In Search of a Song Vol.34

Published on August 2016 | Categories: Topics, Books - Fiction, Young Adult | Downloads: 209 | Comments: 0 | Views: 1056
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Lichuan studied poetry under Jonathan Shapiro at Lower East Side Prep. The poems in this chapbook include Life, What I Know, A Long Lonely Night, Apple, Chinatown, My Favorite Teacher, Simple, A Boat, My Favorite Place, and Peace.

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Content


What French girls know
Young girls in France learn early in life that happiness is not as important as passion.
“I’ve seen the way you behave with women. In that respect you are totally unreliable, but
we could have an interesting life together.
! "auline "otter, proposing to her future husband, #aron "hilippe de $othschild
%y girlfriend &atalie is not classically pretty, but that’s never been a problem. 'he has a
little belly, but she flaunts it. 'he has a little bit of e(tra butt. 'he flaunts that too. 'he’s
had her share of romantic encounters, but she’s still single, over )*, and has lots of
baggage, including a *+year+old from a previous marriage who’s earned the nickname of
$asputin. In many respects &atalie is the perfect candidate for $achel ,reenwald’s new
book “Find a -usband .fter )* /sing What I 0earned at -arvard #usiness 'chool.
'he’s perfect e(cept for one thing1 &atalie is French.
“I feel sorry for .merican women, she says over the phone. &atalie is in "aris2 I’m in
0os .ngeles. We’re talking on the phone about love, lust, girlhood, womanhood.
'omehow we touch on ,reenwald’s new book, which e(horts women to use the same
marketing techni3ues to find a mate as they would to, say, launch a new brand of tennis
shoes. “You, the reader, are the 4product,’ ,reenwald writes.
I hear &atalie sigh over 5,666 miles of fiber optic cable. “7nly in .merica could you get
away with this type of lunacy. 8here is so much pressure on .merican women to be
happy. 8o sweep away all traces of loneliness, to forget who you are in your search for a
lover or a spouse. In France young girls learn that happiness is elusive2 we learn that
happiness is less important than passion.
&atalie’s comments remind me of a salient little metaphor1 .s girls we .mericans sit in
our field of daisies and pull off petals with, “-e loves me, he loves me not, he loves me,
he loves me not. %eanwhile French girls sit in their meadows with their marguerites and
pull off petals with1 “-e loves me a little. . lot. "assionately. %adly. &ot at all. Why
does the little French girl innately think in nuances and increasing levels of passion while
we’re mired in the black+and+white of total love or utter re9ection:
.ccording to ;hristophe, a French 9ournalist with a seriously lush history of romance on
both sides of the .tlantic1 “<verything in your culture is defined like a contract, even the
business of love. 8hat’s precisely the opposite in France. I’ve dated French women for
months before I ever really knew who they were or what they wanted from me. .fter the
first or second date, the .merican woman wants everything spelled out1 4.re we dating:
.re you my boyfriend or 9ust a friend:’ . French woman doesn’t do that. 'he doesn’t
give much away. 'he’s comfortable letting things evolve naturally, but the ball’s almost
always in her court.
&atalie concurs with this assessment. “8here is a culture in France of the 4non+dit,’ the
not+spoken. What you don’t say in France is as important as what is said. 8here are
boundaries in language that create tensions. <ven se(ual tensions. 8he simple act of
saying “tu or “vous is a boundary that invites intimacy or precludes it. We learn that we
have more power when we keep things to ourselves than when we give things away. We
learn that the art of seduction is based on innuendo and silences.
Innuendo and silences: 8his sort of 3uiet, coded game of love is entirely baffling to us
buffoonishly direct .nglos, and it’s partly what’s kept French women in the se(iness hall
of fame for centuries. &ever mind haute couture or racy lingerie. French women are a
bundle of alluring contradictions that seem to perfectly coe(ist, like the unlikely m=lange
of sweet and sour. 8hey’re often annoyingly coy and darkly wanton. %any of them are
not great beauties and yet are gorgeously compelling in the way they reconcile their
imperfections. 8hey tend to be more concerned with e(periencing pleasure than with
being liked and far more passionate about having a life than making a living.
>%ultitasking does not rank high on their list of positive attributes in a woman.? "lus they
