파리를 짝사랑한「뉴요커」지의 칼럼니스트가 쓴 리얼하고 유쾌한 파리 체류기. 많은 미국인들이 그랬듯 어린 시절부터 파리에 대한 낭만을 품고 있었던 저자는 상상을 실현하고자 파리로 이주해 오 년간 살았다. 뉴요커의 눈으로 본 파리에서의 삶을 재치있고 위트있게 때로는 비판적으로 그려냈다.
프랑스 정치인들의 이해할 수 없는 제스추어, '똘레랑스'를 외치면서 사회적 기득권을 인정하는 프랑스 사회의 이면, 극적효과와 퍼포먼스에 능한 프랑스 사람들의 이중적인 심리를 꼬집는다. 나치 전범으로 장관을 지낸 모리스 파퐁 취재 후일담, 위기를 겪고 있는 프랑스 음식과 식당들, 프랑스 파업 사태 등 저널리스트로서 다가간 파리도 흥미롭다.
희한한 조건을 붙이는 아파트 렌트 시스템, 파리의 헬스클럽에서 겪은 황당한 관료주의, 동네 음식점 주인을 설득해 음식 배달해 먹기 등 '관광지 파리'가 아닌, 부딪혀봐야 알 수 있는 '살아 숨쉬는 파리'의 모습이 담겨 있다. 또한 이방인임을 깨달은 순간을 통해 뉴욕과 파리의 차이를 진솔하게 보여준다. 미국 장기 베스트셀러에 오른 이 책은 미국 내 언론 뿐 아니라 「르몽드」,「르 프엥」 등에서도 찬사를 받았다.
Paris. The name alone conjures images of chestnut-lined boulevards, sidewalk cafes, breathtaking facades around every corner--in short, an exquisite romanticism that has captured the American imagination for as long as there have been Americans.
In 1995, Adam Gopnik, his wife, and their infant son left the familiar comforts and hassles of New York City for the urbane glamour of the City of Light. Gopnik is a longtime New Yorker writer, and the magazine has sent its writers to Paris for decades--but his was above all a personal pilgrimage to the place that had for so long been the undisputed capital of everything cultural and beautiful. It was also the opportunity to raise a child who would know what it was to romp in the Luxembourg Gardens, to enjoy a croque monsieur in a Left Bank cafe--a child (and perhaps a father, too) who would have a grasp of that Parisian sense of style we Americans find so elusive.
So, in the grand tradition of the American abroad, Gopnik walked the paths of the Tuileries, enjoyed philosophical discussions at his local bistro, wrote as violet twilight fell on the arrondissements. Of course, as readers of Gopnik's beloved and award-winning "Paris Journals" in The New Yorker know, there was also the matter of raising a child and carrying on with day-to-day, not-so-fabled life. Evenings with French intellectuals preceded middle-of-the-night baby feedings; afternoons were filled with trips to the Musee d'Orsay and pinball games; weekday leftovers were eaten while three-star chefs debated a "culinary crisis."
As Gopnik describes in this funny and tender book, the dual processes of navigating a foreign city and becoming a parent are not completely dissimilar journeys--both hold new routines, new languages, a new set of rules by which everyday life is lived. With singular wit and insight, Gopnik weaves the magical with the mundane in a wholly delightful, often hilarious look at what it was to be an American family man in Paris at the end of the twentieth century. "We went to Paris for a sentimental reeducation-I did anyway-even though the sentiments we were instructed in were not the ones we were expecting to learn, which I believe is why they call it an education."
Paris. The name alone conjures images of chestnut-lined boulevards, sidewalk cafés, breathtaking façades around every corner--in short, an exquisite romanticism that has captured the American imagination for as long as there have been Americans.
In 1995, Adam Gopnik, his wife, and their infant son left the familiar comforts and hassles of New York City for the urbane glamour of the City of Light. Gopnik is a longtime New Yorker writer, and the magazine has sent its writers to Paris for decades--but his was above all a personal pilgrimage to the place that had for so long been the undisputed capital of everything cultural and beautiful. It was also the opportunity to raise a child who would know what it was to romp in the Luxembourg Gardens, to enjoy a croque monsieur in a Left Bank café--a child (and perhaps a father, too) who would have a grasp of that Parisian sense of style we Americans find so elusive.
So, in the grand tradition of the American abroad, Gopnik walked the paths of the Tuileries, enjoyed philosophical discussions at his local bistro, wrote as violet twilight fell on the arrondissements. Of course, as readers of Gopnik's beloved and award-winning "Paris Journals" in The New Yorker know, there was also the matter of raising a child and carrying on with day-to-day, not-so-fabled life. Evenings with French intellectuals preceded middle-of-the-night baby feedings; afternoons were filled with trips to the Musée d'Orsay and pinball games; weekday leftovers were eaten while three-star chefs debated a "culinary crisis."
As Gopnik describes in this funny and tender book, the dual processes of navigating a foreign city and becoming a parent are not completely dissimilar journeys--both hold new routines, new languages, a new set of rules by which everyday life is lived. With singular wit and insight, Gopnik weaves the magical with the mundane in a wholly delightful, often hilarious look at what it was to be an American family man in Paris at the end of the twentieth century. "We went to Paris for a sentimental reeducation-I did anyway-even though the sentiments we were instructed in were not the ones we were expecting to learn, which I believe is why they call it an education."
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