The Paris Wife
I just (an hour ago) finished The Paris wife by Paula McLain. And I have realized this about myself: Melancholy books make me melancholy. Right now, you’re probably saying ‘Duh, that’s what you’re supposed to feel’. But you misunderstand. Melancholy books make ME feel melancholy. Not for the characters, or the story, but real life me. I may have to trim them from my literary life all together. I first noticed this with the 4th Twilight book…for some reason it just made me feel grouchy all the time-but maybe that was just b/c it sucked and Bella is a whiney little B who shouldn’t get to live forever. But then there was Cherie Curie’s autobiography Neon Angels, I was sick for days after reading that. It has taken some serious meditation and pink bubbly thoughts to purge my memory of that book – hearing ‘Cherry Bomb’ still gives me the shakes. And now The Paris Wife. To be fair, it wasn’t on the level of Neon Angels, I don’t imagine I will still be feeling off tomorrow, but for a few hours, three letters sum up my feelings: ugh. I don’t even have the energy to put them in capital letters. The simple act of pressing caps lock is too much effort to exert for such melancholia.
Anyway, back to the beginning. I picked up the Paris Wife (I used ‘picked up figuratively, as I’m using an e-reader) after reading a decent-ish review (I don’t remember where now, but it must have either been the New York Times or NPR). I was initially struck by the cover art. They say you can’t judge a book by its cover, and we all know it to be true, but something about the woman sitting at a café table- her dress, her jewelry, her shoes… I wanted to know about that woman, read her story, feel what life was like for her in Paris in the 1920s surrounded by culture, and art, and thought.
The first 200 pages gave me fleeting glimpses of what I was looking for. McLain imagines the café’s filled with absinthe drinkers, Gertrude Stein’s salon, and markets filled with fresh fruit and bread, and everywhere people putting their lives back together after the war. But the glimpses are few. More present are Hadley’s (the Paris wife herself) insecurities about not being an artist or about being alone when Hemingway goes off to write newspaper articles. I don’t want to say she’s whiney—but I wouldn’t contradict someone else who said so.
The last 100 pages loses all of the beauty of the time and place and becomes a waiting game. When will Hemingway take up with his mistress, when will Hadley find out about it, and surprisingly, how long will they exist as a threesome. In this final third, Hadley becomes even more of a downer, she dislikes the fact that her husband has a mistress but continues to let the woman act as if they are friends: bike rides along the beach, shopping expeditions, etc. Hadley does nothing. And if there’s something I can’t stand (even in a fictional interpretation of a real person) it’s choosing to do nothing. The last 100 pages are all angst, ending with Hemingway committing suicide. I don’t know how I made it through as much schooling as I did without knowing that Hemingway shot himself, but I did-and I didn’t know that, and if I had, I probably wouldn’t have read this book no matter how chic the cover.
Two not-melancholy notes re: The Paris Wife
1. 1. The book of course covers Hadley’s losing of Hemingway’s manuscripts, but even knowing as little as I do about Hemingway, I was prepared for this thanks to a Gilmore Girls episode were Logan and Rory disagree over what happened. Logan thinks Hadley lost them, Rory thinks she left them on a plane- In the end Rory discovers that the manuscripts were stolen while Hadley was on a train. And then they make-out. Probably.
2. 2. If you know me, this may amuse you, if you don’t…well then I don’t care: My husband asked me why I was feeling melancholy-
Me: You wouldn’t ever leave me for a Vogue writer in Paris in the 1920s right?
Him: What the hell are you reading?
Me: A book about Hemingway’s first wife. You didn’t answer my question- would you leave me for a Vogue writer in Paris in the 1920s.
Him: Well first I’ll have to build my time machine so I can go back and see how Hot she was, then I’ll tell you.
It made me laugh. That’s probably the high point of this reading expedition for me.
If you’re better than I at staying emotionally distant from a book, you might like this-this is just how I feel.
