only
1/
3 of the trip will be in france, but it's the part that i'm most worried about.
i can't exactly say why, either.
the french i've met and known have been fine people, easy enough to get along with, but i don't understand them. i don't know how they think — then again, i understand very few people — but with them i don't even know where to begin.
at the risk of affirming stereotypes ..
germans seem like straightforward people to me, easy enough to understand. arguing with a german is great sport, almost like judo. [1]
belgians seem like friendly people: in particular, wallonians are like french whom i do understand. it's like they have the manners of the latins while, at the same time, keeping a certain germanic bluntness in their attitude towards life.
i have no doubt that i will really, really enjoy belgium. it will be good to visit germany again. as for france, i expect to have a good time ..
.. but the uncertainty of it completely preoccupies me.
having attended high school in the states, i learned a little french .. which usually means that i didn't learn much of anything. i was able to get by in montréal for two weeks, oddly enough, with what little i remember after a decade. i think i spoke like a child but the citizens humored me anyway.
[2]
i haven't decided whether i would try to speak french in france.
[3] as far as i know, Brian doesn't speak any french at all, so it will be strange to
take point. after all it's a country, like spain and italy, that's hardly known for being english-friendly.
before stepping on a train, it's always a good idea to bring a book or two. i'm bringing four, two of which i've already read and a third left unfinished, but all of which warrant further readings.
consciously chosen or not, each of them has a french flavor:
the myth of sisyphus, by albert camus: existentialism, like buddhism, intrigues yet eludes me. it seems like a way of thinking that requires complete immersion. both also suffer from bad press, being viewed as
pessimistic rather than what they really are:
realistic and
humanist.
what drives me nuts is that it seems to embrace some kind of ontological argument for its existence, though buddhism strikes me as more axiomatic (and being a mathematician, something i heartily appreciate). having tried this book before and run into conceptual impasses, i hope that i can make a little more progress this time.
how proust can change your life, by alain de botton: i can say that reading this (swiss) author has made me a better, wiser person. the man can explain anything well; even his book about the-functional-disaster-called-heathrow-airport wasn't bad. this proust book is new to me, though, and i can't wait to dig into it.
reveries of the solitary walker, by jean-jacques rousseau: this book isn't so much a philosophy treatise as rousseau's side of the story, in his own words. there are biases and vanities, of course, but it gives a read into the personality of a well-known man.
the book is split into "walks" (i.e. chapters) and i've not made it past the sixth walk. there is a discussion of botany and nature in the start of the seventh, not unlike a grandfather talking at length about his hobbies. it will be nice to hear the old man's stories again.
the sun also rises, by ernest hemingway: i'm glad that i read
the rum diary by hunter s. thompson years before reading this novel, because i'd otherwise have thought thompson a hack and incapable of understanding the good-mannered decadence of expatriates. then again, hemingway tackled paris, while thompson wisely kept to the exotic lands.
that said, this is a disturbing book, full of broken people, to the point that i was almost unable to finish it. the primary reason that i did wasn't mere curiosity, but a driving need for justice and the cynical expectation that there would be none. it left me with a feeling of anonymous wrongdoing, where bad things happen to people, where the causes are clear, but the fault and responsibility made so diffuse .. that such words may as well be meaningless in this setting.
as for why i'm re-reading it: the prose is incredibly tightknit. i'm returning to it, think about how it could have been crafted, and perhaps learn a few tricks to improve my own writing.
so yes, i really do appreciate the french, just like i do my parents;
i still don't understand them, though.
[1] i speak with experience: both my ex-girlfriend and my ph.d. supervisor were germans.
(-:
[2] actually, if there were a city that i could pick to live in — never mind career matters — then montréal would be among my top three choices. this isn't to say that i know what the other top two are, but i do know that montréal has a special place in my heart. so if you've not visited, then i highly, highly recommend it.
[3] it's not the primary reason, but when it comes to matters of language, avoiding paris is particularly convenient. i've tried speaking french with parisians, but never to any success. it's almost as if they have their own dialect there: the "parisian mumble."
