We'll always have Paris

Reviewer Dmetri Kakmi
April 9, 2005

We'll always have Paris: Sex and love in the city of Light
John Baxter
Doubleday, $49.95

Eugene Atget photographed it. Josephine Baker danced the ballet negre in its revues. George Orwell pretended to be down and out in its kitchens, and Oscar Wilde is buried in its famous cemetery. We are, of course, talking about Paris, the city synonymous with romance and elegance.

Why is Paris a beacon, and what makes it one of the great cities? Biographer and film writer John Baxter tries to provide an answer by immersing himself in the French capital's sensual delights. We are only too happy to follow because his writing exudes the confidence of one who knows where he's going.

Baxter is married to a French woman, and has been living in Paris for a long time. As such, the city's subtle and not-so-subtle charms are second nature to him. He knows which doors to open, and which are the most interesting peep holes.

In the manner of the best tour guides, he intuits the moment, knowing when to pique interest with an anecdote, and when to allow for leisurely observation.

It is not insulting to say that this is autobiographical travel writing with one hand down its pants and the other on the keyboard. It shows the French capital with her panties around her spiked stilettos and wondrous derriere prominently displayed.

Baxter delves into every nook and cranny. He is a satyr fearlessly venturing into the deepest, darkest recesses.

Reading the book is a process of seduction, a melting of the layers to access the tender, bewildering, core. Like Baxter's friend, an American woman who ditches her rigorous sightseeing timetable and succumbs to a day's leisurely gourmandising, we too give in to the promise of certain ravishment.

What is revealed is a city where intense creativity was often fuelled by insatiable carnality. Baxter's obsession is the Paris of the 1920s and '30s. His general thrust, so to speak, is that the city was, and perhaps still is, an inexhaustible bordello.

Thanks to the French penchant for testing boundaries, at one time or other, the murkier corners of the city catered to every conceivable sensual pleasure. Even cannibals were indulged, albeit in a more muted fashion than the joyous sapphism that experienced a renaissance there between the two great wars.

During this time, Paris welcomed the rich and disaffected from across the globe. With the shedding of inhibitions came an excess of creativity and opportunism. Paris was the place to be if one wanted to relax inhibitions and give full vent to repressed passions. By all accounts it was a very egalitarian place.

Baxter observes that most national stereotypes rest on a cushion of truth. It follows then that he also holds fast to the axiom that the French pursue pleasure more assiduously than other races. They are sophisticates for whom nothing is too extreme, or very little. They are citizens of the world, and very much their own people. Whether this is true or not is irrelevant. And Baxter demonstrates it with vignettes that encourage all manner of responses, from incredulous laughter to dreamy reverie.

Of course, there is an underside to the dream. For surrealist filmmaker Luis Bunuel, the magnetism exercised by Paris over the imaginative mind was one of the city's great mysteries.

The trick was to have the strength to confront the darkness that lies beyond the gateway to mystery, and not lose oneself. To the surrealists, Paris was a sphinx. If an answer to the riddle was forthcoming, the individual walked free.

Lawrence Osborne explored the capital's underbelly over a decade ago in Paris Dreambook. Baxter may lack Osborne's vigorous intellect and penchant for Grande Guignol, but he does an admirable job of lacing romance with sleaze, while making certain it remains palatable for mainstream tastes.

To find this darker Paris, Baxter solicits the aid of a shady guide to the underworld. Immediately, the esoteric history of legendary brothels, opium dens, whore muses and famous artists that also indulged in pornography comes to the fore. When the rock is lifted Man Ray, Arthur Miller, Graham Greene, and various others, are sent scurrying from the light.

Lauded as these names are, the most intriguing individual to emerge is the reclusive sexual surrealist, Pierre Molinier. His long-distance, epistolary love affair with Maryat Rollet-Andriane, the author of Emannuelle, becomes the essence of a Paris that finds its truest expression in the heart and loins: deliciously perverted and extraordinarily transcendent.

Finally, the question of whether John Baxter is propounding cliches for the sake of randy foreign tourists seems almost superfluous. Still, it would be interesting to know what the French think of how the world perceives them. Most likely, they don't give a profiterole.

Dmetri Kakmi is an essayist and critic. He works as senior editor for Penguin Books.


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