All Things Parisian
So, for my birthday last month I got a book I've been coveting a while and never actually being able to get my hands on. How to be Parisian, wherever you are is a much admired, greatly intriguing handbook on just what it says: how to be a Parisian. Holding cooking secrets, skin savvy ideas and a multitude of suggestions to live and love by.
Not a book of fiction or fact, one of intrigue and ideals but not rules. This handbook on all things becoming a Parisian woman tells home truths about each woman psychology, her desires and heartbreaks; bringing any girl who reads to terms with the mystery within herself. With advice to travel through the difficult days and ways to further enjoy the good ones, these four quintessential Parisian authors have captured a style like no other, and yet not entirely like itself. No one Parisian woman is the same, however they all suffer the same temper and weakness for romance and red wine. Challenging yet so simple the woman created in the pages of this hardback is alluring and seductive but will not shy away from her poor cookery skills, erratic driving and tendency to drink and text far too much.
Divided into basics, tips, habits and style, love and personal cultivation while reading How to be Parisian I felt a strange sense of understanding. Not in the words on the page but on where I saw myself, who I saw myself as and why I had to embrace and not be embarrassed by my faults. From cultural tips on hosting a dinner party to anecdotal stories of poor first dates and disaster parties; the book reveals the Parisian woman (and in fact any woman) in a way the world had been attempting to discover her for years. Women so elusive they have been idolised not for the things they did and said which we can apprehend but the things they did and said which we may never understand.
A page dedicated particularly to the Simone's of Paris a Parisian woman never takes for granted her predecessors; it is true she is unlike any other human, she can still draw inspiration from the Simone's before her. (Take the Simone de Beauvoir mantra: "She did not try to make others happy; she selfishly delighted in the pleasure of giving pleasure.")
Another whispering the truth of cheating, the ways not to not do it, but to do it properly and indifferently. Why abstain from the transgressive, when you can indulge in it. On this page there is no disgust, no taboo, it is purely a guide that if a Parisian chooses to cheat, she must do so appropriately and in a way that protects her and only her. There is a selfishness in the pages which does not scream egotistical but self-seeking.
Humour light and not demanding to be laughed at there are self-deprecating pages which do not actually degrade the Parisian woman but lift her above her faults, increase her strength, using the 'Not so Glorious Moments' as a reminder that a Parisian woman will make mistakes but not regrets. From alcohol mishaps, to career blunders and ignorance, to the realism that this woman is not perfect and not always happy, but she is embracing the melancholy.
How to be Parisian is a book which came to me at a time where I realised I needed to grow, to change what was wrong in my life and stop ignoring what made me happy at the expense of what made those around me happy. I have never lacked confidence, I radiate a self love which others catch like a common cold, but learning the ins and outs of a Parisian woman brought my confidence closer to who I was forming into. No longer worried that the amount of wine I consumed mattered in the slightest to anyone, that my make up may veer from conventional and certainly was not consistent, but it brought a satisfaction to me which meant that with or without eyeliner I was still in love with myself. A Parisian woman is just that, she is in love with herself. Knowing where she may be wrong, where others will not see the same attraction, but indifferent, because she loves who she has worked to be.
Not a book of fiction or fact, one of intrigue and ideals but not rules. This handbook on all things becoming a Parisian woman tells home truths about each woman psychology, her desires and heartbreaks; bringing any girl who reads to terms with the mystery within herself. With advice to travel through the difficult days and ways to further enjoy the good ones, these four quintessential Parisian authors have captured a style like no other, and yet not entirely like itself. No one Parisian woman is the same, however they all suffer the same temper and weakness for romance and red wine. Challenging yet so simple the woman created in the pages of this hardback is alluring and seductive but will not shy away from her poor cookery skills, erratic driving and tendency to drink and text far too much.
Divided into basics, tips, habits and style, love and personal cultivation while reading How to be Parisian I felt a strange sense of understanding. Not in the words on the page but on where I saw myself, who I saw myself as and why I had to embrace and not be embarrassed by my faults. From cultural tips on hosting a dinner party to anecdotal stories of poor first dates and disaster parties; the book reveals the Parisian woman (and in fact any woman) in a way the world had been attempting to discover her for years. Women so elusive they have been idolised not for the things they did and said which we can apprehend but the things they did and said which we may never understand.
A page dedicated particularly to the Simone's of Paris a Parisian woman never takes for granted her predecessors; it is true she is unlike any other human, she can still draw inspiration from the Simone's before her. (Take the Simone de Beauvoir mantra: "She did not try to make others happy; she selfishly delighted in the pleasure of giving pleasure.")
Another whispering the truth of cheating, the ways not to not do it, but to do it properly and indifferently. Why abstain from the transgressive, when you can indulge in it. On this page there is no disgust, no taboo, it is purely a guide that if a Parisian chooses to cheat, she must do so appropriately and in a way that protects her and only her. There is a selfishness in the pages which does not scream egotistical but self-seeking.
Humour light and not demanding to be laughed at there are self-deprecating pages which do not actually degrade the Parisian woman but lift her above her faults, increase her strength, using the 'Not so Glorious Moments' as a reminder that a Parisian woman will make mistakes but not regrets. From alcohol mishaps, to career blunders and ignorance, to the realism that this woman is not perfect and not always happy, but she is embracing the melancholy.
How to be Parisian is a book which came to me at a time where I realised I needed to grow, to change what was wrong in my life and stop ignoring what made me happy at the expense of what made those around me happy. I have never lacked confidence, I radiate a self love which others catch like a common cold, but learning the ins and outs of a Parisian woman brought my confidence closer to who I was forming into. No longer worried that the amount of wine I consumed mattered in the slightest to anyone, that my make up may veer from conventional and certainly was not consistent, but it brought a satisfaction to me which meant that with or without eyeliner I was still in love with myself. A Parisian woman is just that, she is in love with herself. Knowing where she may be wrong, where others will not see the same attraction, but indifferent, because she loves who she has worked to be.
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