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LONG AGO FRANCE MAY NO LONGER EXIST
Inspired by Travel Books?
If certain travel books make you yearn for Europe, check the publishing dates before you make plans. And take descriptions with a grain of salt
Even though I’m happily settled in the Languedoc area of France, Brittany, specifically Finistère, still intrigues me.
After thirteen years in France, much of it spent slaughtering the language of Molière, Mark Greenside’s memoir, “I’ll Never Be French (no matter what I do) appealed to me for the title alone. Since it also involved his life in a Finistère village, I had to read it.
In 1991, Greenside and his then girlfriend decided to go to France, or, rather, she decided. He wasn’t thrilled; he’d been to Paris in 1966. The French loathed him, he writes, and he didn’t speak French. But she reassured him all would be well; she would take care of everything.
It only took her a week to find the perfect place — “special, magical, enchanted.” Finistère, as far west as you can go. The end of the world.
A New Yorker, Greenside was now even less than thrilled, but they booked a flight on Air France and took off. He almost lost me when he described the in-flight meals as “scrumptious,”…
