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Reader Reviews | |
Review by Mick Stearbs (080309) Rating (9/10) Review
by Mick Stearbs Maria Anton is an English woman who, on the spur of the moment bought an apartment in Paris as, would you believe, an impulse buy. I thought I was a bit of an impulse buyer but my eBay and Amazon purchases pale into insignificance beside this. To make the venture even more intriguing, she reveals that she had left the confines of a psychiatric ward only a few weeks earlier. The apartment she bought seemed a good idea at the time. That was before reality struck and she found herself inside its shell without a stick of furniture, with bare wires hanging from the ceiling, a water heater that wouldn't heat and a toilet that wouldn't stop flushing. Her book deals with her attempts to get her head round the whole enormity of what she has done and how she managed to turn her tiny slice of France into something habitable. It brings in encounters with bureaucrats, a Frenchman from hell (even in the estimation of his compatriots), a plumber with more than just water pipes on his mind, Maria's semi-francophobe husband and their wayward daughter who could be said to have started everything in the first place. She weaves them all into a wonderfully warm and amusing narrative that at times had me laughing out loud - and she claims it's all true! There are some wonderfully surreal moments, not least the revelation that a third-floor apartment in a building on a hill could be prone to flooding - but it would spoil things if I explained further here. And the book's ending is a stroke of surreal genius (the title gives a clue!). Characters certainly spring to life, not least Maria herself; and as the narrative is written in the present tense we are able to follow her 'live' through her series of misadventures, which include being trapped in a toilet, unwittingly getting herself applauded by a group of Japanese tourists and narrowly escaping being mugged. Her husband Dennis comes across as a cringe-making, archetypal Englishman whose view of all things French is highly jaundiced - that is, until he discovers the Métro, which becomes his obsession. His frequent caustic one-liners are a joy to read unless, of course, you're French! Best of all, through the whole story lurks the wonderful city of Paris and I was taken back so many times to places I recognised. Mrs Anton takes us to parts of the city tourists know little about as well as to some of its major monuments - but always as a part of the narrative. This is not a guide book - it can be read as a work of fiction, which it apparently isn't, but anyone seeing Paris for the first time through its pages will be left wanting to visit the city, while anyone who already knows it will smile knowingly with the pleasure of revisiting familiar haunts - and will probably book a Eurostar ticket soon afterwards.
By the end of the book I found myself full of admiration for the
way Maria Anton coped with the situation and turned everything
to her own advantage. She obviously loves Paris and her apartment
and I shall leave the last word with her: “No matter how problematic
life can be, this tiny haven of peace is a priceless refuge. No
country mansion, palatial chateau or noble castle could give me
such contentment. Never have I felt so gently enveloped, tenderly
protected and quietly at home as within the walls of this little
apartment.” |
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