The French Art of Living Well: Finding Joie de Vivre in the Everyday World

by Cathy Yandell

Overview

In the tradition of Bringing up Bebe and French Toast, Cathy Yandell's The French Art of Living Well is a delightful look at French culture, from literature to cuisine to humor and more, showing how the French have captured that magic elixir known as joie de vivre.

What is joie de vivre, and why is it a fundamentally French concept?

In search of those ineffable qualities that make up the joy of living, this lively book takes readers on a voyage to France through forays into literature, history, and culture. How does art contribute to daily life? Why is cuisine such a central part of French existence? Why are the French more physical than many other cultures? How do French attitudes toward time speak volumes about their sense of pleasure and celebration? And finally, to what extent is this zest for life exportable? These and other questions give way to a dynamic sketch of French life today.

Peppered with anecdotes and humor, this book uncovers some of the secrets of the celebrated French art of living well. Drawing from her years of living in France as a student, professor, and mother, Yandell crafts an honest and profound appraisal of French culture and how la joie de vivre can be developed in anyone’s life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250777980
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	05/23/2023
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	213,644
Product dimensions:	8.20(w) x 5.50(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Cathy Yandell is a professor at Carleton College, teaching courses in French Renaissance literature and culture, contemporary cultural and political issues in France, and the French language. Having published articles on writers from Louise Labé to Montaigne, she has also authored, edited, and co-edited several books including Carpe Corpus: Time and Gender in Early Modern France, Vieillir à la Renaissance, and Memory and Community in Sixteenth-Century France. In 2019, she was knighted by the French government into the Order of Academic Palms. When not buried in books, she loves dance, yoga, and flying trapeze. The French Art of Living Well is her first book for a general audience.

Editorial Reviews

03/27/2023

In this enjoyable travelogue, Yandell (Carpe Corpus), a French professor at Carleton College, reflects on finding la joie de vivre (the joy of living) in France. Recounting episodes from her time in the country, first as a college student studying abroad and later as the director of a study abroad program, she shares what she’s learned from French people about delighting in everyday life. “Celebrations and gastronomy are inseparable in France,” she posits, telling how she was surprised by the elaborate series of dinner courses at the first French wedding she attended, where she realized that the “real point is to spend hours” conversing with others. She surveys the French passion for soccer while recalling watching the 2018 World Cup championship game at a Paris bar and credits the country’s win with uniting people in celebration. Elsewhere, the author serves up broad overviews of French intellectualism via the country’s literary canon and of the linguistic differences between English and French, which she suggests betray the latter’s slower pace (“In English, we ‘spend’ and ‘invest’ time,” but “in French, one simply ‘passes,’ ‘devotes,’ or ‘consecrates’” it). Yandell’s personal accounts offer fun glimpses into French life, and her commentary on national character and culture is well observed. Francophiles, take note. (May)

Publishers Weekly

The book is not a typical memoir of an American in Paris...A largely witty and often highbrow look at the French exuberance for life.” –Kirkus Reviews

“Yandell’s personal accounts offer fun glimpses into French life, and her commentary on national character and culture is well observed. Francophiles, take note." —Publishers Weekly

"A wonderful celebration of and guide to the many joys of life in contemporary France...Yandell provides first time visitors as well as dedicated Francophiles with a host of ideas for ways to deepen their understanding of this rich, complex and diverse culture." -Janet Hulstrand, author of Demystifying the French

“[An] erudite book sprinkled with amusing and informative personal anecdotes...Yandell manages to capture the uncapturable by showing the multitude of ways the French find joy in a culture where even the simplest things are celebrated.” -Harriet Welty Rochefort, bestselling author of French Toast and Joie de Vivre

"This book is a delight, a high-spirited portrait of a culture that does indeed embody joy and possibility...Yandell knows France, having lived, studied, and taught there over the course of several decades...lives up to the joie de vivre of its subtitle." —Susan Cahill, author of Sacred Paris and The Streets of Paris

From the Publisher

2023-01-31
An American professor investigates the French art of joie de vivre.

Yandell, a professor of Francophone studies at Carleton College, first visited Paris as a 19-year-old on a study abroad program. She found the culture, with its “spirit of celebration,” enchanting, and she admits, “I didn’t want to become French; I wanted to be French—and that was a stiff order.” Though the author’s story didn’t culminate in “marriage to a Frenchman” and she remained a resident of the U.S., she returned to the country regularly to live, “first as a student and later as a mother and a teacher of French literature and culture.” From this vantage point, Yandell shares her understanding of the recipe for the unmistakably French flair for enjoying life. She begins with the approach to food, describing a wedding banquet that lasted until 4 a.m.: “No one over the age of 10 seemed sleepy—time is subsumed by an abundance of pleasure.” She mentions a Christmas dinner that concluded with an onion soup at midnight, and she points out that, according to the French labor code, it is illegal to eat lunch at one’s desk. Yandell then moves on to perfume and “physical contact,” noting how the French habit of kissing on both cheeks clashes with American concepts of personal space. The author discusses French sports, dancing, and the art of seduction, writing that “sexuality is fully a part of the French public sphere.” From there, Yandell adopts a more scholarly perspective, discussing the French respect for intellect and the author’s own “first true love,” Baudelaire. The author has written two academic books on France, and those roots show through here. The book is not a typical memoir of an American in Paris; readers looking for frothier fare should be ready for chapters on the essays of Montaigne and writings of Marguerite Duras.

A largely witty and often highbrow look at the French exuberance for life.

Kirkus Reviews