In the decade David Sedaris has lived in Paris, he has brought the City of Light to life in his own irreverent way. The American writer was named humourist of the year by Time magazine when Me Talk Pretty One Day — a collection of essays, many dealing with his escape to Paris and Normandy — was published in 2001. His just-released collection, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, currently climbing the bestseller lists, also offers his own take of the fabled city. This interview is part of an ongoing series on people inspired by place.
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So many of us have romantic ideas about living in Paris. Does being there ever feel like a dream to you?
You know, there's a fellow named Adam Gopnik who wrote a book called Paris to the Moon. There's a section where he's talking about crossing the Pont Neuf, I think, at sunset on a winter's evening. And he talks about how the beauty of it just absolutely stops him and stops his heart. I remember when I read that it made me cry. I copied it down in my diary because it was the perfect description of that feeling and of that time of day. And Paris is so beautiful that, even after 10 years, I stop sometimes and I am just overwhelmed.
You have a hilarious story in your new book about tourists arguing outside your window.
You see that a lot in Paris, because it's exhausting to travel around with somebody and it's so fraught. Hugh and I just got back from Brazil. He has this really irritating habit of walking and reading at the same time, but if I say anything about it, then he's going to get mad — and then I have no idea where we are, so if he storms off, I'm just left. That's what our travel arguments are about. But in my neighbourhood in Paris, the streets are so maze-like, people are hungry and they're tired and you often hear, "Oh, for Pete's sake. Why don't you just ask somebody?" Or someone claimed that they could speak French. But it turns out that when they said they could speak French, they meant that they took Spanish for a year in high school.
You live on the Left Bank.
Yeah, in the sixth. This just seemed like the best apartment. All I do is go to the movies — and if I fell down my stairs, I'd be at the movies. I'd say that within a three-block radius of my apartment there are five theatres.
Are there other places, besides the movies, where you hang out in Paris?
No.
You don't go to cafés?
Oh, God, no. You know where I go? I go to food courts. As much as I hate them, they feel comforting to me. There's this food court in this hideous mall underneath the Louvre, and when someone comes to town and says, "Let's go out for lunch," I say, "I've got the perfect place."
Visitors must love that: They come to Paris and you take them to a food court.
You know, when you live in Paris people always say, "Oh, tell us some secret place." And all the things I love about France are not people's ideas of France.
There's one place that I like to take people that I think is charming and surprising: the puppet show at the Luxembourg Gardens. Even if you don't speak French. The puppet theatre has been there forever and the sets are beautiful and it's Guignol — a very violent, Chinese-looking puppet who just throws himself into The Three Little Pigs or whatever story you've got going. Guignol just comes and takes over. It really is charming and the children are incredibly excited and they chant Guignol's name. You buy your ticket and you wait for your number to be called and when you go in, you tip the person who shows you to your seat. Then there's 10 minutes of puppet show and then intermission and they sell ice cream.
