Writing Idols Revived: Midnight in Paris

Once upon a time a bunch of clever people settled near the Seine seeking new ways to write, draw, and explain the world. Their work earned them big prizes and a perpetual glow that still enchants aspiring artists. Books like The Great Gatsby and The Sun also Rises ensured that hordes of college students would dream of writing in French cafes. Then, just when you think the magic of Jazz Age literature had been dispelled by reality (and Reality TV), Woody Allen leaps in to revive it with his film Midnight in Paris.

Seeing this film sent me back to books that have launched a million writing careers. Though Fitzgerald always charmed me most, it was Gertrude Stein who brought Picasso, Hemingway, and the rest of that creative gang together. It takes work to find the core of her stories, and the rewards have not always seemed to justify the effort. But Midnight in Paris reminded me that the enigmatic quality of her writing was a reflection of her strong, quirky personality -- and that's what drew genius artists to Stein's salons.

This paragraph from The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas illustrates the oblique charm of her writing: "As I was saying, Fernande, who was then living wih Picasso and had been with him a long time that is to say they were all twenty-four years olds at that time but they had been together a long time, Fernande was the first wife of a genius I sat with and she was not the least amusing. We talked hats. Fernande had two subjects hats and perfumes. This first days we talked hats. She liked hats, she had the true french feeling about a hat, if a hat did nto provoke some witticism from a man on the street the hat was not a success. Later on once in Montmartre she and I were walking together. She had on a large yellow hat and I had on a much smaller blue one. As we were walking along a workman stopped and called out, there go the sun and the moon shining together. Ah, said Fernande to me with a radiant smile, you see our hats are a success."

That's a heap of words. Yet, when you get to the end, there is a sense that the phrases describe more than a moment. It's a long paragraph leading a tour of cultural history. Nevertheless, you may not want to eat that many words at each meal.

It good to go back to read those authors who were your first idols. It makes you recall what you love about writing -- whether it's content or style or just the rhythm that propels great stories. I think I may also go back to see that Woody Allen movie again. He has put a new coat of paint on a cherished illusion.