Do You Still Believe in Paris?

If you don't know it already: I love Paris. On the wall next to my desk is a message board that has a plastic shopping bag taped to it because the bag says "Paris" and shows the Eiffel tower (nevermind that the bag also says "Las Vegas" and is a souvenir from the Las Vegas hotel Paris); Paris paraphernalia is cluttered everywhere in our house and includes several miniature Eiffel tower sculptures, an Eiffel tower earring display, and, my most prized possession, a salt and pepper shaker in the form of--you guessed it--the Eiffel tower. I have notecards and notebooks and stationary and fridge magnets and gift wrapping paper and pretty cardboard boxes decorated with Paris images; a large street map of Paris is waiting to be mounted to the wall. I know where to draw the line, though, and did not purchase the Paris pillows offered in Las Vegas (although I wish I had gotten the Paris apron).

My educated guess as to how many books related to Paris I own is fifty. My collection includes an old Baedeker Paris guide (unfortunately not the 1903 edition), some magnificent photo books from the 1950s, 60s, and 70s that I picked up at several Ithaca Friends of the Library book sales, and an assortment of Paris histories, architectural guides, and, to my embarrassment, tons of bad Paris fiction written by American writers who probably all own Paris aprons, pillows, and salt and pepper shakers. (For a fantastic collection of written testimonies by Americans who lived in Paris, check out Adam Gopnik's Americans in Paris.)

It's not that I have any good reason to be completely enamored with Paris other than that I image it to be a magic place that turns anyone who is fortunate enough to actually live there into some mysterious being more fabulous than the rest of us. I have visited Paris six times; twice I rented an artist's studio apartment just across from the Centre Pompidou, and it was in this Parisian apartment, filled with large canvasses, an antique-looking printing press, and thousands of books that crammed even the bathroom, that I read Adam Gopnik's Paris to the Moon.

I love Gopnik's book; it's my favorite on the topic of Paris (read an excerpt here). When I previously wrote that the essay genre deserves it own "top 30" list, I was thinking of Gopnik (and Anne Fadiman, but that is a separate blog entry), who is, by training, an art historian and has been a prized contributor to The New Yorker since 1986. He started out as an art critic, but his essays really cover any imaginable topic. From 1995 to 2000 Gopnik lived in Paris and wrote about the expat life of his family for TNY; a collection of those essays appeared as Paris to the Moon. This book is as much a declaration of love for Paris and French life as it is for fatherhood and family life: Gopnik's first child, Luke, was born in Paris, and what Gopnik says about parenting is beautiful and very moving. At the end of the book I was as much in love with the Gopnik family as with Paris. (Fortunately, Gopnik wrote a sequel: Through the Children's Gate is a collection of essays he wrote once his family-- including now baby-girl Olivia--returned from Paris and settled in New York City.) (Also not a bad city to live in, if you ask me.)

This has led me to become a literary stalker of Gopnik. I faithfully read his TNY essays, the most memorable of which is his eulogy to and personal memory of the legendary art historian and MoMA curator Kirk Varnedoe, who died of cancer in May 2003. "Last of the Metrozoids" tells of Gopnik's extraordinary friendship with Varnedoe, who, while preparing the Mellon lecture series for the National Gallery of Art in D.C. that spring, also took up the coaching of a team of eight-year-old football players--Luke among them!--in Central Park. (Here's Gopnik's Charlie Rose interview about Varnedoe, if you can't access the essay, a copy of which I'd be happy to send you.)

Last night, Gopnik was at our favorite independent bookseller, the Brookline Booksmith, as part of a book tour promoting his latest book Angels and Ages. A Short Book about Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life (excerpt here). Equipped with my collection of Gopnik books and a camera, I was at the store an hour early, just to make sure to get those perfect seats in the second row (close enough but not right in the author's face). Gopnik is, unsuprisingly, a great speaker; he's very eloquent in a quiet, beautiful way. During Q&A a woman actually compared his to the voice of an angel. The same woman had asked a very good question: why Gopnik, who had written so many essays on art, now turned his back to art. He replied, to my utter shock, that he no longer "believed" in art. (Not believe in art???) Fortunately he further explained that he referred to much of contemporary art: once he began to be concerned with the wonders of fatherhood, tried to figure out French customs, and discovered his love of cooking, he no longer understood the craze over installation or video art; Bruce Naumann's clown metaphor simply didn't hold up anymore. Matisse, however, was a different story. That's art to believe in.

What a relief! I can accept that. Baby/Paris/cooking for video art: that's a fair trade. What about today, now that he lives in NYC and has two children: did Gopnik still believe in Paris, I wondered? So I raised my hand, ready to ask the most pressing question of the evening:

"Mister Gopnik, do you still believe in Paris?"*

Thank God, he does.

I can still believe in Gopnik.

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*If this question wasn't already a bit silly, I definitely made a fool of myself when I told Gopnik, as he was signing my book, "I really love your Paris book." All evening I had prepared for an intelligent conversation with Gopnik about the art of essay writing, ready to give examples from the history of the essay. But instead I said: "I really love your Paris book." Ugh.