French propaganda

I have a deep-seated obsession with France. I like the language well enough, but I've always been really enamored with France: the food, the people, the Frenchness of France. This is all thanks to my mother. She feels the same way about France; I mean, I know she likes the language but that's not really what it's all about for her. It's a much deeper, fuller love that I don't think I can articulate. But I think I understand it, because the books she gave me when I was little make the picture a little clearer.

And with that introduction, I present to you: Book Installment #2: French Propaganda of My Childhood. Let's just dive in, shall we?

1. A lot, a lot, a lot of "learn to speak French!" picture books, but my favorite was always If I Lived in France.

This book was like a tasting menu as far as language books go. It followed the life of one very oddly-drawn boy if he lived in France for, let's say, about a year. There was a loose plot that was basically, "Check it, guys! France is SO COOL!" and maybe seven or eight vocabulary words per page. The boy wandered around willy-nilly, exploring France and all its wonders. I was very proud of myself the day I finally figured out the proper pronunciation of "boulangerie" (which means "bakery"). I spent hours puzzling over that word, and when I finally nailed it, I met my mom at the door squealing excitedly, "Mommy, I can say it! I can say it! It's 'bou-lahn-jair-ee!'"

Most important lesson: Pronunciation guides are bullshit. Listen to the word if you want to learn how to say it properly.

2. The Sweetest Fig. I was planning on making a separate "Bizarrely Dark Children's Books" post, but then I came up with this idea and liked it better.

The Sweetest Fig was about a French dentist (so you know he's evil) who apparently took lessons in money management from his old copy of Jack in the Beanstalk and never learned how to treat animals properly. An old, very poor woman with an awful toothache begs him to take care of her, and when he finally does so, she can only pay him with two figs, which she says "will make your dreams come true."He doesn't believe her and eats one right before going to bed. Turns out the old woman was right! The dentist has a dream about being in public in his underwear and...what do you know! The next day he's at the Eiffel Tower in his underwear! How embarrassing!

Then he spends a long time studying lucid dreams and mind control and giving his dog the odd kick in his free moments, so he can dream about being fabulously wealthy. [Spoiler alert] He's all set to make his dreams come true...when the dog eats the last fig! The dentist beats the fear of God into the dog (no, I'm not joking. He really beats his dog.) and goes to sleep. The next morning...the dog is human and the dentist is his dog. Forever. The end!

This book was really sinister, but it was set in France...and the illustrations were gorgeous. Whatever mixed impressions this book may have given me, it still influenced my life profoundly.

Most important lesson: I learned that you should never mistreat anything. Never.

3. Ooh La La (Max In Love). This book was one of a series about a canine poet named Max. These books were, more than anything else, really complicated. Max writes poems and goes to Paris and Hollywood and all sorts of interesting adventures, but they were full of innuendo and complex wit and jokes that the target audience could not be expected to understand. They sure baffled me. Even with my French language books, there were bilingual puns that eluded me, and since they were puns, my mother couldn't explain them. I remember puzzling over these books for almost as long as "boulangerie," and it didn't help that each page had about a novel's worth of text written in cursive:

Look at that. Does that stuff make any sense to you? I sure couldn't understand it.

But regardless of comprehension, I liked the book because it showed me layers of Paris and layers of the French language that were all new. The incomprehensible puns, the pages where the word "bleu" was repeated approximately every other word: they spelled something out to me. They made me want to go to Paris and look, just look. They made me want to nose around and see what I could see.

Most important lesson: a person who recites a spontaneous poem about you at a poetry slam is mentally unbalanced and you should run from them at top speed.

4. Linnea in Monet's Garden. Now this was the gold standard. This book is, in a nutshell, the reason why I have to study abroad in France. When I was little, I hated my name with a burning passion. I thought it was stupid and ugly and different and I hated it. Reading this book and developing a fondness for Monet started to change my mind. This book was about a little girl and her adult friend who went to France to see Monet's garden and his paintings. It was a wonderfully composed book: there were pictures of Monet and his garden, pictures of the garden now, and drawings of the flowers. It was beautiful.

I liked Linnea. She was an American girl who liked France, and not just Paris, which was a refreshing change. I loved the garden and I loved the pictures so much. I got this book long after learning how to read, but the plot barely interested me. Why read the story when there were such beautiful flowers to look at? I liked the cats and the flowers and the paintings. I liked it all.

Most important lesson: Get to Monet's garden somehow.

This concludes our installment. Exit is out the back, I apologize for sounding pretentious, and Happy Easter.