Very French Delights

Maybe all this is just too French for readers in Britain or the United States, where the translations of Delerm's book ("Small Pleasures of Life" in the U.K. and "We Could Almost Eat Outside" in the U.S.) did not have much success. And maybe that's because the people the French call "Anglo-Saxons" do not value what Delerm calls "laziness" as much as the French do. Delerm laughs at the ethic preached by the hyperkinetic, Ray-Ban-wearing, corporate-jet-traveling, ostentatiously Anglophile French President Nicolas Sarkozy: "You have to work," says Delerm, parodying. "And what is the recompense for work? Ah, well, having worked!"

As we finish the wine, I try to coax from Delerm his idea of minuscule pleasures for the 21st century. The wonders of technology, for the most part, hold little fascination for him. He composes in large notebooks, then hammers out his manuscripts on an electric typewriter. No computers at all. He drives an old Peugeot. But one thing that does come to mind: the projection TV his son encouraged him to buy. "Watching movies projected on a wall—ah, that is like the magic lantern in Proust," he says. "What is important is to try to re-enchant even the most banal things. In fact, if you know how to stop and look, there are so many things that are sources of rich experience, whether you possess them or not."

And in Paris, dare we say it, you just have to stop and smell the rosé.

© 2008