THE PARIS WRITERS' SALON - John Baxter and Samuel Lopez-Barrantes take a new look at one of the most complex districts of the city Montmartre.

John Baxter writes: For the first Paris Writers Salon of the new year, Samuel Lopez -Barrantes and I take a new look at one of the most complex districts of the city Montmartre. I hope you’ll join us. 

Salon No. 12: Montmartre from A to ? Every Sunday at 7pm CET 

One of Paris’s newest additions  – it only became part of the city in 1860 – Montmartre is, at the same time, among its most ancient districts and its most modern: the home of surrealists and prostitutes, drug dealers and visionaries, martyrs and miscreants. We’ve chosen three books that show different aspects of Montmartre’s numerous facets, delving into history and crime, love and politics, the sacred and the profane.

Sunday, January 21

Inspector Maigret & the Strangled Stripper by Georges Simenon (1950)

Simenon is among the great stylists of the roman policier and his Inspector Maigret one of the genre’s most durable creations. In this translation of Maigret au ‘Pikratt’s’, he investigates the murder of an “exotic dancer” and a mysterious Countess at the seedy Montmartre nightclub of the title. Expect a Montmartre very different from today’s tourist mecca.

Sunday, January 28

Last Words From Montmartre by Qiu Miaojin (1996) 

NY Review of Books: “When the pioneering Taiwanese novelist Qiu Miaojin committed suicide in 1995 at age twenty-six, she left behind her unpublished masterpiece, Last Words from Montmartre. Unfolding through a series of letters written by an unnamed narrator, Last Words tells the story of a passionate relationship between two young women—their sexual awakening, their gradual breakup, and the devastating aftermath of their broken love [….] The letters display wrenching insights into what it means to live between cultures, languages, and genders—until the genderless character Zoë appears, and the narrator’s spiritual and physical identity is transformed.”

Sunday, February 4

Montmartre: Paris’s Village of Art & Sin by John Baxter (2017)

Everyone knows about Pablo Picasso and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec but who was Louise Michel, the Red Virgin of the Commune, after whom the square in front of the Sacre Coeur cathedral is named? Visit the Cabaret of Nothingness, where one drank at tables made from coffins under candelabra of human bones, and the Bal des Quatz’Arts where, once a year, artists and models let down their hair (and everything else). Harry Crosby turned up wearing a necklace of dead pigeons. Film director Luis Buñuel dressed as a nun, but a reporter was barred as over-dressed. A sympathetic student suggested he come back in his underpants.  Only in Montmartre…

Sunday, February 11

Open Forum Salon

As usual, the last session opens up to thoughts and suggestions. If earlier salons are any guide, the conversation will range far and wide and provide a lively discussion to bookend the seventh rendition of the Paris Writers’ Salon.

For bookings & inquiries: john@johnbaxterparis.com

John Baxter (above) is an Australian-born writer, scholar, critic and film-maker who has lived in Paris since 1989. The many books he has written include the first ever critical volume devoted to the Australian cinema as well as studies of Ken Russell, Josef von Sternberg, Stanley Kubrick, Woody Allen, Federico Fellini, George Lucas, Robert De Niro, Luis Bunuel and a number of studies of Paris. His most recent book is a biography of Charles Boyer: The French Lover  (University of Kentucky Press, 2021)

THE PARIS WRITER'S SALON 11 - John Baxter and Samuel Lopez-Barrantes propose discussions on Romantic Love

 Bonjour everyone,

        Samuel Lopez-Barrantes and I are happy to announce the 11th Paris Writers Salon, this time discussing three books on the perennial topic of romantic love. Samuel and I look forward to welcoming you into the heart of literary Paris for another stimulating series of conversations.

Best, 

John

Salon No. 11: Paris, Love & Memory/

In the film An American Paris, Leslie Caron says “Paris has ways of making people forget” but Gene Kelly disagrees. “It's too real and too beautiful to ever let you forget anything. It reaches in and opens you wide and you stay that way.” The books in this Salon all deal with love and forgetting, and the impact of Paris on the emotional life of those who live here.

