Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Acknowledgments
- Preface
- Introduction: A Clash of the Comparable
- Chapter I The Creation of the American in Paris: The American
- Chapter II The Splendor and Misery of the American Scientist: L'Ève future
- Chapter III The American Woman and the Invention of Paris: The Custom of the Country
- Chapter IV The Expatriate Idyll: The Sun Also Rises
- Chapter V Truths and Delusions: The Cold War in Les Mandarins
- Chapter VI Embracing American Culture: Cherokee
- Chapter VII An American Excursion into French Fiction: The Book of Illusions
- Chapter VIII Rerouting: Ça n'existe pas l'Amérique
- Chapter IX L'Américaine in Paris: Le Divorce
- Conclusion: Stasis and Movement
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
Chapter VI - Embracing American Culture: Cherokee
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Acknowledgments
- Preface
- Introduction: A Clash of the Comparable
- Chapter I The Creation of the American in Paris: The American
- Chapter II The Splendor and Misery of the American Scientist: L'Ève future
- Chapter III The American Woman and the Invention of Paris: The Custom of the Country
- Chapter IV The Expatriate Idyll: The Sun Also Rises
- Chapter V Truths and Delusions: The Cold War in Les Mandarins
- Chapter VI Embracing American Culture: Cherokee
- Chapter VII An American Excursion into French Fiction: The Book of Illusions
- Chapter VIII Rerouting: Ça n'existe pas l'Amérique
- Chapter IX L'Américaine in Paris: Le Divorce
- Conclusion: Stasis and Movement
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Nous vivons à l’époque des mystifications.
(Sartre, Qu'est-ce que la littérature?, 305–306)En dépit du prestige dont jouissent en France les intellectuels, et du culte de Descartes, la pratique trahit un certain mépris pour les idées, ou du moins pour leur efficacité.
(Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber, Le Défi américain, 67)Par leur légèreté, les romans de Jean Echenoz proposent … une approche inquiète de l’être au monde.
(Bruno Blanckeman, Les Récits indécidables, 69)Jean Echenoz's Cherokee marks a watershed in French literature concerning the depiction of l'Amérique and its cultural impact. In the works previously discussed, there has been a consistent developing pattern in the image projected of Americans. They were financially powerful and scientifically gifted, yet culturally naïve and psychologically immature. As such, the increasingly triumphant United States presented a growing danger to a France whose international reputation was on the wane. This tension reached its height immediately after World War II, when French intellectuals in particular perceived the United States as an imperialist power whose ambitions constituted a major threat to European peace and French independence. In addition, the influx of American products into France (household appliances, movies, fast food, etc.) was perceived as a threat to French values and the nation's traditions.
Georges Perec's Les Choses (1965) provides an eloquent expression of the widespread concern about burgeoning American-inspired French consumerism. The novel deals with a young, ambitious couple, Jérôme and Sylvie, who see themselves as part of the new, hip generation destined to profit from France's growing economic prosperity. They are psychosociologues, a trendy term for poll-takers. They chart the rampant consumerism among young French people. However, what started out as a wish to buy becomes a need to buy, and Sylvie and Jérôme themselves fall victim to this new disease. They fill their lives with things, fail to finish their degrees, escape for a time to North Africa, only to return to France as impoverished as they had been when they left. Ultimately, they recognize the failure of their dreams, symbolized by their decision to abandon the soul of contemporary France, Paris, for the wilds of Bordeaux. Les Choses may be read as a cautionary tale concerning the potential dangers of les Trentes Glorieuses. Perec was certainly expressing a justifiable fear among intellectuals and politicians in France that the economic boom was something other than an aubaine for the French public.
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- Frères EnnemisThe French in American Literature, Americans in French Literature, pp. 151 - 178Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2018