I was absolutely delighted when Vanessa Couchman agreed to contribute a guest piece on my blog. Not only is she a highly talented novelist, but her writing skills also extend to producing short stories and a hugely popular blog. These abilities together with a shared love of France make her the perfect choice. Here's what she has to say.
Why France is
a gift for writers
First, thank
you, Beth, for inviting me. Your posts are so interesting. And your article
about a town near us that I thought I knew well, Saint-Antonin-Noble Val, taught
me some new things!
My husband
and I moved to an 18th-century farmhouse in Southwest France nearly twenty-five
years ago. My various careers all involved some form of writing. Then I turned
to penning non-fiction (a blog, magazine articles) before launching myself into
the deeper waters of historical fiction.
In normal
times, France is the world’s number one tourist destination. Few countries offer
so many attractions and advantages for visitors. France is also a happy hunting
ground for writers. When Beth kindly invited me to write an article, after floundering
around for a subject, I thought, “Why not explore what makes my adopted country,
and my region in particular, such a writer’s paradise?”
Here goes.
The scenery
Who could
fail to be inspired by the landscapes, towns and villages? France isn’t only
Paris, but sadly some visitors don’t venture outside the capital to experience
the wonderful variety of the provinces.
The French
regions remain resolutely independent and proud of their culture, heritage and
scenery. De Gaulle is reputed to have remarked, “How can you govern a country
which has 246 varieties of cheese?” (What a challenge, to track down and eat
your way through all 246! I suspect there are more than that…)
Our region
alone, Occitanie, is a land of remarkable diversity. It is bordered in the
South by the Pyrénées, which you can see on a clear day from viewpoints not far
from us, and the Mediterranean.
To the East
stretches the high plateau of the Aubrac, studded with vibrant wild flowers in
the spring and blanketed with snow during the winter. We visited with a
coachload of French people in late May one year. This is when the transhumance
takes place. The cattle are driven to their summer pastures after over-wintering
indoors. The Aubrac is only a couple of hours’ drive from us, but the weather belongs
to another continent. It was freezing cold. We heard it snowed the following
day.
The extinct volcanic mountains of the Auvergne, where we love to walk in spring and autumn, lie to the North. The West is bounded by the rolling, green countryside of Gascony. Dramatic gorges carved out by the rivers over aeons crisscross the landscape.
Few countries have preserved their historic towns and villages, cathedrals and châteaux more carefully than France. Our region has its share of plus beaux villages de France (most beautiful villages in France). They are often medieval in origin and set on a hilltop with stunning views.
Inevitably, they are tourist hotspots in the summer months. You can’t blame people for visiting them, but I have the good fortune to see them out of season. I like to wander around the empty streets and imagine how people lived in times past. As recently as a century ago, they were working villages, but the mechanisation of agriculture and the lure of an easier life in the towns drew the younger generation away. A wonderful backdrop for so many stories.
The history
I am a
self-confessed history nut. I studied the subject at university, but it really
came alive for me when we moved to France. A country that has experienced wars,
occupation, revolutions, ousted its monarchy more than once, and gained and
lost an empire, often in blood-stained conflict, can’t fail to stir a writer’s
story-telling DNA.
Our region is
absolutely steeped in history. Today’s tranquil and picturesque villages
conceal tales of more chaotic times. I often wonder what happened to the
ordinary people during these turbulent episodes.
Our village alone is an example. The staunchly Catholic village and its equally staunchly Protestant neighbour were often at loggerheads. During the Huguenot Rebellions in the 1620s, our village became a temporary HQ for Louis XIII.
To entertain
visitors, we took a Tourist Office tour of our village, and discovered many
hidden gems. High up on the wall that flanks the road into the village, we saw
this figure, cheekily poking out its tongue at its despised neighbours, should
they have the audacity to venture this way. That rivalry continues today.
Memories in country communities are long.
I love to collect stories and snippets for later use, as a magpie hoards shiny objects. They bring history to life. Not all of them are happy or uplifting, though. We heard a tale of a young woman during the 1900s whose parents kept her shut in their pigeonnier (dovecot) when they discovered she was pregnant. Having a baby out of wedlock brought disgrace on the whole family. I have shamelessly used this one in a novel, without the identifying details, of course.
The language(s)
French as it
is spoken and French as it is taught in UK schools, at least in my time, are
two different things. My husband lived in Limoges for a few years and spoke
French well. I had the grammar and a smattering of vocabulary (“my postillion has
been struck by lightning”), but somehow I couldn’t fit them together in any
useful way.
When you combine
this with the broad regional accent of the Southwest, which adds an extra ‘e’
to the end of every word, I was lost. Thus “vin” becomes “veng-er”
and “comment”, “commeng-er”. Our elderly neighbours, whose first
language was Occitan, were unintelligible. There followed four years of
intensive French courses, from which I emerged rather better equipped to
communicate.
We still made many mistakes. French neighbours invited us to dinner. The conversation turned to smoking. My husband said to the rather grand lady next to him,
“Vous êtes
fumier?”
In fact, he
had asked her if she was a heap of manure, certainly not a compliment in
French. A shocked silence ensued.
I broke the
ice by snorting with laughter. Everyone joined in, and the party became livelier
after that.
Before French
became the standard language, the people of our region spoke Occitan, a cross
between Spanish and French with Latin roots. Occitan was not a written
language, and words and phrases could vary between villages. Our friend Claude,
now in his seventies, recalls that his parents spoke only Occitan at home. He
doesn’t speak Occitan, although he understands it. The language was banned at
school when he was a boy.