all seem able to walk gracefully in high heels on cobblestones the si@e of grapefruits. 8alk
about poise.
8his amalgam of 3ualities has given French femmes a singular sophistication that makes
the dictates of $achel ,reenwald seem almost bi@arrely childlike. In her classic “8he
French and 8heir Ways, <dith Wharton had already singled out this sophistication back
in ABAB. 8he French woman “is in nearly all respects, as different as possible from the
average .merican woman, Wharton wrote. “Is it because she dresses better, or knows
more about cooking, or is more 4co3uettish,’ or more 4feminine,’ or more emotional, or
more 4immoral’: 8he real reason is not nearly as flattering to our national vanity. It is
simply that the French woman is more grown+up. CWhartonDs italics.E ;ompared with the
women of France the average .merican woman is still in kindergarten.
<(cuse@+moi1 Fid you say kindergarten: I suppose if Wharton were comparing French
and .merican women over the long course of history, then we .mericans would be the
innocent toddlers. When I was a girl I used to marvel at French women in history books
precisely for this reason. 8hey led armies of 3uerulous men. 8hey were burned at stakes.
8hey got their heads chopped off for being petulant little 3ueens. 8hey were se(y and
bellicose and bare+breasted. <ven the symbol of the French $epublic, the fair+haired
%arianne, stormed "aris with >if we take Felacroi(’s depiction of her as our reference?
her impudent and perfectly pulpy breasts e(posed. French girls grow up with this legacy
of women who were utterly feminine and totally kick+ass2 a legacy of bare breasts,
revolutions, royal courts, se(, death, blood, guts and great hair. %eanwhile, my
generation of .merican girls grew up with #etty ;rocker, ,irl 'couts and training bras
G and Hulia ;hild was as French as it got. -ow unfair is that:
"erhaps .merican women are ahead of the French when it comes to liberation. “You
.mericans were grown+up feminists, &atalie says when I bring up Wharton’s comments.
“We took all of our cues from you. We were incredibly old+fashioned and repressed
compared to .merican women when it came to feminism. #ut we never confused the
power of feminism with the power of femininity, the power of the femme. #eing a
grown+up to a French woman means being complete, with or without a man, but still
being in love with love.
;hristophe looks at the 3uestion differently. “We’re a grown+up culture. .merica is a
super power but historically you’re barely adolescent. We were dismissing the ;hurch
because of its corruption hundreds of years ago while you .nglos were naively
embracing it. -istory has taught us that you can’t rely on dogma or doctrine.
$elationships burn brightly, then die. We have our passions, our human tragedies, our
loves and our losses. We have a couple of centuries of living and dying over you
.mericans.
I suppose you have to call a historical spade a spade. We .mericans are big, hormonally
super+charged A)+year+olds raiding the fridge in 3uick+fi( binges. 8he French are
wi@ened deni@ens sipping #ordeau( and plumbing the depths of passion and pathos. 8o
their credit the French, who can be e(asperatingly pig+headed and irascible, do have a
certain ripened maturity and an insatiable appetite for the harsh realities and curious lusts
that characteri@e matters of the heart. 8his is partly why the myths of the French mistress
and the 0atin lover have endured over the centuries. It might also e(plain why the French
are so iconoclastic, even 3ui(otic, in their interpretations of love.
I’m reminded of this se(y, baffling 3uality about the French time and time again. %ost
recently, it was while watching the ;laire Fenis film “Friday &ight1 8wo strangers meet
in a car in a traffic 9am. 8hey spend nearly the entire film in silence, end up in a hotel,
make love rhapsodically, e(change a few words >barely? over pi@@a, make love again,
then say goodbye. What 9ust happened: 7ur leading lady G who’s not a great beauty but
still lovely in an ordinary, 9e ne sais 3uoi way G runs through the streets of "aris at night
after her affair. .ll we know about her is that she’s going to move in with her boyfriend.
'he’s 9ust left her mysterious lover in the hotel. Who is he: Will she see him again: Was
it a one+night stand or the beginning of a long+term relationship: 7ur heroine runs down
the street toward an unknown future, a liberating and strangely happy glow on her face.
'he doesn’t seem to care. ;learly, $achel ,reenwald would not approve.

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