Why Has Paris Inspired Writers For So Long?
By William Honey -- September 9, 2005
Surrounded by French speakers, you are all alone in your English, and it grows within you. Ideas are mulled over and over in isolation. English becomes a language that you know more upon the page than the ear.
Gertrude Stein in her biographical Biography of Alice B. Toklas said that she allowed only French to be spoken in her salon so that her thoughts in English were reserved for her evening writing. Also, chance idiotic remarks will not stick with you and distract you.
Interior of the
Shakespeare & Co. Bookstore
Paris
The human scale of Paris makes it a very habitable place. Buildings within the historic walls of ancient Paris are all about five to six stories high. The friendly heights of the buildings; the knowledge that they are inhabited by residences above the street level stores; the narrow, often twisting streets; even the broad boulevards; are all inviting to the eye and give a warm fuzzy feeling. Paris envelopes and comforts you like a womb.
Isolated from distractions of the American culture and politics, there is time to work slowly and savor language. You care, but you are disconnected from US politics. You really only care about what is on your page.
George Whitman, Owner
Shakespeare & Co.
Writers have sought Paris for writing for hundreds of years. American writers began flocking to Paris in the 20's and continue to do so today. Some of the famous writers who moved to Paris to write were Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Henry Miller, LeRoi Jones, Richard Wright, John Cheever. Others regard Paris as their second home. Except for Miller, most transplanted Americans have written about America, not Paris. The distance between your past and your present are so distinct that writing about your past and the places your knew in your past becomes easier. The present doesn't intrude upon your thoughts of the past.
When you feel the need to leave your typewriter or laptop, Paris has lots of amusements, the best of which is to walk somewhere. Paris is a walking city. No one thinks twice about taking off on a mile walk to a destination within the city. When your body is in better physical condition, your writing mind is stronger. Didn't Hemingway train for a novel writing stint like a boxer?
Author, Bill Honey, and
his favorite place for books
Paris is filled with pleasant vistas. A walk down any street fills you with nostalgia: cobblestone pavements, shops on either side of you, tall windows with iron rails above you, sloping roofs with skylight windows to fill an atelier with natural light. Notre Dame is an ever present reminder of the antiquity and the beauty of Paris, and its spires can be seen for blocks around the Latin Quarter. Sacre Couer on the only hill inside the walls is lit at night and shines like a beacon. From the bridges over the Seine you can look downriver and see the Eiffel Tour.
As you sit for hours (no one disturbs you) in a cafe on the sidewalk of any boulevard it seems that the whole human condition is expressed in the hundreds of people passing by. These distractions guide you to your journal, which is always present, and you begin writing. You think about writing all the time. Paris invites that.