From Here You Can't See Paris
We often look to travel magazines for the undiscovered secrets, the places untrammeled by the bustle of tourism. But it is easy to forget that even as we learn of these gems, so too have tens of thousands of other readers. And so, during the summer months, these places swell with a tide of weeklong immigrants, the streets of this Mediterranean island or that tiny French village awash with Americans, Germans, Australians and others.
But what of the rest of the year? When the tourists are back at their jobs, their kids back in school? This is a central theme of From Here You Can't See Paris by Michael Sanders. That these places have lives of their own, cultures apart from and often annoyed by the foreign invaders, even as they enjoy the outside capital and its impact on their economy.
The only way to see these things is to be there when the tourists aren't, and Sanders does just that, living in the tiny French village of Les Arques for a year, exploring what life here is like when it's just day-to-day business.
You might think you know how the book progresses: Sanders, in love with the romantic notion of village life paints an idyllic picture of rural France. But this is not quite correct. Sanders does fall in love with the village, but he is careful to remain aware of the realities of its life. Winters are long and hard. Truffles–an important source of additional income–are scarcer than ever. Foie gras producers make barely enough to get buy, robbed by the large corporations which distribute their products far and wide. There aren't enough people to keep the land arable, and so it falls out of use and its potential income is lost.
But romance does seep in. The town is home to a restaurant owned by its chef and his wife. People maintain little gardens and flowerboxes. The residents are all characters, in one form or another.
One such character is Jacques, the chef and co-owner of the town's restaurant. He served a traditional French apprenticeship, and it sounds as though he could have found his way to the Michelin firmament. But he opted out, at least for now. He chooses to do his own thing, and make the food which is important to him. This restaurant serves as a focal point, both for the book and the village. It brings new visitors to Les Arques, people who come just to eat here. It is the preferred place for that wonderful French tradition: Sunday dinner.
But it wasn't always. Jacques and Noelle really only survived because of the generosity of some of the villagers, people who wanted them to succeed and quietly slipped them a portion of their cèpes harvest or drop off freshly killed game. It wasn't too be recognized or feted at the restaurant; it was just to help out.
And this, ultimately, is what Sanders's book is all about. A village is about its community, the people who help each other out in tough times, or provide companionship in the long winter season. The people who share their foie gras or their wine cellars. All without pretense or fanfare. In a tiny village where the nearest city is also a speck on the map, isolation is a fact of life, and the opportunity to dispel it, even for a little while, is chance not to be missed.
It is easy to bemoan the loss of the lore rural towns possess. And it is also easy to become romantic about this, to conveniently ignore the reality of this life. But this knowledge of what community means is the real loss we face as these tiny towns disappear. The willingness to help out and stand by your fellow villagers, even as you sometimes quarrel with them. Hopefully, Sanders's book will remind us of it.
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