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Summary: Scintillating prose, different than anything I read before
Review: -A seamlessly translated read, and most amusing, from the view of this strictly American 52 year old pediatrician, who has not kept up with international affairs to any great degree, and who has not been in France for over 20 years. Scintillating prose, effortless translation, yet retaining elements of the sparkling scintillation of the French language. Descriptions of Paris and of the use of language and "code" were incredibly interesting and very amusing. I am impressed with the strength of English in business, yet the flexible depth of French in the arena of diplomacy.-I AM returning avec epouse this Juillet spending 5 days SATURATING in Paris. I am avidly resuming my French language studies. Your conjectures into the French ethos were different than anything I had read, and I feel prepared to be......mystified with silent awe in our trip. -Mes meilleurs felicitations,.....vous avez vraiment fait un grand tabac (?syntax). Cordially, (Veuillez agreer, Messieurs, mes salutations distinguees)
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Summary: Pierre Salinger liked this book
Review: A biting, loving and wonderfully knowledgeable insider's guide to Parisians. Few observers know France better than Robitaille.
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Summary: Amusing at times but could have contributed more insights
Review: For well over thirty years, I have been visiting France for a minimum of one month per year, and feel very fortunate to have many French friends. While I found the beginning of the book most amusing, I did not appreciate the "puff" pieces. I wish, after his having spent twenty years in France, M. Robitaille would have given us his insights as to why the French still do not buy automobiles with automatic transmission, or why General De Gaulle was never promoted to Marshall of France, or the contribution McDo (McDonald's) has made to France, or why Disneyland Paris is now a success, or consider that M. Mitterand did actually have a lovely apartment where he lived with two others, or why Jean Moulin continues to be honored, etc., etc.
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Summary: Amusing at times but could have contributed more insights
Review: For well over thirty years, I have been visiting France for a minimum of one month per year, and feel very fortunate to have many French friends. While I found the beginning of the book most amusing, I did not appreciate the "puff" pieces. I wish, after his having spent twenty years in France, M. Robitaille would have given us his insights as to why the French still do not buy automobiles with automatic transmission, or why General De Gaulle was never promoted to Marshall of France, or the contribution McDo (McDonald's) has made to France, or why Disneyland Paris is now a success, or consider that M. Mitterand did actually have a lovely apartment where he lived with two others, or why Jean Moulin continues to be honored, etc., etc.
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Summary: Parisian doesn't mean french
Review: I'm french and lives in the United States. I read that book but I think there's good things and bad things about it. First, the author seems to spend a lot of time depicting the parisian intelligentsia rather than really depicting a french picture. Paris and province are very different. And most of the french people don't have a Bishop or a noble for dinner. So why talk about it that much ? Also who cares about EuroDisney that much ? Not french people. There's good & bad things about France but at 33% of the book seems to talk about things that doesn't really seems relevant to a french. Otherwise some parts are really funny.
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Summary: Readers could hardly hope for a more congenial host
Review: National affairs columnist Paul Wells said in Quill & Quire Magazine (Nov 97): This collection of very fine vignettes by Louis-Bernard Robitaille, Paris correspondent for the Montreal newspaper La Presse, captures much of what makes contemporary France so fascinating, and so maddening. His writing carries an expert observer's appreciation of France's formidable complexities. He has a remarkably sharp eye for the telling detail, and his lucid prose is expertly translated by Donald Winkler, winner of the Governor General of Canada award for translation.
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Summary: Pick and choose in this one
Review: Robitaille says some interesting and funny things, but in general I found his book hard going. The prose is quite dense (this may be the fault of the translation), and the author expects his readers to be as au courant with the details of French political and social life of the last twenty years as he is. If you're not up to speed, you'll be left scratching your head about the significance of this strike and that strike, this gaffe and that gaucherie, this change of minister and that, and on and on. But there are some very entertaining general articles in this collection, so I recommend that the Average Reader (in this case, someone generally but not intimately familiar with matters French) hunt them out and enjoy them, and leave the rest to the specialists.
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Summary: Why things, and people, are different in France
Review: The Globe and Mail (Toronto, Jan 10-98) wrote: A Paris-based correspondent offers a solid picture of the excitement, the bafflement, the pleasure and the frustration of life in France. This is a useful as well as an interesting book, rare and perceptive. Robitaille's gift for finding le mot just is equalled by his choice of interviewees. A first-class anatomy of French life, this book is rather more agreeable than most.
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Summary: Unspoken Rules Make French who they are
Review: The Montreal Gazette (8 Nov 97-reviewed by novelist David Homel) said:Social conduct in France is governed by invisible sets of unspoken rules, whose subtle crisscross has given that country an irritating mystique. Veteran journalist Louis-Bernard Robitaille has taken that mystique and spun an entire book out of it. Many of the sections cover issues in current French political and social life. Who and what is bourgeois? What is Gaullism today? What is the role of women in French politics? What is the role of the largely Catholic and Sephardic Mediterranean side of French and the largely Protestant North?. Robitaille wants to entertain us as a journalist, and he does succeed. Romantic about the French, Robitaille believes they will forever remain a delightful enigma.
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Summary: Recommended to anyone planning to spend time in France
Review: The Montreal Review of Books (Fall 97-reviewed by Linda Leith) said of this book: Admirably wry essays on French culture and society, this French bestseller has been translated with lucidity and wit. The author is an engaging writer, and almost unfailingly good-humoured, whether his subject is Louise Malle or Michel Legrand, the Académie Française or EuroDisneyland. He writes about Parisian codes of speech and behavipir with hard-won insight. Recommended to all who have ever been mystified, impressed, bemused, fascinated, or irritated by the French.
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