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I don't know if this book would be as entertaining
to a reader with no experience of travel with children, but it
is a welcome addition to the ranks of the literature of wandering,
a genre where children are largely conspicuous by their absence.
There's no denying that the sub-five set do
not make for absolutely ideal fellow journeyers. From the first
chapter, as Mary's dreams of a leisurely trans-Atlantic boat
journey are shattered by the realities of ten days shipboard
with her restless kids, the misadventures are woefully familiar
to anyone who has ever gone travelling with their tykes. There
is the disastrous effort to sup with the civilized folk in the
dining room, the endless circuit after circuit after circuit
of the boat with a tireless toddler who has just mastered the
art of walking. And this line: "Anyone who has children
knows that traveling with them is like a medieval progress: You
need a baggage train to haul your possessions from place to place."
Oh, yes, indeed.
For many parents, these are just the beginning
of the reasons to stay home, and the Littells senior entertain
many doubts about the wisdom of their plan. On the high seas,
their fellow passengers are quick to make things worse, assuring
them of all the dire things sure to befall the Littells junior,
from language difficulties to death. When the boys come down
with their first cold in France, Mary is certain the worst predictions
have come true until a doctor assures her otherwise. Then they
discover that the pension where they planned to live the
year is a dank and dismal cavern of a place populated by doddering
ancients. John is miserably homesick, and resurrects an imaginary
friend. They suffer moments of near-penury when the G.I. Bill
money is held up in bureaucratic snafus.
But the Littells persevere, and Mary touches
but lightly on the low points, keeping instead to a lighthearted
account of their year abroad. They decamp from the pension
and find the perfect apartment. They discover the pleasures of
good French bread and chocolat. The local café,
the Bar d'Oc, becomes their regular spot. John enrolls in the
Jardin d'Enfants, the local French kindergarten, and takes to
it so well that he announces that thenceforth he shall be known
as Jeannot.
And then of course there are the usual comical
anecdotes of the cultural divide. The Littells weather a disastrous
attempt to mount a traditional American Thanksgiving in a country
where the turkey seems a virtual unknown. Mary is completely
incapable of more than the most rudimentary French, and depends
on her four-year-old child to translate. And she finds herself
an indifferent cook whose greatest accomplishment is tuna salad,
in a country obsessed with the finer points of cuisine. In one
of the hilarious passages of the book, in a chapter titled "The
Great Mayonnaise War," Mary discovers to her dismay that,
in France, mayo is made, not bought. In learning the technique
from her grocer, Mme. Perrin, she finds that opinions run strong
and tempers very high indeed among French housewives as to whether
the fork, or the spoon, is the proper implement for the making
of it. As to the question of adding dried mustard, it seems revolutions
have occurred over less.
All these scenes are deftly wrought in Mary's
breezy voice, as the Littells learn to survive, and then to thrive,
in France. But this is the odd thing about French Impressions:
it was actually written by John Littell, the former four-year-old.
Or, as the book's cover puts it, "John S. Littell, based
on writings by Mary W. Littell."
Mary was a writer, John explains in the foreword,
and she had "a successful career writing for magazines such
as Parents and Woman's Day." She often wrote
of her family's adventures in Montpellier, turning to a diary
she had kept from that year for reference. She died, however,
in 1975, her stories never collected together in one place. And
so, writes, John,
I have used her writings as a template and
added a substantial amount of both published and unpublished
material. The result, I think, is a chronicle of a vanished way
of life--both French and American--and a record of those funny,
frustrating, and finally fascinating twelve months in France.
I chose to write this book from my mother's
point of view and in her voice because that was the only way
the story made sense to me. I was only four years old at the
time and hardly a keen observer of the passing scene.
French Impressions
is a kind of tribute by John Littell to his mother, the book
perhaps she always meant to write and never did. It is an odd
act of ventriloquism--a nonfiction, first-person account not
written by the speaker. At first I found the idea jarring, and
perhaps if the foreword were briefer it would not have taken
me most of the first chapter to imagine myself out of John's
third-person point of view and into Mary's head. But the story
takes hold, and succeeds in the manner of books like A Year
in Provence and Under the Tuscan Sun: it makes you
yearn for a fantasy idyll complete with the friendly café,
the colorful locals, the casually exquisite cuisine. In short,
a life outside the ordinary routine. What's comforting about
French Impressions is that it assures us that a petit
enfant's arrival need not spell the end of our departures.
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