Every Sunday at 7pm CET

November 19 - December 10 2023.

The cost is 300 Euros or $300. For more details, see https://www.johnbaxterparis.com/paris-writers-salon.

Watson is a dedicated Salon member

Sunday, November 19.

Bonjour Tristesse/Hello Sadness by Françoise Sagan (1954)

Written when she was 18, this novel made Sagan a household name. People accustomed to dismissing teenagers as gossiping bubbleheads were shocked to discover they could experience grand passions and existential despair. Cecile, a sassy Parisienne holidaying on the Côte d'Azur with her widowed but womanizing father, all but drowns in the whirling currents of his love affairs and her attempts at defining her emotional needs.

Sunday, November 26

In the Café of Lost Youth by Patrick Modiano (2007) 

Nobel laureate Modiano is both jaded and hopeful, intellectual and romantic. Four lonely people congregate at the Café Conde in central Paris, their lives illustrating the precepts of philosopher Guy Debord, who re-defined our view of city life. “Ever-present through this story,” wrote onc critic,”is the city of Paris, almost another character in her own right. This is the Paris of 'no-man's-lands', of lonely journeys on the last metro, or nocturnal walks along empty boulevards; of cafés where the lost youth wander in, searching for meaning, and the older generation sift through the memories of their own long-gone adolescence.”

Sunday, December 3

Of Love and Paris: Historic, Romantic & Obsessive Liaisons by John Baxter (2023)

“She wanted to die,” wrote Gustave Flaubert of his doomed heroine Emma Bovary, “but she also wanted to live in Paris.” In 32 essays, John examines why the city has exercised such a potent influence on the romantic lives of those who live here. From Napoleon and Josephine to Rimbaud and Verlaine, Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg to Henry Miller and Anais Nin, and the real-life lovers who inspired the novel and film Jules et Jim, he analyses why Paris inspires such extremes of emotion and attracts the people who wish to experience them. For a sample published earlier on this blog CLICK HERE

Sunday, December 10

Open Forum Salon

As usual, the last session opens up to thoughts and suggestions. If earlier salons are any guide, the conversation will range far and wide and provide a lively discussion to bookend the eleventh rendition of the Paris Writers’ Salon.

A Forthcoming Webinar - John Baxter proposes you join him in an online discussion THE FRENCH RIVIERA AND ITS ARTISTS (Part 2)

 

                                                            

 

Dear Friends, 

 

So many people took part in the recent “webinar” (there’s that awful word again) about the French Riviera and its artists which Samuel Lopez-Barrantes and I did for the Context group that they’ve asked us to return to the subject. Expect some new revelations about the Cote d’Azur and its most remarkable residents – both for their genius and their outrageousness. 

 

THE FRENCH RIVIERA AND ITS ARTISTS part 2.                           11^th September

 

To sign up, here is the link,. 

 

https://www.contextlearning.com/products/fast-times-french-riviera-online-course

 

            As before, we’ll be talking in the apartment shared by myself, Marie Dominique and Louise (not to mention Watson, the cat) in rue de l’Odéon. For those of you who haven’t visited us there, it is in the building where Sylvia Beach lived when she ran the original Shakespeare and Company bookshop, and where she and her companion Adrienne Monnier were visited by all the literary greats of the day. 

            

If you live in countries where our chat goes out at difficult times – hello, everyone in Australia! – don’t panic; it will be available to download for some days afterwards.

a bientot,

As ever,

John

*****

John Baxter is an Australian-born all-round writer, scholar, critic and film-maker who has lived in Paris since 1989 with his wife Marie-Dominque Montel and daughter Louise. His Wikipedia entry  details the many books he has written which include the first  ever critical volume devoted to the Australian cinema as well as studies of Ken Russell, Josef von Sternberg, Stanley Kubrick, Woody Allen, Federico Fellini, George Lucas, Robert De Niro and Luis Bunuel. His most recent book, one of a number of studies of Paris is A Year in Paris, described by the New York Times thus "In “A Year in Paris,” (Baxter) strings together the beautiful beads of the French everyday, all held together by the invisible act of imagination that makes a country cohere and endure."