Occitan is
now enjoying a revival. You can still hear it spoken by some of the older
people. They get annoyed if you refer to it as “patois”, as I once did.
“It’s a
proper language!” Jeanine said, wagging the inevitable finger. “Don’t call it patois.”
I recommend Graham
Robb’s excellent book, The Discovery of France, which explores the
different cultures of France, with particular reference to language groups.
It’s full of interesting and quirky anecdotes. For instance, I learned that
people in parts of the Pyrénées could communicate across large distances with a
whistling language. Sadly, it has died out.
The people
If you’re a
people-watcher, as I am, or a spy, as my husband prefers to put it, seat
yourself at a café table in any French village and prepare to indulge your
obsession. Our village’s weekly market is a microcosm of Southern France.
You rarely see men kiss each other in the UK, but it’s part of the panoply of greetings that enlivens French encounters in the market. One year, our friend René advanced on my husband and gave him three smacking kisses along with traditional New Year wishes for good health. My husband took it like a man.
Market habitués
include the huddles of elderly men who chat while their wives choose the
produce; the stall holders who arrived at first light and are fortifying
themselves with ham baguettes and glasses of red wine at 10 am; the queue for
the cheese stall, which diminishes slowly as each customer debates the merits
of the cheeses before leaving with a bag groaning with them; and the man who
plays the flute to his chickens. He claims it charms them into laying better.
As a writer, however,
one has to resist the temptation to caricature people: the sophisticated
Parisian, the crafty peasant, the snobbish bourgeois. You’ll find
elements of all of those, naturally. But in France they are individuals, just
as they are elsewhere. They share elements of culture, education and upbringing
that are different from our own. This can give the appearance of cohesion. In
reality, it’s a veneer.
The so-called
French joie de vivre, for example, is a bit of a myth, along with the
bicycle-riding, beret-sporting onion seller. Some of the local fêtes can
be boisterous events. The noise level increases in direct proportion to the quantity
of wine consumed. However, French people can be rather restrained and not
always easy to get to know. It is worth persevering.
I recently
read Two Vagabonds in Languedoc, by Jan and Cora Gordon. They were
British artists who spent four months in 1923 in the village of Najac, not far
from us. The book captures their observations of village life. While they make
generalisations about the lives of peasant-farmers, each of the people they
portray has their own quirks and character traits.
For country-dwellers, the peaceful invasion by foreigners is a new departure. Generally, they appreciate the high standards to which crumbling properties are restored, and the new life that incomers bring to the local economy and the community. You hear rumblings from time to time, but overall we have been welcomed with open arms by our neighbours.
The food (and
wine!)
French
cuisine is, of course, world-renowned. It’s even inscribed on UNESCO’s list of
Intangible World Heritage. I would argue that there isn’t a single French
cuisine, but many. Every region has its signature dishes, which inspire heated
arguments among their supporters. Mention the duck, sausage and bean stew, cassoulet,
to the people of Castelnaudary, Toulouse or Carcassonne, and they will all forcefully
claim to have invented it.
If you
haven’t read Elizabeth David’s French Provincial Cooking, you have a
treat in store. When it first appeared in 1960, Britain had emerged from
post-war rationing only six years earlier, and mass tourism was in the future.
Her book presents a colourful, tantalising picture of France, liberally larded
with anecdotes and stuffed with dishes she discovered during her travels. It’s
not a cookbook. Elizabeth David assumes you know all about cooking times and
techniques. Rather, it’s an analysis of a country through its food.
We spent many happy holidays in France before moving here. We enjoyed local dishes and copious meals at ridiculously low prices compared to the UK. You can eat badly in France, usually (but not always) in places that cater for the passing tourist trade.
I have a
strange talent for remembering menus from years back. Having spent a long
morning viewing houses in April 1997, we were late back to our car. It was
already 1.20 pm. Knowing the French attachment to lunch at midi on the
dot, we were wreathed in humble apologies when we entered the village’s only
restaurant.
“No problem,”
said the waitress with a smile. “Sit here, and I’ll bring you the soup.”
You helped
yourself from the platters the waitress placed on the table. The soup was
followed by fat asparagus with ham and hard-boiled eggs, a tender veal stew
with fried potatoes, a platter of cheeses and the sweetest strawberries I have
ever tasted: my introduction to locally grown Gariguettes.
We drank the unlabelled
bottle of red wine. It dawned on us only later that it was a whole litre. No
wonder we felt light-headed.
The cost of
this feast? 120 francs (about £12). For two. This wasn’t haute cuisine,
but it was fait maison from carefully chosen local ingredients,
appetisingly cooked and appealingly served.
Naturally,
incidents like these, and the local dishes, have found their way onto my blog
and into my fiction set in the region.
I had better
stop there. My circuitous route through the fascination France exerts on
writers (and travellers) can only be partial. I haven’t even mentioned the vast
literary and artistic heritage or other aspects of French culture. Neither have
I referred to the things that ail France. No country is a Utopia, and negative
aspects can provide as much meat for the imagination as positive ones. But, if
nothing else, I hope I’ve been able to convey the diversity of France, which offers
endless possibilities.
Vanessa Couchman and her husband moved from London to Southwest France in 1997. She writes historical novels and short stories set in France or on the dramatic Mediterranean island of Corsica. She has also written a blog about French life, Life on La Lune, since 2010. Quirky true stories often find their way into her fiction or onto her blog, and she likes nothing more than pottering around ruined châteaux or exploring the lesser-known byways of France. Author website: https://vanessacouchmanwriter.com.
