"What I hate about Christmas, is the obligation to be happy." Thus said one of my students last Friday morning. I didn't know what shocked me more; this sudden outburst of dislike toward the most joyful of festivities, or the fact that the sentence was grammatically faultless. Moreover, this was not the first time that I'd heard this sort of 'Scroogery' in the last couple of weeks.
Just the week before, I'd heard a mother tell her son the cold, honest truth about Father Christmas. To emphasise the point she informed the child in both French and English, just in case he hadn't understood the first time. The little boy must have been, oh, about five! Cue, expansive howling and no doubt very expensive psychotherapy.
A good friend of mine has gone a step further and changed her name to 'Grinch' for the holiday period; a stance that rather amusingly backfired when she had to help her grandmother wrap a small mountain of Christmas shopping.
It's easy to take all this holiday 'humbuggery' at face value. After all, thanks to the last mad dash for presents, the major Parisian shopping centres are now no-go zones - or rather cannot-fit-any-more zones. The five-minute walk from Havre Caumartin Metro to my office has become an terrifying battle zone where casualties could be the result of anything from trampling, by hordes of Louis Vitton-wielding Chinese tourists; 3rd degree burns from the upturned drums of roast chestnut sellers or near-fatal tinitus from the combined effects of Salvation Army bells and battery-powered Rudolfs. A week of this and you would have to admit that the green furry one has a point. However, somewhat randomly (as is my want) my first proper foray into French literature for sixteen years has made me consider this a little more deeply.
'Dessine-moi un Parisien' by Olivier Magny, is, as the cover blurb puts it, 'a plunge into the strange world of the Parisian'. Each mini-chapter is a firmly tongue-in-cheek look at something that defines this most contradictory of species. Be it their inane insecurities about education, their origins or accent; their undisguised hatred of Les Fachos or les Américains (this despite all secretly longing to be New-Yorkers); or their simple joy at the sight of an organ grinder, snow or sunshine.
'La Première Gorgée de Bière' by Philippe Delerme, on the other hand, is an undisguised, delightful hymn to all the little things about life that make your average Pierre or Pascalle feel warm inside. Perhaps my favourite was the 'Le croissant du trottoire' about the surplus, oven-warm pastry joyfully consumed on the cold Sunday walk home from the boulangerie. Or it could have been 'Invité par surprise' describing the gently subtle etiquette of an off-the-cuff dinner invite; or maybe it was 'On pourrait presque manger dehor', 'We could almost eat outside', as I shared the twinge of hope felt at the first pale, sunshine of Spring.
'What was the point of this little literary interlude?' you may well wonder. Well, it occurred to me that anyone who can take unbridled joy from a shaft of sunlight; laugh at their own inability to accept an error or break into a mile-wide smile at the thought of an al fresco lunch, cannot be labelled Grinch, Scrooge or curmudgeon.
It's not that they particularly dislike Christmas, they're just asking the question: "Why only now? What's there to be happier about now than any other time of year?" Good point!
Bonne Fêtes!
No comments:
Post a Comment