Strangers in Paradise: A Memoir of Provence
by Paul Christensen
0-916727-28-9 Cost: $17.95
European style paperback (with flaps) , 224 pages
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Paul Christensen's Strangers in Paradise: A Memoir of Provence weaves a fascinating dialogue between the "Old World" of rural southern France and the "New World" of postmodern American university life. We experience village life in finely wrought detail that captures flavors, scents, and textures as well as personalities and perspectives all etched in beautiful prose. A celebrated poet and critic of literary post-modernism, Christensen meditates on the meaning of person and place in mythology, history and culture as we watch his family adjust to this "new" Old World. Strangers in Paradise reads like a quest novel merged with a contemplative travelogue an intense discourse on the visionary arts and a rediscovery, if not reinvention, of the self. In the mold and often the footsteps of Henry Adams, this contemporary American intellectual finds enlightenment in his delightful exile.
Critical Praise for Strangers in Paradise: A Memoir of Provence
". . . avoids the familiar with unique experience and a fluid style that separates it from other an-American-in-Europe journals." -- Publishers Weekly
"Achingly beautiful language. . . . a memoir of fine perceptions layered into deep insights, one of the rare successes in which print becomes place."
— France Today
Christensen, a poet, editor and author of over a dozen books (most recently Falling from Grace in Texas), has crafted a memoir of his part-time residency in Provence that avoids the familiar with unique experience and a fluid style that separates it from other an-American-in-Europe journals. What makes Christensen's expatriate tale unique is how much of it he spends in Texas; while he teaches there during the academic year, his wife and three children lived in Provence without him, and the most interesting portions of his sometimes meandering narrative involve his ambivalence over watching his children become French. Christensen's other gift is for capturing perfect details of Provencial life, as in his description of an art gallery: "There were no geniuses around, only a few shy attempts to paint one's gratitude for the light or the wild flowers." This gift for lovely writing occasionally drifts into melodramatic territory ("I thought keenly of my deceased brother... he shimmered over the twilit air and seemed to almost touch my face"). It seems that this slim book could have used a tighter edit, but there is much here to appreciate, particularly for those with fond memories of France. Photographs.
— Publishers Weekly
If you've ever longed to spend a summer vacation in the French countryside outside Paris, this is your book. If you've never even considered such an escape, this also is your book. Paul Christensen is a poet and writer who divides his time between Provence and Texas and also teaches modern literature at Texas A&M. He has a keen eye for detail, and his descriptions of places, people, atmosphere and family life all blend into a warm, languid flow of enticing images and story. This is a book to be savored, as well as unhurriedly read.
— Si Dunn, in the Dallas Morning News, May 2007
Paul Christensen's luminous prose celebrates his immersion in Provence from the scents and sights of its voluptuous open-air food markets to the spiritual fulfillment of living among still-visible remnants of a pagan and medieval past. Readers will be enchanted by a sensuous way of life that "offers a gateway to the sacred," enjoying a poet's interactions with sumptuous foods and wines, vividly sketched neighbors and friends, and his deep reflections on bringing up his children in this culture so different from that of their origins in Texas.
— Daniel Hoffman, former Poet Laureate of the United States
Paul Christensen has a marvelous knack for historical detail and striking observations about the French country people among whom, in a "paradise" as difficult as it is rewarding, he continues to live. His observational acuity reminds me of that of D.H. Lawrence in such books as Sea and Sardinia and Twilight in Italy. "I am home," he writes, "I dearly love this place." Such words ring true in this book which is also a tribute to having a vision and having the fortitude to turn it into a nourishing life.
— Clayton Eshleman, author of Juniper Fuse: Upper Paleolithic Imagination & the Construction of the Underworld
The scents and flavors of France permeate Strangers in Paradise, as do unforgettable descriptions of family and community relationships that endure from centuries past, and insights into the excitements and rawness of his native America as viewed from an ancient and foreign shore.
— Robert Flynn, novelist and memoirist. Former president of the Texas Institute of Letters
Reviews
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Critical Acclaim for Strangers in Paradise
France TodayJuly/August 2007
Provence has become a literary genre unto itself. From Lady Fortescue to M.J.K. Jisher, Lawrence Wylie (A Village in the Vaucluse) to Peter Mayle, foreign writers have reveled in he region's pleasures and profundities. For these authors, especially the Americans, Provence seems to represent the essence of Frenchness. Usually their books focus on its unfamiliarity: the funny accent, local traditions, the lavender fields, stone houses and colorful markets, bodies shaped by labor on the land....
What sets Strangers in Paradise apart from the pack is author Paul Christensen's "desire to be transformed by, not to possess Provence." For the past 20 years, Christensen, a poet who also teaches modern literature at Texas A&M, has divided his time between Texas and a village in Provence -- the Luberon, to be precise. Christensen fell in love with this part of the world, bought a house and raised a family here. His wife and children remained year-round villagers while he commuted between the two worlds.
Surprisingly, he claims there is "something here that's part of the American experience: the feeling of closeness to the earth." The stone structures called bories are not that different from adobes, he notes. "When you drive through the Texas hill country, you'd think you're in Provence." Christensen -- who has also written a memoir of his life in Texas, West of the American Dream: An Encounter with Texas -- feels at one with his paradise found, yet he understands the subtlest details like the few seconds more a boulangère will take to serve him on a Sunday afternoon, because he's not from there.
All this in achingly beautiful language: "The land abounds in symbols of woven life," he writers. "The fields are the oldest cloth, woofs and wefts of green coursing through the earth. When the pickers come to pull the fruit down from the trees, they move like dancers through a stage setting of orderly, unified nature." It is a memoir of fine perceptions layered into deep insights, one of the rare successes in which print becomes place.
About This Author
Read more about Paul Christensen HERE.