I was in Paris for three nights in early July and it felt good to visit the city again. Paris is still charming as it is.
Some tourists, notably those who hail from Japan, suffer a severe form of culture shock and psychological distress when they arrive in Paris. Through media and films, the City of Light (and Love) is romanticized and portrayed as the city of beauty, love and fashion when in reality, the city does not match their expectations. These tourists become terribly disillusioned and their deep disappointments manifest and make them physically unwell leading to what is known as the ‘Paris Syndrome’. The term was coined by Dr Hiroaki Ota, a psychiatrist who lived in Paris in the 1980s.
Last month as I was rearranging my books, I came across Paris By the Book that I had bought some years ago. I am often drawn to fictions where the story is set in Paris. I am also drawn to non-fictions about life in Paris such as A Moveable Feast, a compilation of writings by Ernest Hemingway, published posthumously in 1964 and Books, Baguettes & Bedbugs, The Left Bank World of Shakespeare & Co. the travel memoir by Jeremy Mercer.These writings transport you to the City of Love.
In Paris By the Book by Liam Callanan, Leah first sets off to France with her daughters to look for her husband and ends up finding herself running a small English bookshop in lower Marais district, Paris.
Leah’s husband, Robert Eady is a published writer of children’s books. During their marriage, he would leave his family and return after a few days of writing. He would leave a note and he would always return after his “ write-aways”. But this time there was no note. He has disappeared. One Saturday morning, their younger daughter Daphne, now twelve, finds a slip of paper with an airline code in his granola jar and it turns out to be four air tickets that Robert has bought for his family. Instead of communicating like a husband and father, he leaves clues through an unfinished manuscript and Madeline, The Red Balloon. The manuscript is set in Paris.
Leah as a film maker adores the film, The Red Balloon by Albert Lamorisse while Robert was obsessed with the children’s book Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans.
Twenty years ago, she was caught running from a bookshop where Robert Eady happened to be there. He ran after her telling her that he had paid for the book that she took without paying. He also bought a copy of Madeline for her and asked her for coffee. They fell in love and got married. After seventeen years of marriage living in Milwaukee, Robert vanishes leaving Leah trying to piece together fragments of memory on the days leading to his disappearance.
Leah arrives in Paris with their daughters, Ellie and Daphne hoping to find Robert. They think they see him out of the corners of their eyes as they cross the road and Leah chases after men who resemble her husband from afar. They follow the story in the manuscript. In Leah’s voice, ‘France has 2,500 bookstores, and that afternoon, Ellie and Daphne were determined to visit as many as possible. It’s not the worst way to visit Paris. Parisians treat their bookshops a bit like they treat their bakeries:they are both commonplace and important, not something to fetishize –it’s just bread, they’re just books — but still due extra respect.’
Finally, the girls stumble on the bookstore though it is not the colour specified in the manuscript. It is in the Marais, ‘the narrow edifice, the luminous windows, the carefully lettered LIBRARIE, all of this appeared in his manuscript.‘ On an impulse, Leah buys The Late Edition, the bookstore operated by the eccentric Madame Brouillard, They live at the apartment above the bookstore.
For Robert, life imitates art. He is suffering from a writer’s block so in his desperateness, he has orchestrated his disappearance. He is doing it to complete his manuscript about a writer husband who needs to be freed of domestic responsibilities and family ties. As a character, he comes across as incredibly selfish and manipulative.
On the bright side, Leah gradually takes charge of her own story and before long their daughters and her settle into life in Paris. It is a charming tale about Leah coming into her own.
Paris by the book is the narrative that Leah wants to tell the readers and not the story that Robert sets out to write. The story feels like a whimsical, literary treasure hunt. Life can be magical if you open your heart to it.
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