This half-term I spent five spring days in Paris with my two sons, 16 and 11, partly for fun and partly to start researching my second novel. I wasn’t intending to write about the trip here as I’ve promised Jane Rusbridge a post about Paris for her series on Place, which will appear next month. But that’s a specific writing post and when I was uploading the hundreds of photos we took this week to my computer, I couldn’t resist sharing a few moments.
Although it wasn’t planned, photography ended up as a kind of theme of our visit. I’m an art lover too, but as a medium photography has the edge for me. I know that nowadays all kinds of manipulation and trickery are possible but it comes down to what was actually there to start with. I’m continually startled at the power of pictures from earlier eras to transport the viewer. It’s a similar immediacy to that of the best writing which can take you physically and emotionally into other lives and other places, making you forget you’re reading a book.
And so with the most amazing luck, we were able to experience three different but unforgettable exhibitions: Brassaï – For the Love of Paris at the Hôtel de Ville; a huge retrospective of Henri Cartier-Bresson at the Centre Pompidou featuring 500 exhibits detailing the three distinct phases of his career (surrealism, political activism and Magnum photojournalism) ten years after his death, and a very moving outdoor exhibition on the railings of the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers on the deportation of Jewish children from the 3rd Arrondissement (district), the part of the Marais where we were staying in a rented flat. I was pleased that my children took an interest in all this, but especially the latter, which had even my younger son who doesn’t read French that well asking thoughtful (and difficult) questions. Thankfully some of the panels are dedicated to the uplifting stories of locals who took huge risks to protect and save friends and neighbours, including a town hall administrator who issued false papers and a family who raised a two-year-old girl as their own daughter after her family were taken away.
I can’t tell you how often I’ve been to Paris, only that it’s dozens of times. France has always been a big part of my life to the point where I can’t imagine I’d be the same person without it. As a child my summers were spent on family camping trips which centred on southern Brittany and the Loire-Atlantique, where my godparents live in a place called Guérande (famous for its salt, if you’re into cooking, salted caramels or expensive skin exfoliating products). I went on many exchange visits to Rennes. As an adult I’ve discovered and come to love the geographically opposite region of Provence with my husband and family. But Paris has been there all along.
It’s strange the way some places get under your skin - I’ve come across this in more than once, especially with cities. My first novel is partly set in Brooklyn, a place I fell for in a big, big way only five years ago. I feel certain I’ll live there one day: meanwhile I can’t think about it without an almost unbearable longing to go back. Paris is just as intense, but different. Maybe it’s because I’ve grown up with it; maybe it’s because it’s so much closer and easier to get to that in recent years I’d started to take it for granted, only to be taken aback by the heightened emotion it always brings out when I return. I can’t imagine trying to write a novel in the absence of that feeling.
This week I spent two lovely evenings with one of my oldest and closest friends whom I’ve known since I was 11. Whenever I visit the Jardin de Luxembourg I can picture us whiling away afternoons in the uncomfortable metal chairs by the pond with a couple of other people. We’re in our early-mid twenties. It is, of course, permanently sunny and in amongst our plans for where to get wasted that night, we had all sorts of visions of what the future might bring. (Naturally we had no idea.) I have him to thank for being able to hold my own in a fast and furious French debate.
We had plenty of those this week, but there was something different about these new conversations. I was struck by how much we’ve both changed in the four years (I know! WHY?) since we last met. A lot has happened. You get to the stage where you realise there aren’t any answers, but at least you’ve worked out what the questions are. One of the things I love about writing a novel is spending a long time exploring ideas which matter to me, but unlike before, when they would just swirl round and round in my head driving me nuts, at least with a novel there is some purpose to it: telling a good story, which I hope it will be, and the desire to connect with other people. My friend’s insights into Parisian life are, and will continue to be, fascinating and invaluable; as I found out the first time, it’s not about the surface, it’s about what’s underneath. Meanwhile, he is amused and bemused by my novelist’s perspective and by all the things I freely admit to not yet knowing. But Paris is firmly back on my radar and on my 2014 calendar – I’m sure I’ll work it out.
Do you know Paris? I’d love to hear your stories – and if you’re a resident or ex-Parisian (regardless of nationality or where you live now) and are willing to have your brains picked, do get in touch. If you’re in Paris or London I’ll even buy you a drink!
*POSTSCRIPT*
Next week I’m delighted to welcome Louise Walters to the Literary Sofa to discuss her debut novel MRS SINCLAIR’S SUITCASE, out this week from Hodder and one of my Fiction Hot Picks 2014.