coziness: the paris novel

I just finished for my vacation reading, The Paris Novel by Ruth Reichl. It was charming if a bit fanciful for plausibility, but I liked it enough to procrastinate from speed reading the YA novels I have to book talk after the Labor Day holiday. 

And Reichl's novel not only got me to listen to her interview with NPR linked above, but also curious enough to want to view the self-portrait painted by Victorine Meurent displayed at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts as well as read a some biographical sketches about her. 

Of course, I adored Reichl's sensual descriptions of oysters and even ortolan, which frankly horrified and even kind of disgusted me. The novel is set in 1983 and made me recall my own unpleasant travel experiences in Paris--the rude Parisians who despise American tourists that speak no French and overcrowded tours of the Louvre and Versailles. However, I do also remember the baguettes being the best bread I'd ever tasted, not even needing butter, and a most wonderful meal (I remember a cold salmon appetizer and lovely salad greens dressed in a wonderful vinaigrette) at an outdoor table atop some steps in Montremart overlooking the lights of Paris and the Eiffel Tower. I related also to the repressed Stella St. Vincent and totally understand her bewilderment at being one of Whitman's "tumbleweed" expatriates who sleep and work at the Shakespeare and Company. I myself bought a copy of The Unbearable Lightness of Being at that bookstore in order to read something in English other than my Frommer's guide. But I digress. The Paris Novel is about Stella, a 32-year-old woman who has suffered a sexually traumatizing childhood and is afraid of men and intimacy and thereby ruled by fear and a need for safety. She leaves her secure, narrow and ascetic existence as a copy editor at a small publishing house in New York City and travels to Paris at her estranged and deceased mother's behest. On impulse, Stella steps into a vintage clothing boutique where a dressmaker fits her into a 1950s Yves St. Laurent/Dior dress and is ordered to go eat oysters and drink Chablis at a restaurant. And typical of an American fairy tale, she then discovers fulfilling and interesting work, a love for French cuisine and cooking, her French father, and as an afterthought, a handsome French boyfriend. More importantly, Stella inherits the beautiful French dress and comes into her own as she discovers her passions.