Paris in November

Writing Life: 13

I know I’ve prattled on about my interest in 1920s Paris before in these missives, so I don’t want to try your patience by dipping into that well too often. However, my wife, Nancy, and I have just returned home from a week on the Left Bank so a report on that very welcome Paris visit seemed appropriate.

Nancy and I had both been to Paris a few times years ago, including a trip with our two sons when they were quite young. But after many years we returned to the City of Light in November of 2012 and enjoyed it so much we resolved to come back every two years (if we could manage it). We’ve kept up the tradition staying in Paris for a week in 2014, 2016, and 2018. Of course, we missed our 2020 visit courtesy of the lockdown, but were thrilled to return last month to renew the tradition.

Finding a good photo of me is always a challenge so I’ve gone with this one instead. Here I am in November 2014 on my way from the Left Bank to the Right Bank.

On our 2012 visit, I was then working on my fourth novel, No Relation that actually features a scene in the famous café, Les Deux Magots. There’s a Hemingway connection in No Relation and Les Deux Magots was one of Hem’s favourite places to write back in the early 1920s. So I decided to write that No Relation scene while seated at Hemingway’s favourite table in Les Deux Magots. So if that rather antic episode in the novel feels a little more vivid than some others, it may be because I was sitting right there in the very café where the action unfolds.

No I don’t have a migraine. I’m just writing the comic scene in No Relation that’s set in the very café where I’m seated at Hemingway’s favourite table in 2012.

We always stay in a little Left Bank hotel on Rue de Buci, just off of Boulevard Saint Germain. The rooms are a little small, but the staff are wonderful and we now feel at home there after several stays over the years.

The view two weeks ago from our room on the fourth floor looking down on Rue de Buci. This, to me, is a quintessential Left Bank, Paris, scene.

While in Paris a couple of weeks ago, I was confirming some details in my upcoming ninth novel, A New Season, that is partially set in Paris. In fact, Café Paul, seen on the right hand side of the photo above, is an important location in the new novel.

I also visited the cafés on Boulevard Montparnasse that Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Morley Callaghan and many other Lost Generation writers frequented back in the 1920s. My narrator in the new novel, Jack McMaster, visits these cafés so I wanted to get the details right. They’re all still operating and are virtually unchanged after more than a century. In that way, Paris is a kind of time machine (more on that theory in the new novel). I enjoyed a “chocolat chaud” in Le Select, another favourite café of Earnest and Hadley Hemingway as it was just a block or so from their apartment on Rue Notre Dames des Champs. Their building is no longer there, but the rest of the street and buildings are much the same as they were back then.

Le Select café where in the ‘20s Earnest and Hadley Hemingway, who lived nearby, could often be found along with other ex pat writers.

I ordered “chocolat chaud” in Le Select café. You blend it yourself. So good.

Le Dome and La Rotonde, two more historic cafés, are also on Boulevard Montparnasse just steps from Le Select. They’re all so close to one another and yet are all always busy. That’s the Paris café culture for you.

Le Dome in Montparnasse. Another iconic café.

La Rotonde in Montparnasse.

I made two trips to what has become one of the most famous English bookstores in the world, Shakespeare and Company, while in Paris a week or so ago. While not in the same location as it was in the 1920s, it’s still wonderful to visit.

The store was founded in November 1919 by American Sylvia Beach. It quickly became a hub, not to mention a mailing address, for famous ex pat writers like Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and James Joyce. In fact, Sylvia Beach, through her bookstore, Shakespeare and Company, published Ulysses when no other publisher would touch it.

I spent some time reading Sylvia Beach’s memoir of those early days while lounging in the Luxembourg Gardens. A lovely way to spend an afternoon.

Reading in the Luxembourg Gardens. Doesn’t get much better than that.

What a lovely time we had in Paris walking in the footsteps of the Lost Generation writers of a century ago. The narrator in A New Season lives in an airbnb, on Rue de Seine, just around the corner from our hotel. It’s a lovely street of galleries and boutiques. I miss it already.

Thanks for having a look at this post. Paris remains a special city with an important role in shaping the literary and cultural landscape over the centuries. I’m very lucky to have visited as often as I have.

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Stay tuned for another post in a week’s time. Next week’s topic? Your guess is as good as mine. Why not subscribe to make sure you’ll find out. I hope to know shortly before you do. See you next week.