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Paris > Book reviews
> A Year in the Merde
A Year in the Merde
Book Review
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A Year in the Merde
Stephen Clarke
Hardcover, 276 pages
Bloomsbury
US $22.95 |
Stephen Clarke's A Year in the Merde is an "almost true"
first-person narrative by Paul West, a 27-year-old Englishman who has been
recruited by a French company to open a chain of British-style tearooms in
Paris. The prospective expat writes:
"My good friend Chris told me not to come to
France. Great lifestyle, he said, great food, and totally un-politically
correct women with great underwear. But, he warned me, the French are
hell to live with. He worked in the London office of a French bank for three
years.
"...His theory was that the French are like
the women scorned. Back in 1940, they tried to tell us they loved us, but we
just laughed at their accents and their big-nosed General de Gaulle and ever
since we've done nothing but poison them with our disgusting food and try to
wipe the French language off the face of the earth....It's permanent payback
time, he said. Don't go there.
"Sorry, I told him, I've got to go and check
out that underwear."
Over the course of the next year, Paul West does much more than
admire Gallic lingerie: He tries to supervise employees who'd rather plan lunch
than a marketing campaign, he becomes involved with a series of Parisian
girlfriends (including his boss's daughter), he becomes immersed in the
complexities of French real estate, and he endures the daily hassles of dealing
with everything from condescending waiters to Métro
strikes. Not that he's judgmental about the French; in the cover blurb, he's
quick to say:
"There are lots of
French people who are not at all hypocritical, inefficient, treacherous,
intolerant, adulterous or incredibly sexy...They just didn't make it into my
book."
A Year in the Merde is a
rollicking, profane, and mercilessly funny book by a British writer who works
for a French press group in Paris and has written comedy for the BBC. Whether
you're a Francophile, a Francophobe, or simply an afficionado of Franco-British
humor, you're bound to enjoy "Paul West's" first-person memoir of expatriate
adventures in the Paris of today. (And who knows--you might pick up some useful
travel tips in the bargain.)
To
read short excerpts from A Year in the Merde, click the links below.
Read Excerpt 1:
Paris tipping
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