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Summary: The man's got writing talent - why doesn't he use it?
Review: I love Paris (so much so that I live here), and I love good writers (Adam Gopnik is one). So, inspired by all the rave, I picked up a copy of this book. It sounded like a nice, easy read. I was disappointed.After bravely having worked my way through it (does that happen to you, too? Once you start a book you have to finish it for better for worse?), I agree with all those readers who commented that while it was very well written from a linguistic point of view, and does have some amusing passages, the majority of his stories are yawn-inspiring. Who apart from family and friends cares about his son's adventures and preferences when all you want to know is the writer's own view of Paris - after all, he IS a well-reputed "New Yorker" essayist? I particularly disliked all his American "Look what fancy part of Paris I live in" showing off. Very clearly, the typical French understatement hasn't rubbed off on him in all his five years here. I understand that his book is a collection of Adam Gopnik's essays. Pity about his talent.... he could have used this opportunity to write a different kind of "American in Paris" book.
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Summary: A Trip to Paris
Review: Featured on NPR, this wonderful book is a collection of essays about the writer's experience living in Paris with his wife and small child. Gopnik has the same love of Paris that Mayle has for Provence and gives you a similar humorous outsiders view into a foreign culture. The big difference between them is that Paris to the Moon is a collection of essays rather than a narrative book like Mayle's works. The result is sometimes disjointed, but thoroughly enjoyable. This is a book for anyone who has ever fantasized about living in Paris. Page after page he is living my dream life and it's delightful to escape into his world. You really have to struggle through the clunky first few chapters to get to the good stuff. I quite nearly put the book down after the first couple of chapters. But after he finally gets into a grove and you settle into the odd disjointed style of a collection of essays, you're in for a treat. My favorite essay is the one about trying to get some exercise in Paris (the mere thought of which the Parisians consider unhealthy.) He has hysterical descriptions of the French view that sweat is not good for you, and all activity should be combined with a good meal and wine. Although this is not as good of a book as Mayle's Year in Provence, it is a very enjoyable read, and a great escape to Paris
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Summary: What¿s everybody¿s problem with this book?
Review: I found this book to be perfectly charming. This is a New Yorker writer, whose wife is a filmmaker. Repeat that sentence and ponder its meaning. Some of the readers who have posted review here seem to expect Adam Gopnik to write a book about somebody else's experiences. They wouldn't do this themselves, or have their children do so. They wouldn't expect Hemingway to write about feng shui or Jane Eyre to write about the Peloponnesian Wars. This isn't a history of Paris, or a guide to the subway system. Perhaps Paris brings out self-obsessiveness; perhaps living in any other country does; but I compare Gopnik favorably with Anais Nin and Henry Miller, two other self-obsessed American writers in Paris, and wonderful writers they are, albeit in the 30's. (And by the way I think Gopnik is possibly Canadian; certainly his wife is.) His touch is lighter than Miller's. His affection for his family creates a warmer sort of familiarity than Miller's (which is very winning in its own way). There's a can-you-top-this aura to Henry Miller, whereas Gopnik just marvels at things and shows off his whimsical humor and gift for association. At the same time I find his prose to be more concrete and outwardly directed than Nin's. Not a high bar, that! Gopnik makes it clear from the outset what his and his wife's admittedly enviable plans are for the next five years, for the duration of this book. Buyer beware. I would agree that he takes awhile to hit his stride, but Gopnik's talent for generalizing from common experience is wonderful. The parallel he finds between Americans' attitudes toward sport and the French's toward government officiousness is priceless. He manages to come to an understanding of soccer, a feat that to my mind compares favorably with writing, say, War and Peace. He may wander for a time in fashion circles (were I in Paris with the appropriate press pass I would too), yet he has a talent for bringing the whole crazy scene down to earth. He and his wife are raising a boy and (near the end) giving birth to a girl, and I find nothing wrong, and everything praiseworthy, about giving this side of his life center stage from time to time. The description of pregnancy and childbirth in France is one of the most memorable parts of the story. As you might expect, there is plenty here about food, and about restaurants, and about language, and about globalization, and about New York, too, aka home. As with New Yorker writing at all times, the prose is idiosyncratic, breezy, maybe a little unedited. That's just the way it is. I guess if you like it, you love it, and if you don't you don't.
Rating: 
Summary: Over-hyped
Review: The cover said "The finest book on France in recent years" and I opened the book with great expectations. I barely made it through the first self-indulgent chapter. Urged to read on, I continued and the book improved -- although not a whole lot. I enjoyed the chapters on "The Crisis in French Cooking" and "The World Cup." Most of the rest was pretty dull. The author found great meaning in commonplace events. I didn't. His view of France is elitist and intellectual. I would have been more interested if he had interviewed French customers at McDonalds in Paris -- or American tourists wearing shorts and carrying cameras. A hilarious feature of "Paris to the Moon" is "Questions for Discussion" at the back of the book. Seven serious questions are asked of the reader -- just as if he were a college sophomore taking a test in literature! The presumption is, of course, that what he has just finished reading is worthy of discussion. What a hoot! The guy who thought of this should be assigned to guard duty on the Maginot Line -- or a week-long seminar on French culture.
