It strikes me that people are different from each other in subtle ways across many different attributes. Cumulatively these can add up to quite striking differences, most obviously in language and dress. But one by one, we're all far more similar, and every society/nationality/group must have it's own share of overlap with others.
Zeldin's book on the French is excellent because it brings such depth to the discussion of a people, while making it clear that generalizations do not work. I think I finish it feeling both more and less 'French'.
Here are some specific extracts that made me sit up
The French, Theodore Zeldin, Kodansha America Inc 1996 (original 1982)
Language and Speaking (pp37-8)
"I have tried to discover what can be said uncontroversially about the French, in a practically observable way. It seems that what probably marks French people most definitely from foreigners, from the point of view of outside appearances, is the way they speak, not just that they speak a different language, but the facial movements that their language imposes on them. Their lips have to protrude when they speak because the French language has more sounds which require the rounding of lips than other languages. Nine out of sixteen French vowels involve strong lip-rounding, compared with only two out of the twenty English vowels. (Germans have five lip-rounding vowels.) The degree of lip-rounding in French is moreover greater because vowels following consonants often have to be prepared before the consonant is uttered. Vowels make more impression also, because French has fewer consonants in running speech than English does. And the French pronounce their consonants with their tongue in a more forward position than the English. So in French the mouth, tongue and lips have to be in a different position to when English is spoken....
Finally, one can sense that a person is talking French without hearing what he is saying because the commonest sound in French is R (pronounced in several characteristic ways) and E acute next. English by contrast has the weak vowel A (as in another) most commonly, followed by N; English vowels have significantly weakened since the Middle Ages....
There used to be much more to speaking French than knowing the words. Chateaubriand said that authors whose merit lay more particularly in the diction they made possible, could never be properly appreciated by a foreigner."
Individuals more than generics (p50)
"...individuals are, and wish to be, members of several conflicting minorities. That produces an entirely new way of being French, which does not involve retreat into particular sub-culture. That is why I give so much attention to individuals in this book: they are now shaping their own destinies more consciously and independently, selecting what they choose and reject from the many possibilities open to them, and mixing their selection in their own way. It has long been believed, following Toqueville's critique of democracy, that people are becoming more and more alike; and the media are supposed to increase uniformity and conformity. I do not agree. I think Toqueville was wrong., disproved - like so many prophets - by the obstinate unpredictability of individuals and by their wily capacity to resist the powers around them."
Becoming harder to keep and find a spouse (p133)
"What increasing marital incompatibility shows is that people are finding it harder to meet their soul mates because they have a strong idea of their own individuality; they are becoming more different from each other, even if it is only in slight nuances, but they have not found new ways to replace the resignation, complacency or tolerance that marriage used to demand."
Distinguishing a manager from an aristocrat (p186)
"It may seem strange to talk of aristocracy in the post-revolutionary Republic. What if liberty, equality and fraternity?....
The French invented their motto 200 years ago, but they have given their energies as much to getting round it as implementing it...
(p192)
"France failed to abolish aristocracy in 1789, because meritocracy, which it put in its place, has not eliminated the inheritance of power and privilege. The most original French tax is that on 'signs of wealth': you are taxed if you keep a yacht, horses, a castle. The effect is that on the whole the rich in France are far more discreet than they are in most countries."
(p204)
"The system of aristocracy is maintained because privilege is still sought after by many who hope they can do better than their fellows. Vanity is still encouraged. French institutions have not progressed much beyond the Napoleonic stage in this respect."
How to be friends with a peasant (p282)
"The peasants' fight has always been, first of all, for more land. They never have had enough. The average size of a French farm is one third that of an English one...[from half to 7% of the population, still fighting]...
Land is not only a living, it is also prestige and security, or the illusion of security...
The peasants have a second ambition.....They wish to catch up with industrial workers, to earn as much as them....[but as they increase productivity, only lowers price]"
How to eat properly (p291)
"..The refrain in every French discussion of their attitudes to foreigners is their inability to tolerate foreign cooking. Food isolates the French almost as much as their language. That would not be serious if France were at least certain of remaining a refuge for good food. But that is in doubt.
(p294)
...It is probable that more effort has been put into laying down laws and principles in the French kitchen than elsewhere, and foreign ideas of it are inevitably derived from the reading of recipe books. The French themselves give the title of master craftsman to cooks who pass examinations in which strict obedience to classical precepts is expected.....
The ability to talk about food, to turn eating into a philosophy, is one of the marks of a great French cook, for French gastronomy has always been a dialogue: to eat alone is to have an incomplete meal, one needs to discuss what one eats....."
How to be chic (p319)
"France is important to taste in clothes, because it cultivates dedication to fine workmanship, beautiful materials, originality and harmony. But there is no evidence that the French people as a whole appreciate these ideals more than other people; they have compromised themselves almost as much as other comparable nations in accepting cheaper feeble imitations. There is French taste, and French good taste."
