Accessibility Tools

  • Content scaling 100%
  • Font size 100%
  • Line height 100%
  • Letter spacing 100%

Diary

by
May 2001, no. 230

Diary

by
May 2001, no. 230

You tend to notice things when away from home. For instance, I have always been struck by how many people on trains and buses in Paris have their noses buries in books. So when I spent a couple of weeks there in March, I tried as often as decently possible to sneak a look at what Parisians were reading.

The results were interesting. I saw two twenty-something women engrossed in Harry Potter. A few elderly ladies were obviously spellbound by American schlock. The large majority, however, had brought along much weightier stuff: serious fiction, French classics, philosophy, and sociology – even poetry. Perhaps the Métro line I usually took had something to do with this: it cuts across most of the Left Bank, stopping at several of the stations servicing the Sorbonne’s numerous campuses. Yet elsewhere too, on bus and train routes feeding the suburbs, the reading matter seemed to be of a generally high quality. The conclusion to be drawn from this might impress some as naïve. It seems to me unquestionable, nevertheless, that the French (or at least Parisians) have a far greater interest in matters cultural, literary, and intellectual than Australians.

From the New Issue

You May Also Like

Leave a comment

If you are an ABR subscriber, you will need to sign in to post a comment.

If you have forgotten your sign in details, or if you receive an error message when trying to submit your comment, please email your comment (and the name of the article to which it relates) to ABR Comments. We will review your comment and, subject to approval, we will post it under your name.

Please note that all comments must be approved by ABR and comply with our Terms & Conditions.