the French
Nick Yapp & Michel Syrett
Oval Books
Li esse livro ha' mais ou menos 2 semanas e achei super na mosca, engracado, inteligente e um otimo presente pra quem vai viajar pra Franca ou pra outro pais, ja' que nessa serie de guias tem varios paises.
Infelizmente, so' tenho a versao em ingles e to sem animo de traduzir hoje entao..aqui vai, em ingles mesmo.
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Nationalism and Identity
Forewarned
"The french care about what really matters in life - being French. They care more about doing everything with enormous style than about what they do. They are convinced of their corporate and individual superiority over all others in the world. Their charm is that they don't despise the rest of us: they pity us for not being French.
The notion of "la force" lies at the heart of everything the French have done, well or badly, in the last thousand years or more. La force is their sense of the essence of life. It is bound up with other grand ideas such as "la gloire" and "la patrie", feminine words that speak of boundless stores of energy. The French are attracted to all things vibrant, alive, moving, irresistible. Beneath their chic and natty appearances they respond to atavistic and primitive impulses.
Where most other nations would be embarrassed or appalled by the notion of the thinly veiled body of Marianne (the symbol of the Republic on their francs and stamps) leaping over the barricades, musket in hand, the French are moved to tears of real patriotism. The cockerel may well be their national symbol - a colourful bird which makes a great deal of noise, chases off all rivals and lays no eggs - but they never forget that their country is la France.
This is why they are a sensual people: who kiss where others shake hands, who proudly say that they make love in the same way that they eat; who write music that sounds like the sun rising out of the sea. And it's also why they are so concerned with appearances, taking seven and a half minutes to wrap a small tarte aux cerises - putting it in a box, tying it with ribbon and handing it to the customer as though it were a new-born baby - when the blessed thing is going to be consumed the moment it's taken out of the patisserie.
They are public, unembarrassed people, made for special occasions - banquets, weddings, festivals, fetes. Here they perform, happy in their roles and the overall production. In their homes, they are too cabined, cribbed, confined. The settings in which they are best seen are offices, restaurants, airport lounges (who else looks good in these?) opera houses, grands boulevards. They may sometimes behave badly, but they always act superbly."
How They See Themselves
"The French see themselves as the only truly civilised people in the world. Long ago they discovered the absolutes, the certainties of life, and thus they feel they have a duty to lead and to illuminate the rest.
On anything that matters they consider themselves experts. Anything in which they are not experts does not matter. All life, all energy is a grand force of nature, which they embrace whole-heartedly. They see glory in what others regard as defeat. Since they have won almost every war they have entered, they assume that the final battle must have resulted in a French victory, and therefore wonder why the British named Waterloo Station after a battle they think the British lost.
They also see honour in seduction, triumph in a well-cooked entrecote and world supremacy in a bottle of grand cru. Not for nothing was Louis XIV called "the Sun King", for the French see brilliance in everything they do, and French statesmen from the Renaissance to de Gaulle and on to Chirac have likened France herself to a guiding light. Their role in relation to the rest of the world borders on Messianic."
Et Vive la France!