Despite all, Gopnik is a likeable fellow and a good writer and "Paris to the Moon" is marginally worth reading
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Summary: A father in Paris
Review: Paris to the Moon follows the relationship of a new father with an old city. The book's anicdotes describe Parisians and the awkward curiosity that Americans have with the Gallic personality. Gopnik is a Paris romantic, but doubts that the city remains the international capital of culture. Gopnik is a New Yorker at heart, but has a tremendous desire to understand and to fit into Paris. This dilemma never resolves itself, but Gopnik's struggle is a journey that is unique to contemporary America (and Paris). The desire to be separate from New York, a romanticism for Paris, and the uncertainties that come with being a father mix for a touching description of an American abroad. As a casual speaker of French, a new father, and a lover of Paris, I found the book insightful and meaningful.
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Summary: Reflections on the city of light
Review: I enjoyed Gopnik's book, primarily due to the mixture of personal reflection and careful observation that make up these essays. The essays about French cooking were certainly confirming in that the history of cooking is grounded in peasant fare and a return to those roots is a central theme in understanding good cooking foundations. I was most impressed however not by the essays on French government and culture but by the soft personal loving sections of the book on Gopnik's young son. Gopkik and his son swim at the Ritz pool in Paris where they meet two young girls. Gopnik's son's playful love for one of the female children was written so well and so transparently that I was amazed. The boy responds like a puppy, abaze with attraction and energy, swimming fearlessly in the deep end of the pool, like a magnet, a duckling, a male. Gopnik, the wise father, perfectly reads the situation, seeing eros engulf his little child, and supports the situation so that his son fully experiences this first taste of the honey and sting of the beautiful other.The children order expensive hot chocolate every day after swimming, which Gopnik endulges. It is Gopnik's wife upon discovering the VISA card balance that brings reality back into the picture. I would say to Gopnik "Your choices were correct, as you yourself know. The good father allows a child to experience the pull of beauty in the world, aware of the risks, aware of the rewards." I expected thoughtful essays because I have been a New Yorker/Gopnik fan. However, the passages on his relationship with his young son were sublime.
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Summary: Picks up where Liebling left off
Review: If you enjoyed A. J. Liebling's Between Meals, An Appetite for Paris, you will probably enjoy this memoir of Paris.
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Summary: Few islands of humor in a sea of pretense
Review: I too was suckered in by the praise this book received. In retrospect, I realize that the praise must have come from the author's boorish book critic friends and others so enamored of themselves that they find the work appealing. Mr. Gopnik is of above-average intelligence. Apparently, however, he feels compelled to prove this fact to us, through constant obscure references that very few people will get. Often, the book reads like a poor attempt at creative writing by a show-off college freshman. As an American who formerly lived in Paris, steps from the Luxembourg Gardens, I thought that the book would really speak to me. Unfortunately, Mr. Gopnik worships the same type of pretensions I learned were unappealing after a few short months in the city of light. I too finished the book, always waiting for it to get better. Newsflash; it doesn't. Don't waste your time with this one.
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Summary: An American in Paris
Review: PARIS TO THE MOON is a wonderful book, that rare kind of book that leaves its readers feeling happy. (The title is explained in the first segment.) Author Adam Gopnik wrote many of these pieces as the permanent correspondent for the "New Yorker" Magazine in Paris. According to the foreword, a few other sections are seeing print for the first time here, coming directly from his personal diary. PARIS TO THE MOON covers a five-year interval during which the author and his wife lived in Paris with their newborn son. The vignettes included are very personal. Gopnik tells of their adventures as strangers in a strange land, celebrating the similarities in everyday life and delighting (pretty much) in the differences. So many of us, so many Americans in Paris, do love that city and this book will strike a chord in anyone who ever has visited there. And it also will resonate with any reader who, simply, loves good writing, because this is writing at its best. The only complaint is that this reminiscence is too short!
Rating:
Summary: A dreadful memoir
Review: This pretentious and narcissistic memoir may be useful if you are a member of the glitterati. Otherwise, look elsewhere for an authentic glimpse of Parisian life. His experiences are bear no resemblance to the lives of any average (or above average) Parisian, but embody the experiences of a snobbish expatriate who is far removed from the realities of his readers. His familial anecdotes gave me the same cornball emotions of a bad "Full House" rerun. The stories of his son could just as easily be one of the wretched Olsen twins displaying their fake cutesiness to a maudlin television audience. His insights are vapid, superficial, and excessively sentimental: Hardly a breakthrough in French cultural studies. It is certainly not deserving of the fine reviews churned out by his publicity manager.
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