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Authors | John Adamson and Clive Jackson |
---|---|
Illustrator | George Adamson (1913–2005) (frontispiece) |
Cover artist | Albert Marquet (1875–1947) |
Language | English |
Genre | Travel writing |
Set in | Pyrénées-Atlantiques and Paris, France |
Published | Cambridge |
Publisher | John Adamson Books |
Publication date | 2023 |
Publication place | United Kingdom |
Media type | |
Pages | 214 |
ISBN | 978-1-898565-18-5 |
944.0830922 | |
Website | Book on publisher's website |
Footloose in France (2023) is a travel book by the British authors John Adamson and Clive Jackson. They recall with humour their separate experiences of living in France in the mid-to-late sixties and early seventies: Jackson worked in the western Pyrenees and Adamson in Paris.
The book, whose prologue and epilogue are set in West Mersea, [1] recounts Jackson and Adamson's French adventures, the recollection of which is sparked by the unexpected brightness of a late summer's afternoon at the Essex seaside resort, as if they were back in France.
The alternate tales the authors tell are true reminiscences of a France of decades ago. There are insights into the worlds of wine-making, art and film, the challenges of language teaching, translating, banking, balloon-selling and much more. Encounters with Alain Delon, [2] Piem, the cartoonist, [3] Louis Derbré, the sculptor, [4] Toru Iwaya, the Japanese mezzotint artist, [5] Modigliani's daughter, [6] and across the tables in a Provençal restaurant, Noël Coward, [7] are mingled with interactions with the locals in the foothills of the Pyrenees, and exchanges with workers, among them waiters, [8] barbers and business executives, in Paris. [9] Falling in love at a château in the Pomerol, [10] putting on an exhibition of Franco-British humorous art in the Marais [4] and discovering a letter in Paris written by Vincent van Gogh to Paul Gauguin [11] are among the highlights of the book.
Through the memories of those they meet the reader is transported back to the Algerian War; [12] to the occupation of Paris in the Second World War; [13] to the quandary of a young French doctor working at Buchenwald in the aftermath of the War; [14] and more recently to the behaviour of the CRS in the Paris riots of May 1968. [15]
While there is innocence in the reactions of the authors as callow youths, it is tempered with their later wisdom and reflections as they look back, at times self-deprecatingly, to a spell in France that helped shape their lives.
The book's frontispiece reproduces Tuileries Gardens, Paris , a painting by George Adamson, father of one of the authors.
The Cambridge Critique hailed Footloose in France as having "all the quirky fun of an authentic adventure, a trove of fascinating real-life tales – whilst it reveals the real France in all its remarkable differentness". [16] Sir Quentin Blake found the incidents and experiences sympathetic to him and induced "a measure of nostalgia". [17] [ better source needed ] The booksellers Hatchards on Piccadilly, London, dubbed the book, "A beautiful portrayal of the country from an outsider's perspective". [18] [ better source needed ]
The Château de Rambouillet, known in English as the Castle of Rambouillet, is a château in the town of Rambouillet, Yvelines department, in the Île-de-France region in northern France, 50 km (31 mi) southwest of Paris. It was the summer residence of the Presidents of France from 1896 until 2009, and it is now managed by the Centre des monuments nationaux.
Antoine Houdar de la Motte was a French author.
The Tales of Hoffmann is an opéra fantastique by Jacques Offenbach. The French libretto was written by Jules Barbier, based on three short stories by E. T. A. Hoffmann, who is the protagonist of the story. It was Offenbach's final work; he died in October 1880, four months before the premiere.
West Mersea is a town and electoral ward in Essex, England. It is the larger of two settlements on Mersea Island, south of Colchester.
An epilogue or epilog is a piece of writing at the end of a work of literature, usually used to bring closure to the work. It is presented from the perspective of within the story. When the author steps in and speaks directly to the reader, that is more properly considered an afterword. The opposite is a prologue—a piece of writing at the beginning of a work of literature or drama, usually used to open the story and capture interest. Some genres, for example television programs and video games, call the epilogue an "outro" patterned on the use of "intro" for "introduction".
Arcangues is a commune in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region of southwestern France in what was formerly the Basque province of Labourd.
Henriette-Julie de Murat was an aristocratic French writer of the late 17th century, associated with the Baroque Précieuses movement, and one of the leading members of the French Salons who created the fairy tale genre. She was considered to be part of les conteuses.
Flight of Eagles is a novel by Jack Higgins, set in World War II.
A Tale of Two Cities is a historical novel published in 1859 by English author Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. The novel tells the story of the French Doctor Manette, his 18-year-long imprisonment in the Bastille in Paris, and his release to live in London with his daughter Lucie whom he had never met. The story is set against the conditions that led up to the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror.
De nugis curialium is the major surviving work of the 12th-century Latin author Walter Map. He was an English courtier of Welsh descent. Map claimed that he was a man of the Welsh Marches ;. He was probably born in Herefordshire, but his studies and employment took him to Canterbury, Paris, Rome and to several royal and noble courts of Western Europe. The book takes the form of a series of anecdotes of people and places, offering many sidelights on the history of his own time. Some are from personal knowledge, and apparently reliable; others represent popular rumours about history and current events, and are often far from the truth.
Tōru Iwaya is a Japanese mezzotint engraver and painter.
Salies-de-Béarn is a commune in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in south-western France.
Château Beauregard is a Bordeaux wine estate from the appellation Pomerol. The winery is located on the Right Bank of the Bordeaux wine region, in the commune of Pomerol in the department Gironde. As all wine produced in this appellation, Château Beauregard is unclassified but the estate is estimated among the great growths of the region.
Bouillon Chartier, or simply Chartier, is a "bouillon" restaurant in Paris founded in 1896, located in the 9th arrondissement and classified as a monument historique since 1989.
Palpasa Cafe is a novel by Nepali author Narayan Wagle. It tells the story of an artist, Drishya, during the height of the Nepalese Civil War. The novel is partly a love story of Drishya and the first generation American Nepali, Palpasa, who has returned to the land of her parents after 9/11. It is often called an anti-war novel, and describes the effects of the civil war on the Nepali countryside that Drishya travels to.
The Paenitentiale Theodori is an early medieval penitential handbook based on the judgements of Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury. It exists in multiple versions, the fullest and historically most important of which is the U or Discipulus Umbrensium version, composed (probably) in Northumbria within approximately a decade or two after Theodore's death. Other early though far less popular versions are those known today as the Capitula Dacheriana, the Canones Gregorii, the Canones Basilienses, and the Canones Cottoniani, all of which were compiled before the Paenitentiale Umbrense probably in either Ireland and/or England during or shortly after Theodore's lifetime.
John Adamson is a British publisher, translator and writer. He specialises in illustrated books in the fine and decorative arts.
La Coupole is a famous brasserie in Montparnasse in Paris. It was opened on December 20, 1927 by Ernest Fraux and René Lafon during the Roaring Twenties when Montparnasse housed a large artistic and literary community – expatriates and members of the Lost Generation. They decorated the place in the contemporary art deco style. Artists of the School of Paris and intellectuals frequented the brasserie in the interwar period.
Trap for Cinderella is a psychological mystery novel by Sébastien Japrisot, originally published in French as Piège pour Cendrillon in 1962. It received the 1963 Grand Prix de Littérature policière.