Cover of "The House of Mirth" by Edith Wharton
(Courtesy of Oxford University Press, Inc)
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Wednesday, February 9, 2011 • Paris, France
Dear Parler Paris Reader,
Edith Wharton needs no introduction from me. She was an American author (1862-1937) who wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "The Age of Innocence" in 1920 and was one of the few foreigners in France who was allowed travel to the front lines during World War I. She was "best-known for her stories and ironic novels about upper class people. Wharton's central themes were the conflict between social and individual fulfillment, repressed sexuality, and the manners of old families and the 'nouveau riche', who had made their fortunes in more recent years." In 1919, she wrote about her firsthand observations on French life, much like many of us are doing now, almost 100 years later.
What's fascinating about Ms. Wharton's observances of life in France is that not much has changed in all these years about neither the French nor the American cultures, nor our viewpoints of them!
She wrote: "Americans are too prone to consider money-making as interesting in itself: they regard the fact that a man has made money as something intrinsically meritorious. But money-making is interesting only in proportion as its object is interesting. If a man piles up millions in order to pile them up, having already all he needs to live humanly and decently, his occupation is neither interesting in itself, nor conducive to any sort of real social development in the money-maker or in those about him. No life is more sterile than one into which nothing enters to balance such an output of energy. To see how different is the French view of the object of money-making one must put one's self in the place of the average French household. For the immense majority of the French it is a far more modest am bition, and consists simply in the effort to earn one's living and put by enough for sickness, old age, and a good start in life for the children."
There is no doubt that these ideals still exist and mark our distinctive cultural differences. Americans are still making money as if it is their "raison d'être" (reason for being) and determining their social class by the amount of money and possessions they can amass. All the while the French are still taxing themselves heavily with the goal of providing social programs that give everyone of their citizens the right to a better life. You might note that their social class is determined by their education, rather than their income, as it is in America.
And in regard to education, she wrote: "Real civilisation means an education that extends to the whole of life, in contradistinction to that of school or college: it means an education that forms speech, forms manners, forms taste, forms ideals, and above all forms judgment. This is the kind of civilisation of which France has always been the foremost model: it is because she possesses its secret that she has led the world so long not only in art and taste and elegance, but in ideas and in ideals. For it must never be forgotten that if the fashion of our note-paper and the cut of our dresses come from France, so do the conceptions of liberty and justice on which our republican institutions are based. No nation can have grown-up ideas till it has a ruling caste of grown-up men and women; and it is possible to have a ruling caste of grown-up men and women only in a civilisation where the power of each sex is balanced by that of the other."
Take note here, too, that the word for "education" in French is "formation" and "education" in French means "upbringing." It's still true today that the French view of education is more well-rounded than ours and dips into a deeper set of ideals. The French educational system is highly academic and teaches a broad range of subjects in pre-college class levels, including philosophy, high-level mathematics, foreign language, art and music appreciation. What they miss that American education provides are less academic interests, but necessary to the American culture -- such as physical sports and activities for youth that spur creativity and ingenuity.
On the subject of time, she observed: "This conception of 'business' may seem a tame one to Americans; but its advantages are worth considering. In the first place, it has the immense superiority of leaving time for living, time for men and women both. The average French business man at the end of his life may not have made as much money as the American; but meanwhile he has had, every day, something the American has not had: Time. Time, in the middle of the day, to sit down to an excellent luncheon, to eat it quietly with his family, and to read his paper afterward; time to go off on Sundays and holidays on long pleasant country rambles; time, almost any day, to feel fresh and free enough for an evening at the theatre, after a dinner as good and leisurely as his luncheon. And there is one t hing certain: the great mass of men and women grow up and reach real maturity only through their contact with the material realities of living, with business, with industry, with all the great bread-winning activities; but the growth and the maturing take place in the intervals between these activities: and in lives where there are no such intervals there will be no real growth."
While we're working 40-plus hour work weeks with two weeks vacation a year and 10 bank holidays, the French are working 35 hours a week with no opportunity to 'moonlight' (illegal to hold two jobs) and guaranteed 5 weeks vacation a year plus 14 days of national holidays. They don't think anything of shutting down their businesses for a full month every summer and have no guilt whiling away the time at their favorite cafés. We working Americans, on the other hand, so no benefit in such leisure.
I read Wharton's beautifully written observances as if only the language itself was early 20th-century, not the observances themselves, as so little really has changed about or between. To read "French Ways and Their Meaning" by Edith Wharton online, click here:www.archive.org/
A la prochaine...
Adrian Leeds
Editor, Parler Paris
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P.S. Yesterday's Parler Paris Après Midi brought in a full house of both regular and newcoming attendees. Read all about it by visitingparlerparis/apresmidi.html and note that next month, we begin our series of guest speakers, starting with award winning author, Kathleen Spivak talking about "How to Write Well and Get Published." So, mark your calendars for March 8th from 3 to 5 p.m. when you'll have a chance to meet Kathleen, learn from her own experience and wisdom while meeting other Parler Paris readers.
