Morris 0 ickstein
PARIS LETTER
Paris!
In
the late fifties and early sixties, when I was coming
of age, that word was as magical to me as it had been
to
the expatriate
writers of the twenties. Does it mean as much to many Americans
today, when there is little equivalent for the expatriate community that
spanned several decades? The old picturesque Paris where the cost of
living was low and the creative juices flowed is a thing of the past, the
victim of rampant inflation and a brutal process of modernization,
gentrification, and wholesale urban renewal. The working-class cafes
are gone because the working class is gone, extruded to tacky modern
flats in the suburbs. With its population declining and its income level
rising, with the cost of housing reaching record heights, Paris has
become a cozy enclave for the middle class, a glistening arena of
conspicuous consumption. Less affluent members of the bourgeoisie,
such as academics and intellectuals, who need to talk
to
each other,
cling to the city for its restaurants, museums, and movie houses, for its
energy and excitement. And for foreigners even a spiffed-up Paris
remains endlessly fascinating if they can afford it.
Whatever the excitement of Paris today it is certainly not due to a
ferment of creative activity. The art in the galleries is dull and
derivative, the literary energies seem depleted, and even the cinema,
revived somewhat from the doldrums of the seventies, poses no chal–
lenge to the early years of the New Wave. Life in Paris is civilized, too
civilized; unlike New York, which the French adore, Paris lacks the
edge of nervous tension on which artists thrive. For all their anarchic
streak, their love of Dada gestures, the French have been living under
basically the same conservative government since 1958. They have
grown more tight and timid, more obsessed with order and fearful of
instability, especially since the missed revolution of 1968, which led
directly to a Gaullist landslide at the ballot box.
In
this atmosphere the artistic and political cultures have taken on
a custodial aura. With a touch of managerial genius, the museums
mount wonderful shows that hark back incessantly to the School of
Paris between the wars, or to the cubists, or to the impressionists. (This
