Talk to the Snail Page 16
42 What’s more, being French, there’s a good chance she’ll be a decent cook.
43 This law ruined a French film I once saw. The premise was that a poor West African man was posing as a priest to earn a living and get a roof over his head. He started doing weddings, which would have had wonderful comic possibilities in an Anglo-Saxon country, but fell totally flat in France, because the people he claimed to be marrying were all married anyway.
44 Although I have never heard this said of a woman politician, so maybe the French aren’t as open-minded about the subject as they think.
And when the relationship has begun, the use of key phrases becomes even more essential . . .
Epilogue
THE LOVE THAT DARE NOT
SPEAK ITS NAME
THERE IS ONE TYPE OF LOVE THAT IS RARELY, IF EVER, mentioned in polite French society. No, not homosexuality, which is fairly well accepted. The Mayor of Paris is openly gay and people don’t care at all. With his annual Paris Plage – the artificial beach along the banks of the Seine in summer – he has added a certain gay exuberance to the city’s staid cultural life.
No, the love that dare not speak its name is the unavowed adoration of the Anglo-Saxon.
As I’ve said in previous chapters, the French will spit upon the concept of fast food, but gobble hamburgers. They will turn their noses up at Hollywood ‘trash’ and flock to see Star Wars and Spiderman. They will wax lyrical about Dior fashions and dress themselves head to foot in Nike. They will lament the fact that English is killing off all the world’s other languages and be first in line to sign up for English lessons when their employer asks who wants to work in the international division.
A grumpy waiter might pretend not to understand English, but in most cases he will feel good about his ability to speak the language, and not only because he can rip the naïve foreigners off for a few extra euros. To speak English is to be hip and modern.
And let’s face it, the same is true for us Anglos. We laugh at the French, but we love them really. They are arrogant, but we wish we had that much self-confidence. They’re old-fashioned, but we’d love to be that stylish. They’re hypocritical, but we envy their ability to get away with it every time.
This is why all young French people want to go and live in London or New York, where they will be able to live this hipness for themselves, and get a job as a shop assistant without first having to spend three years at the Ecole Nationale de Shop Assistants.
And all Anglos dream of buying a house in France and living the French lifestyle, devoting their whole existence to food, wine, sex and dangerous driving.
But let’s not spoil the game of seduction by coming out and saying this. For the last thousand years or so we’ve both been playing hard to get, and by and large, apart from the wars, one burnt French saint and a few port blockades, it’s been fun. If we give up the game now and declare our undying love, we’re heading for disaster – a quick, probably unsatisfying, afternoon at a hotel, post-coital blues, and smoking in bed.
So let’s keep our love for each other secret. It would be a shame to spoil things after all these years, n’est-ce pas?
By the same author
A YEAR IN THE MERDE
IN THE MERDE FOR LOVE
Photo Acknowledgements
Chapter 1: © Jean Gaumy/Magnum Photos; Chapter 2: © Eric Taschaen/epa/Corbis; chapter 3: © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis; chapter 4: © Rykoff Collection/Corbis; chapter 5: © allactiondigital.com; chapter 6: Annebicque Bernard/Corbis Sygma; chapter 7: © Mike Blenkinsop/ Alamy; chapter 8: Elliott Erwitt/Magnum Photos; chapter 9: © Yves Forestier/Corbis Sygma; chapter 10: © Richard Kalvar/Magnum Photos; chapter 11: Mary Evans Picture Library.
Copyright © 2006 by Stephen Clarke
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