Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1184317 in Books
• Published on: 2000-07-14
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 454 pages

Customer Reviews

The best primer on today's France
Anglo Saxons (as the French like to call both Americans and Britons) have long preferred the France of Peter Mayle to the complex society tackled by Fenby in this book. "A Year in Provence" was more revealing about the psychology of a certain kind of Englishman than about France; "France On the Brink" takes on the difficult task of trying to understand France on its own terms, and therein lies its value. Americans in particular, will find the realistic appraisal of of French merits and demerits refreshingly free of the usual cant to which they are treated by propagandists for the American way.

Absolutely superb
Authoritative, highly readable, well informed and packed with thought provoking facts and statistics. An impressive and dispassionate account as any I have read on France, particularly so for a non native. A must for anyone wishing to settle in France, or have a greater understanding of the country and its recent history.

Food for thought in tale of France
Pierre-Yves Sonalet

Any book, be it fiction or non-fiction, not only tells its own story - and this one tells a great deal about its subject - but also something about its author. There is no exception with the hefty volume that British journalist and South China Morning Post editor Jonathan Fenby has written about his beloved home-from-home, France. In On the Brink, in which Fenby expresses his holistic point of view about what he sees as 'the trouble with France', it seems one can distinguish at least four different lines of inspiration or attitudes.

The more amiable one to a French person is that of the epicurean gourmet, the connoisseur who obviously relishes telling us about regional dishes and vintages who, as linguists would say, loves the signified (the thing itself) as much as the signifier (what it is called). For there is a delicate and sensuous poetic ring to boeuf aux herbes de Massiac (beef with herbs from the Massiac region), potee auvergnate (an Auvergne hot-pot) or poularde demi-deuil (literally, a fat hen in half-mourning). Indeed, Fenby successfully made my French mouth water on several occasions.

His culinary acumen is so assured that it provides him with a tool for assessing and differentiating characters - French President Jacques Chirac, for example, is 'a man who lived for the roar of the crowd and who washed down his favourite dish of calf's head with Mexican beer', while the more refined Edouard Balladur ate 'steamed sole'. Or again: 'This was a battle between two strands of politics, between straight-on, no-nonsense populism and genteel conservatism - calf's head versus caviar'.

More markedly in the opening chapters, Fenby compiles a lengthy catalogue of France's woes and shortcomings. He says he loves France but worries about the state it has reached. Higgledy-piggledy among other ailments, France suffers from lack of political coherence, a superiority complex, cowardice, high anxiety, disenchantment with the ruling elite, lack of Cartesian logic, careless driving, contempt for its own cultural heritage, conservatism, incompetence, linguistic delusions, neo-imperialism, male chauvinism, old age, technological backwardness, laziness, immorality, shortsightedness, and even smelly feet.

I had more mixed feelings about this particular line of inspiration. Of course, some are true but some are sheer prejudice: and couldn't a similar list be very easily drawn to describe any modern democracy? I assume the enumeration serves some kind of cathartic purpose - healthy in any love-hate relationship - and as it is written with gusto and humour and gave me quite a few laughs I feel no qualms about taking it in good spirit.

It is when Fenby becomes a storyteller a la John le Carre that I enjoy his style the most. Considering true business matters, he focuses on some of the notorious scandals which have caused great public uproar during these past few years in France. The Bernard Tapie saga or that of Roger-Patrice Pelat, former president Francois Mitterrand's wartime friend, or Rene Bousquet, the collaborationist, provide us with gems of character description and even with thrilling elements of suspense. Undeniably, Fenby has a lot of potential as a novelist.

The last of the four narrative styles is more obvious in the final chapters: that of the political commentator, the journalist used to hobnobbing with politicians and public figures, occasionally sharing a meal with them - he seems to like poularde demi-deuil a lot - and extremely well-versed in their French brand of wheelings and dealings. Fenby is quite open about his likes and dislikes, and his interpretation of the events that shaped the political landscape of contemporary France are thought-provoking.

But I do not share the pessimistic view that France is on the brink of a 'precipice'. In a democracy - which by definition can never achieve perfection - problems will eventually be solved. Unemployment, the presence of undemocratic political forces, the widening gap that Fenby claims separates the ruled from their rulers, all these questions and more are debated daily in the French media. The rate of participation in French elections is not as low as in other Western democracies, such as the US, and the public are clearly concerned about how their country is run. In other words, there is still potential change and improvement.

I spent July in France and I did not find the mood of my fellow citizens as bleak as it is cracked up to be: the World Cup had been won, foreign hooligans had gone home rather early, French cars and fast trains seemed to be selling well, unemployment was down, there were delicious baguettes and croissants, and I got a beret for my birthday which I intend to wear in Hong Kong come the chilly days . . . not a bad summer, particularly if you look at the rest of the world.

Pierre-Yves Sonalet is general manager of the Alliance Francaise de Hong Kong On the Brink: the Trouble with France by Jonathan Fenby Little, Brown