C'est parti!

First floor, centre Censier (Sorbonne Nouvelle)

Lectures and seminars have just set off at full steam, in full-speed French, and full of knowledge, at the Sorbonne Nouvelle.  In my folly, I had believed that my capabilities in French were already being healthily stretched, but, as it turns out, this was only a prelude.  Seminars last for at least ninety minutes and sometimes for as long as three hours, and the lecturers make no linguistic concession to foreign students.  I feel like a 2CV at Le Mans as I try to block out the booming lecturer next door (in English, of all languages!), to figure out what that was that came after 'Il faut absolument...' or 'Vous êtes obligés de...',  and to conceal the steam hissing from my ears!   In comparison to one-hour lectures generally delivered in English - and here come two words which are, with good reason, not usually juxtaposed - Cambridge seems almost easy.  (The word 'almost' is important).  The apparent confusion of some of the French students is some consolation, although turning to ask me if I understood does not improve matters!

It must be added, even in the midst of the madness, that this is how it ought to be.  Among the very important things which this year abroad is designed to teach me (by fire, it seems), and which I must learn now if I am ever to do so, is the true and authentic use of French.  If this be at ninety miles an hour (perhaps I mean 144,8 kilomètres par heure), I must say 'So be it' through gritted teeth!

At any rate, if henceforward there is a slight decline in my posting frequency (wherefore on the Internet there shall be much gladness and rejoicing) it will be either because I am in a lecture, or because I am recovering from it.

Promenade parisienne: ubi Anglorum, ibi pluvia!

Musée d'Orsay.

In the fortnight before the beginning of lectures, even as I basked in the prospect of a whole year to sift through the city at leisure, I decided to become a tourist, complete with map, camera and gape.  And who can blame me, or anybody else, in this city of wonders?

My most obviously touristic ramble took me from the Musée d'Orsay on the rive gauche, across the river for the first time to the Louvre and the rue de Rivoli; thence east to Châtelet and back over the Seine via the Ile-de-la-Cité, on a remarkable day of alternate buoyant sunlight and drenching showers.

rue de Solférino

A barge forges upstream.

A view downstream of the Seine: the Grand Palais in the distance.

My ambitious plan to execute a rapid visit to the Musée d'Orsay, a former railway station whose exhibitions follow the Louvre's chronologically, fell to pieces when I beheld with dismay the early-afternoon queue.  I very much want to go, but it will necessitate an early arrival.  So I spent some time on the Pont de Solférino, whose steel parapets, like others in Paris, have been turned a gold colour by thousands of padlocks inscribed with lovers' names.  Of course there were a few opportunistic padlock-sellers there!  The keys are also accumulating on the river-bed, but no doubt there are still a few weeks before they block the river entirely and Paris is flooded.   The Seine is a much plied water-way, not only by bâteaux-mouches and pleasure-craft but also by hard-working barges carrying freight.  Further upstream they navigate the islands and the narrow bridges with remarkable agility.  It is good to see use being made of the Seine in this way.

A  bâteau-mouche - Plenty of water around!

rue de Rivoli

A 'batobus'

The apparition in the south-west of clouds  bulging with the colour of slate sent me scurrying over the river to the Louvre, where thousands of motorists seemed in a terrible pickle.  (Did I really use a word like 'discretion' to describe Parisian drivers?).  I saw again the marvellous view westwards, slicing through the city down the Champs-Elysées, to the Arc-de-Triomphe and beyond to the Grande-Arche at La Défense.  Just as I arrived at the rue de Rivoli, the rain swept in with gusto (and gusts).  I hurried on past the mixture of gaudy gift-kiosks and hopelessly expensive stores to Châtelet, at which point the sun, that great astronomical wind-up-merchant, re-appeared as if nothing had happened. Thence I wound my way past the Hôtel de Ville and onto the Ile de la Cité, where stands the glorious cathedral of Notre-Dame: Our Lady of Paris.  

Pardon?  Mais qu'est-ce c'est que ça?

During this walk, I think I heard French spoken on no more than five occasions.  Everybody else seemed to be speaking English: British, Americans, and even French people themselves.  Perhaps the rain had brought it out? How strange it is that the very heart of the city which is the heart of the petite couronne, which is the heart of the Ile de France région, which is in turn the heart of France, is awash with a foreign language.  I could make this Year Abroad very easy if I wanted to!

À nous deux maintenant!

It is already the end of my first week in Paris.  Probably I ought to have known that I would not have time, nor be calm enough, to produce any prose pretentious enough for this blog's pretentious title before now! 

 It is exhausting to arrive in an unfamiliar city: bus tickets and pedestrian crossings hurl the newcomer into consternation.  He wonders what use it was looking up the French for 'anvil' when he can't ask for a filled sandwich on the top shelf.*  He makes a public nuisance of himself trying to see what everyone else does as they glide through ticket barriers, without going through himself.  He (literally) cannot get his head around looking in the right direction as he crosses the road.  However, the question mark hovering above my head is at last beginning to fade and I think I have recovered enough to record my first and raw impressions...

1. This is real! Here am I, not merely staying but living and (soon) studying in Paris!  The great slabs of parchment-coloured apartment blocks with their cast-iron balconies are real;  the broad straight corridors of the avenues penetrating through the city are real; and, outside the classroom and lecture theatre, the French language is real.                                
2. Some of what the British imagine about the French is actually true!  They really do carry baguettes down the street, for instance  (and who can blame them: heavenly manna or some other celestial panary essence falls daily from Heaven onto the shelves of a million boulangeries).  Another example is the proliferation of paperwork involved in the opening of a bank account (just in case any worldly riches come my way – one never knows!) which testifies to the famous French bureaucracy.  Motorists give the impression of making up the rules as they go along,  though I feel that Parisian driving is no more aggressive than London's for the greater reliance upon motorists’ discretion.
3. There is more graffiti in Paris than in London: a warning which drivers of pristine white vans should heed.
4. The French are not slaves to their mobile phones.  There are plenty around and in use, but in public they are no more evident than books or newspapers.
5. More people – and certainly more young people – smoke in Paris than in London. 
6. Plenty of time is taken over meals.  The sort of food which, in Britain, is beyond the powers of the average wallet and palate, is in France expected, duly received and savoured in the company of one's beloved, one's friend or one's newspaper.
7. The French language is supremely beautiful (and therefore deserves its own blog-post!).
8. There are moments of euphoria when I feel that France is better than Britain.  No!  No!  I didn’t mean that!  I think this the general effect of arriving in a foreign culture: that certain particularly noticeable novelties make the whole seem better or worse, even though it is always composed of the currents of goodness and corruption.  In the same way that turning a kaleidoscope produces a new pattern (that might be called better or worse) but does not alter its nature, the human condition is borne here in slightly different ways, in some ways better, in some ways worse, even though the human condition is invariable.

I shall write soon about Meudon, the town to the south-west of the city where I am living.  Here is a panorama of Paris from the Observatoire at the top of the town: visible are the Tour Eiffel, the Tour Montparnasse, les Invalides, the Seine and La Défense.  Eugène de Rastignac had a view like this (from the north-east) at the end of Le Père Goriot.  He too was a student unfamiliar with Parisian society (though he was also fictional): so like him I can say, ‘À nous deux maintenant!’

Click to enlarge... I Spy 20 points for each landmark.

*enclume (f).  One of these days it will come in useful, mark my words!