How they choose their style of life (p329)
"...the French cinema audience is split into two. The mass of the population goes seldom, but Parisians go six times more often than the average....French cinema fans form a compact group...Cinema-going...has become a form of nonconformism, a way of escaping the endless flow of television output and repeats..
It is on this basis that modern French film making has been flourishing and increasing, to reach a figure of about 250 a year. The important characteristic is that hardly any filmmaker tries to please everybody any more...
(p331)
Talk about the influence of the 'media' on the public needs to be balanced by something that is talked about very much less, the public's capacity for resistance. It knows how to mock what is offered, as it often makes clear in cinemas...."
How to make sense of their language (p348)
"No foreigner should ever mock the French language, first because he does not understand it properly, and secondly because it has divine status in France. Every foreigner, however, needs to watch the French mocking each other on how they use their language themselves."
(p350)
"If one forced the French to strip-tease, discarding one by one all outward disguises that give them their national identity, the last thing one would be left with would be their language....Already in the eighteenth century Senac de Meilhan had warned: 'A nation that speaks a language other than its own gradually loses its character.' That no doubt is why the French government cling to their language so desperately as the ultimate safeguard of their individuality and why they spend half their foreign service budget on trying to perpetuate its use in former colonies....But the question is whether the language does indeed express their character...
(p353)
...to learn French means something different now; it involves participation in one particular cultural heritage; if one learns only French, one cuts oneself off from most people; it now stands in the same position that patois once stood."
How to judge the effects of education (p370)
"A French education is supposed to be something that one does not easily forget, and that marks one for life. It has the reputation of being particularly tough and demanding, of requiring children to work incredibly long hours, but that is a reputation given to it by just some sections of the system, notably the top forms of the most competitive lycees.
[aims to be more balanced, certainly more so that English A levels, but German most defined balanced]
(p372)
"The ideal of a proper French education, as it used to be understood, is in fact not dispensed to the majority of French children at all. The most notable characteristic of the traditional syllabus was that it was crowned by the study of philosophy and rhetoric...It is no longer believed that [philosophers] can give children a truly critical spirit..."
What illnesses they suffer from (p467)
"...The people who speak most freely about their dreams are the peasants, who treat them as they treat folk stories...at night they seem to re-establish the continuity of the generations...By contrast shopkeepers are often unwilling to talk about their dreams. 'I dream about my tax collector,'...Managers sometimes say they are too busy to dream...or they pretend that dreaming is simply a relaxation like one of their hobbies...But at least half their dreams are about losing their privileges....
...in all classes dreams about food are much more often about conviviality than about gastronomy..."
Zeldin's book on the French is excellent because it brings such depth to the discussion of a people, while making it clear that generalizations do not work. I think I finish it feeling both more and less 'French'.
Here are some specific extracts that made me sit up
The French, Theodore Zeldin, Kodansha America Inc 1996 (original 1982)
Language and Speaking (pp37-8)
"I have tried to discover what can be said uncontroversially about the French, in a practically observable way. It seems that what probably marks French people most definitely from foreigners, from the point of view of outside appearances, is the way they speak, not just that they speak a different language, but the facial movements that their language imposes on them. Their lips have to protrude when they speak because the French language has more sounds which require the rounding of lips than other languages. Nine out of sixteen French vowels involve strong lip-rounding, compared with only two out of the twenty English vowels. (Germans have five lip-rounding vowels.) The degree of lip-rounding in French is moreover greater because vowels following consonants often have to be prepared before the consonant is uttered. Vowels make more impression also, because French has fewer consonants in running speech than English does. And the French pronounce their consonants with their tongue in a more forward position than the English. So in French the mouth, tongue and lips have to be in a different position to when English is spoken....
Finally, one can sense that a person is talking French without hearing what he is saying because the commonest sound in French is R (pronounced in several characteristic ways) and E acute next. English by contrast has the weak vowel A (as in another) most commonly, followed by N; English vowels have significantly weakened since the Middle Ages....
There used to be much more to speaking French than knowing the words. Chateaubriand said that authors whose merit lay more particularly in the diction they made possible, could never be properly appreciated by a foreigner."
Individuals more than generics (p50)
"...individuals are, and wish to be, members of several conflicting minorities. That produces an entirely new way of being French, which does not involve retreat into particular sub-culture. That is why I give so much attention to individuals in this book: they are now shaping their own destinies more consciously and independently, selecting what they choose and reject from the many possibilities open to them, and mixing their selection in their own way. It has long been believed, following Toqueville's critique of democracy, that people are becoming more and more alike; and the media are supposed to increase uniformity and conformity. I do not agree. I think Toqueville was wrong., disproved - like so many prophets - by the obstinate unpredictability of individuals and by their wily capacity to resist the powers around them."
Becoming harder to keep and find a spouse (p133)
"What increasing marital incompatibility shows is that people are finding it harder to meet their soul mates because they have a strong idea of their own individuality; they are becoming more different from each other, even if it is only in slight nuances, but they have not found new ways to replace the resignation, complacency or tolerance that marriage used to demand."
