condemning the entire pack of currently publishing poseurs.
In short, this is a country where the value of a book is difficult to distinguish from its merits as subject of conversation. For France is the self-proclaimed République des lettres, a former kingdom where now naught but the writer is king.
True, very few French authors live from the proceeds of their writing alone. But rare is the writer–even one of the slightest renown–who willingly makes a meal for himself, his presence being a sought-after addition to any dîner en ville.
Bistros across the country compete with amateur poetry evenings. An important number of theatrical offerings each season are staged readings of lovers' correspondence or the diaries of famous people. American tourists may be startled to see Parisian city buses festooned with posters advertising not the latest bestseller, but works by writers such as Paul Auster, Jim Harrison, or Philip Roth.
And then there are the literary festivals, which thrive each year throughout France, as varied as our 387different types of cheese and only slightly more numerous. A friend, an American expatriate writer, a non-household name, decided as a cultural experience to accept every invitation to every literary festival he received. During the subsequent year, he was whisked at no charge from medieval village to Renaissance town, dined and wined on exceptional crus, immortalized in the speeches of local notables, spending most of the time in an alcohol-induced haze, gaining thirty pounds . . . and not writing a word.
Given this ambiance, how could our politicians not be expected to publish or perish? Some, like the late François Mitterand–who was wont to devote his September press conference to the arcane volumes he'd polished off during his holidays–write prolifically and well. The rest summon help from a veritable industry of ghostwriters. In brief, in the République des lettres, with its dictum "a thought well-conceived is a thought well-expressed," the idea of entrusting matters of state to someone without several published books to his name would be, well, not worth the paper it's written on.
1. Subway-work-sleep.
|
