NEW PARIS BOOK IN PROGRESS IN 2024: THE LOVER OR THE CLICHÉ – Blog # 26.
This is Paris. There must be a lover in my new Paris book. Why? Because this is Paris. Oh, the cliché! Oh, the dilemma!
‘Cliché’ means that a phrase or idea or opinion – or even a character – is over-used. We’ve heard it all before, Martina. It lacks original thought. But, what would a Paris book be if it doesn’t have a lover? Boring?
Cliché! Isn’t that a French word? A dated French word – as opposed to a dating French word. It was originally the sound of a printing press that duplicated the same page over and over and over. Some clichés live on and on and on – changing with the times and the modern copy machines, I guess.
I’ve read plenty of books set in Paris that have plenty of lovers. They repeat the cliché, don’t they? Or do I mean ‘loves’ rather than lovers? A book about the love of French food, or French wine, or the love of a French café or French castle. Does the love have to be some being, such as a person or a thing? Can’t it be the love of doing something, such as the love of walking along the Champs-Élysées?
Why was the American chef Julia Child’s book My Life in France so successful? The memoir is about her love for her husband Paul and her love, of course, of French food, French cooking, French markets, and French living. More so, readers love Julia Child for being herself – she was so exuberant and lively and passionate and funny. She was the person who was the ultimate ‘character’ in real life – a fearless chef who was not afraid to cook outside her comfort zone, to cook above her pay grade. She’s not cliché – she’s souffle, she’s sorbet, she’s buffet, she’s mornay. She’s outrageously franglais!
Just tell me, Martina, does this book have a lover? Well, of course, it does. One or two, or a few. Three or four, or more. Less than ten, and not all men. Or maybe twenty, that’s plenty! Cliché, passé, midday, soirée, dolce, padre, overt, covert, real, unreal, surreal, bidden, hidden – maybe I’m kidding! Seriously, this is Paris.
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Photographer: Martina Nicolls
