Word: french
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...believe that French people are megalomaniacs, who crave the world's attention? French culture doesn't have to depend on others' desires. Anissa Desuzinge, LA GARDE, FRANCE IN A LETTER TO TIME...
...French culture is about intimacy. We French live in a cultural world that is very different from the Americans', so before even beginning to judge ours, please do your homework. Learn French, read our books and our cultural press, see our movies, go to the hundreds of venues in Paris where you can get a taste of the new French sound, and think twice before making such ludicrous assertions - and a fool of yourself. Hélène Bablon, PARIS, IN A LETTER TO TIME...
...still waiting, it is true, for a contemporary Flaubert or Proust. But how many Tolstoys do the Russians have? How many Melvilles are in the U.S.? A great, contemporary French writer is, however, long overdue. Here's betting that when he or she turns up, his or her first name will be something like Ahmed or Rachida. John Lichfield, IN THE INDEPENDENT...
...question, it seems to me, is not really whether this TIME article is correct in its severe judgment on the state of French culture. My opinion is that it probably is correct, and that in fact many artists from my country are a bit provincial, a little stagnant, unbearably narcissistic and inward-looking. It is not bad to see this denounced. But this bizarre text, the more I think about it, seems less and less a survey of France and more and more a savage reflection of the state of American culture itself. This article speaks truly of America...
...Americans, French culture is something at once detested and desired. If an algebraic formula could summarize its quintessence, it would look something like this: De Gaulle + Sartre + the baguette + Sophie Marceau's breasts = French culture. Whereas we know very well French culture is infinitely richer. That France is lacking artists of Proust's stature is undeniable. That French cinema is weaker than at the time when the nouvelle vague was giving absolute lessons in filmmaking to the rest of world cinema is obvious. But it is rather simple to show that the conception that we have of art has also...