BY LONGTIME
NEW YORKER WRITER ADAM GOPNIK
Before our 30th anniversary
(one year belated) two weeks in Paris, I re-read Paris to the Moon by Adam
Gopnik.
Though the book came out nearly two
decades ago, based on experiences Gopnik had with this family nearly a quarter
century ago, it holds up perfectly.
Paris is timeless.
Here’s the Penguin Random House blurb on
the modern classic:
Paris.
The name alone conjures images of
chestnut-lined boulevards, sidewalk cafés, breathtaking façades around every
corner–in short, an exquisite romanticism that has captured the American
imagination for as long as there have been Americans.
In 1995, Adam Gopnik, his wife, and their infant son left the familiar comforts and hassles of New York City for the urbane glamour of the City of Light.
In 1995, Adam Gopnik, his wife, and their infant son left the familiar comforts and hassles of New York City for the urbane glamour of the City of Light.
Gopnik is a longtime New
Yorker writer, and the magazine has sent its writers to Paris for
decades–but his was above all a personal pilgrimage to the place that had for
so long been the undisputed capital of everything cultural and beautiful.
It was also the opportunity to raise a
child who would know what it was to romp in the Luxembourg Gardens, to enjoy a
croque monsieur in a Left Bank café–a child (and perhaps a father, too) who
would have a grasp of that Parisian sense of style we Americans find so elusive.
