France...Really!!!

Rating:
Summary: Comedy Isn't Pretty--Especially Here
Review:
By Bill Marsano. It was Dean Swift who memorably apologized for writing a long letter because "I haven't the wit to write a short one." That's not a problem with this book, whose 89 pages prove that brevity isn't always the soul of wit and prompt the question: How can the anyone miss a target the size of France? Even apart from recent unpleasantness over Iraq, France is a tempting target. The French are rule-bound, convinced of their country's superiority (while always complaining and frequently striking), and always patting themselves on the back for their splendidly civilized way of life (but last summer leaving 15,000 of their elderly relatives to die unattended at home during a heat wave). A perverse people, the French. Give 'em grapes and silk and they'll make wines and gowns that'll knock you flat. Give 'em sheet metal and they make cars that resemble vacuum cleaners. They think Napoleon was a hero.

In short, it's easy to spoof the French; you can make valid points and needn't be nasty about it either. So why can't Dale Gershman even lay a glove on them? She's strident, broad and off target even though she's lived there nearly 20 years, thus adding a factual basis to the old phrase "can't hit the side of a barn <from the inside.>" She's so desperate to be politically incorrect that she ends up a ranting loudmouth.

Did I say 89 pages? Well, subtract about 15 for some photos (all apparently taken the same day, mostly of the same person) that are almost uniquely un-illustrative. Then subtract about 8 more pages of blank space. What's left isn't much more than a magazine article. Gershman writes often in ALL CAPS, repeats herself frequently, uses lots of exclamation points! and interrupts herself with lots of parenthetical asides. She practices a 'smart-mouth' prose style, as in 'kinda' for 'kind of' and writin' gerunds without usin' the 'g' on the end, which she thinks is kinda funny (and is certain you're gonna think so too). Mostly she seems to be shouting. All in all, Gershman sounds like someone who learned English by watching television.

I will give a sample of her wit. Her chapter on politeness begins with a half page or so of franctic wondering where 'it' is. Could 'it' be here? Or there? Where should 'it' be? Maybe 'it' is in this place? Maybe that? All in all, a good impression of a neurotic in search of lost car keys. After listing numerous possible places (including on the person of Gerard Depardieu) that 'it' might be found, she commits the following:

"But no matter how reasonable those possibilities seem it didn't take me long to remember that it's at least two thousand years old and even though Planet Hollywood is looking a bit worse for wear (to say nothing of Monsieur Depardieu), there's certainly a big difference between a hundred generations and a half a decade so I discarded the conundrum theory altogether and just as I was wracking my brain trying to come up with another likely place it hit me total 'Eureka!'-style that it probably wasn't in one place at all--or, put it this way: the <original>, yeah, is in <one> place but it no longer was necessary trying to figure out where that one place is because it suddenly became joltingly obvious that a thousand years ago every monk in the country was drafted into service to make a copy of it for every family in the country which would pass it from descendant to descendant like the family bible but off [sic] course this is inestimably more sacred which is why I'm having so much trouble unearthing one because otherwise it'd be out there on the diningroom table or on the nightstand or at least in the top drawer of the armoire where the linens are kept."

That's 213 words--and a fair sample of the book as a whole. It is followed by about 600s words more in the same vein, and only then is the punch line revealed: 'It' is what Gershman calls the "Secret French-Politeness Code," which she doesn't understand. (Anyone rolling in the aisles is urged to pull himself together and ordery this book right away.)

So it's not a book and it's not a magazine article. Maybe it could be broken into segments for presentation at a comedy club where the audience does a lot of drinking.--Bill Marsano is a professional writer and editor who likes and dislikes the French as much as anyone else. And as often, too.




Rating:
Summary: Not your typical book about France!
Review: Given the transatlantic rift over the Iraq war & the fact that, for the past 200+ years, France & the U.S. have been "two countries which love to hate each other," this little (under 100 pages) book is a very timely historic, sociological and often witty view of the French. Most importantly, it may very well be the only book ever which-as the title implies-says it like it is, voicing UNprettified, UNembroidered, UNsugar-coated views about the French (in categories such as love, food, politics, religion, time, language, sports and many more!) which people have had for centuries but never dared utter (at least in public). A true treasure of a book, to read for enlightenment, for facts, for fun. (And a great gift!)