I'll Never Be French (no matter what I do): Living in a Small Village in Brittany
Author: Mark Greensid
Tired of Provence in books, cuisine, and tablecloths? Exhausted from your armchair travels to Paris? Despairing of ever finding a place that speaks to you beyond reason? You are ripe for a journey to Brittany, where author Mark Greenside reluctantly travels, eats of the crêpes, and finds a second life.
When Mark Greenside — a native New Yorker living in California, doubting (not-as-trusting-as Thomas, downwardly mobile, political lefty, writer, and lifelong skeptic — is dragged by his girlfriend to a tiny Celtic village in Brittany at the westernmost edge of France, in Finistère, "the end of the world," his life begins to change.
In a playful, headlong style, and with enormous affection for the Bretons, Greenside tells how he makes a life for himself in a country where he doesn't speak the language or know how things are done. Against his personal inclinations and better judgments, he places his trust in the villagers he encounters — neighbors, workers, acquaintances — and is consistently won over and surprised as he manages and survives day-to-day trials: from opening a bank account and buying a house to removing a beehive from the chimney — in other words, learning the cultural ropes, living with neighbors, and making new friends.
I'll Never Be French (no matter what I do) is a beginning and a homecoming for Greenside, as his father's family emigrated from France. It is a memoir about fitting in, not standing out; being part of something larger, not being separate from it; following, not leading. It explores the joys and adventures of living a double life.
The New York Times - Joshua Hammer
a charming variation on the theme popularized two decades ago by the British writer Peter Mayle in his Provence series: Anglophone city slicker resettles in French hamlet and confronts domestic mini-disasters and eccentric locals…this slight memoir captures [Greenside's] blossoming Francophilia with infectious joie de vivre.
Publishers Weekly
In 1991, Greenside, a teacher and political activist living in Alameda, Calif., found himself at both the end of a relationship and "the end of the world." The French world, that is: Finistère, a remote town on the coast of Brittany, where he and his soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend spend 10 weeks. Preternaturally slow to negotiate the ways of life in a small Breton village, he gets help from Madame P., his slow-to-melt landlady and neighbor. At summer's end (as well as the end of his relationship), his attachment to France became more permanent through the quasi-impulsive purchase of an old stone house, which was made possible with the help of Madame P. She figures prominently and entertainingly through the rest of the book, facilitating several of the author's transactions with the sellers and the local servicemen who provide necessities such as heating oil and insurance. At times the author's self-deprecation comes across as disingenuous, but his self-characterization as a helpless, 40-something leftist creates an intriguing subtext about baby boomerism, generational maturity and the relationship of America to France. Greenside tells a charming story about growing wiser, humbler and more human through home owning in a foreign land. (Nov.)
Heidi Senior - Library Journal
This charming book, a tribute to trusting one's fellow humans and to the French love of problem solving, describes Greenside's construction of a life in France despite his minimal knowledge of the language. Led to a rental house in a Brittany village by a female companion and fellow writer, Greenside ended up purchasing a house, thanks to strong-willed neighbor Madame P., and staying long after the relationship with his companion had fallen apart. The reader will recognize themes common to accounts by other Anglo-American owners of French property: the speaker of "a little" English actually speaks none at all; the worker shows up when he wants to. Unlike other books, however, all of the main characters are portrayed positively, in some cases surprisingly so, as when the home's previous owner gives Greenside a car. The author describes denying his "American" self while in France and presents his childlike "French" self with honest humility. In contrast, for example, to David Sedaris in Me Talk Pretty One Day, Greenside presents his fractured French in the original, leaving some readers out of the joke. For larger public libraries.
Kirkus Reviews
Fiction writer Greenside (I Saw a Man Hit His Wife, 1996) charts the unlikely trek that led him to purchase a house in the scenic hamlet of Plobien, France. When the author, then in his late 40s, reluctantly agreed to accompany a girlfriend to the western reaches of Brittany in 1991, he anticipated nothing more than a summer vacation. But this urban denizen of Oakland, Calif., became deeply enchanted by another way of living in a place and a society completely foreign to him-so taken, in fact, that he now divides his time between the United States and France. Greenside makes much of his shortcomings as an American abroad, spotlighting his abysmal French and rudimentary knowledge of Breton etiquette as social handicaps that initially both endeared him to and alienated him from his new neighbors. The bulk of the memoir centers on the many contrasts he has discerned between French and American life. For example, on practically his first hours in Brittany, he learned two things: "In the U.S., cleanliness is next to godliness. In France, it is godliness"; and, "In France, there's a product for everything-just as there is a worker for everything." Much later, Greenside recognizes with self-deprecating humor that his bicontinental experiences have virtually split his personality. "I don't know if it's as Marx said, because I'm a property owner, or my tentativeness as a foreigner, but whatever it is, I've come to believe change, almost any change, is not for the better but the worse," he writes. "In the U.S., I live as if there is nothing that cannot be improved. In France, I don't touch a thing. I leave it alone even if it is worn, bent, crooked, scratched, dented, if it skips, blinks, itdoesn't matter, because bad as it is whatever I do will make it worse."A charming travel memoir showing how comfort can sometimes be gleaned from the unfamiliar. Agent: Philip Spitzer/Philip G. Spitzer Literary Agency
Table of Contents:
I
Getting There 3
There 20
Market Day 46
Pardon Moi 54
F&ecap;te Nautique 62
Buying a House 75
II
The Oil Guys 121
The Floor Guy 136
The Insurance Guy 150
Martin and Jean 169
III
A Day in the Life 181
The New Yorker in Me 191
&Icap;le Callot 202
The Police 215
Bon Anniversaire to Me 223
Two Loves, Two Lives 237
Acknowledgments 243
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