Distinguishing a manager from an aristocrat (p186)
"It may seem strange to talk of aristocracy in the post-revolutionary Republic. What if liberty, equality and fraternity?....
The French invented their motto 200 years ago, but they have given their energies as much to getting round it as implementing it...
(p192)
"France failed to abolish aristocracy in 1789, because meritocracy, which it put in its place, has not eliminated the inheritance of power and privilege. The most original French tax is that on 'signs of wealth': you are taxed if you keep a yacht, horses, a castle. The effect is that on the whole the rich in France are far more discreet than they are in most countries."
(p204)
"The system of aristocracy is maintained because privilege is still sought after by many who hope they can do better than their fellows. Vanity is still encouraged. French institutions have not progressed much beyond the Napoleonic stage in this respect."
How to be friends with a peasant (p282)
"The peasants' fight has always been, first of all, for more land. They never have had enough. The average size of a French farm is one third that of an English one...[from half to 7% of the population, still fighting]...
Land is not only a living, it is also prestige and security, or the illusion of security...
The peasants have a second ambition.....They wish to catch up with industrial workers, to earn as much as them....[but as they increase productivity, only lowers price]"
How to eat properly (p291)
"..The refrain in every French discussion of their attitudes to foreigners is their inability to tolerate foreign cooking. Food isolates the French almost as much as their language. That would not be serious if France were at least certain of remaining a refuge for good food. But that is in doubt.
(p294)
...It is probable that more effort has been put into laying down laws and principles in the French kitchen than elsewhere, and foreign ideas of it are inevitably derived from the reading of recipe books. The French themselves give the title of master craftsman to cooks who pass examinations in which strict obedience to classical precepts is expected.....
The ability to talk about food, to turn eating into a philosophy, is one of the marks of a great French cook, for French gastronomy has always been a dialogue: to eat alone is to have an incomplete meal, one needs to discuss what one eats....."
How to be chic (p319)
"France is important to taste in clothes, because it cultivates dedication to fine workmanship, beautiful materials, originality and harmony. But there is no evidence that the French people as a whole appreciate these ideals more than other people; they have compromised themselves almost as much as other comparable nations in accepting cheaper feeble imitations. There is French taste, and French good taste."
How they choose their style of life (p329)
"...the French cinema audience is split into two. The mass of the population goes seldom, but Parisians go six times more often than the average....French cinema fans form a compact group...Cinema-going...has become a form of nonconformism, a way of escaping the endless flow of television output and repeats..
It is on this basis that modern French film making has been flourishing and increasing, to reach a figure of about 250 a year. The important characteristic is that hardly any filmmaker tries to please everybody any more...
(p331)
Talk about the influence of the 'media' on the public needs to be balanced by something that is talked about very much less, the public's capacity for resistance. It knows how to mock what is offered, as it often makes clear in cinemas...."
How to make sense of their language (p348)
"No foreigner should ever mock the French language, first because he does not understand it properly, and secondly because it has divine status in France. Every foreigner, however, needs to watch the French mocking each other on how they use their language themselves."
(p350)
"If one forced the French to strip-tease, discarding one by one all outward disguises that give them their national identity, the last thing one would be left with would be their language....Already in the eighteenth century Senac de Meilhan had warned: 'A nation that speaks a language other than its own gradually loses its character.' That no doubt is why the French government cling to their language so desperately as the ultimate safeguard of their individuality and why they spend half their foreign service budget on trying to perpetuate its use in former colonies....But the question is whether the language does indeed express their character...
(p353)
...to learn French means something different now; it involves participation in one particular cultural heritage; if one learns only French, one cuts oneself off from most people; it now stands in the same position that patois once stood."
How to judge the effects of education (p370)
"A French education is supposed to be something that one does not easily forget, and that marks one for life. It has the reputation of being particularly tough and demanding, of requiring children to work incredibly long hours, but that is a reputation given to it by just some sections of the system, notably the top forms of the most competitive lycees.
[aims to be more balanced, certainly more so that English A levels, but German most defined balanced]
(p372)
"The ideal of a proper French education, as it used to be understood, is in fact not dispensed to the majority of French children at all. The most notable characteristic of the traditional syllabus was that it was crowned by the study of philosophy and rhetoric...It is no longer believed that [philosophers] can give children a truly critical spirit..."
What illnesses they suffer from (p467)
"...The people who speak most freely about their dreams are the peasants, who treat them as they treat folk stories...at night they seem to re-establish the continuity of the generations...By contrast shopkeepers are often unwilling to talk about their dreams. 'I dream about my tax collector,'...Managers sometimes say they are too busy to dream...or they pretend that dreaming is simply a relaxation like one of their hobbies...But at least half their dreams are about losing their privileges....
...in all classes dreams about food are much more often about conviviality than about gastronomy..."
Comments