Final Reflections on Bookpacking London and Paris

Wow wow wow what an incredible experience! I’m back home now, and am kind of in shock at how much I experienced during these last four weeks. I knew from day one in London that I would walk out of this experience as a changed person, and I can now fully confirm that. From the sweltering week one in London which nearly gave me whiplash, to our Paris discussions and covid weeks, to our apartment woes (which took the shape of mice), to saying goodbye to everyone at our last Champs de Mars picnic, I feel like time has simultaneously blown by and also passed so slowly. I think Roy said it best- it felt like I was living every minute. And it lent itself to a very full, enriching experience which I will be taking with me going forward! Not just what I learned in class, but also the lessons about how to live. In this post, I want to focus on the three biggest things I’ll be taking away with me as I move on in life. 

Such a cute group photo that happened pretty organically! Missing: Tia and Lingaire!

First: I really loved spending time with my classmates, becoming friends, and learning with and from them. I’ll admit, I was definitely worried about how it was going to be at first. I went into this experience after two months of planning my own itinerary and mostly living in hostels where I was meeting and leaving people all the time. So I was worried about feeling like my flow was cramped by group things, and was also worried that I would only be able to form superficial bonds and would not be able to make friends. My worries proved useless (as they usually do). The first week of meeting my classmates and seeing them both in and out of class dispelled any concerns about both things. I think everyone was on the same page about wanting to be friends with each other which was really cool and made it easy to accept one another and connect. Even after moving to separate apartments across Paris, people were still proactive about meeting up and doing things together, so it really felt like we were trying to build a community. Making that effort, and having it reciprocated, was awesome for me, who is usually socially anxious and introverted. So yeah, it sounds a little cheesy, but I liked making friends! I also really liked seeing my classmates both socially and academically. I feel like I got to see different sides of everyone with how they were informally versus in class. I have class friends and outside friends and work friends, and they don’t usually mix so I don’t hang out in groups. So taking this class together and getting to know different sides of people, feel out our group dynamics, was really fun. I have felt this before in some other classes, but learning is so much better when it’s with friends! I have definitely had classes where I have been afraid of speaking up because something sounded dumb, or if I felt like I was the only one thinking a certain way, but I think that because we knew each other outside of class, it made it easier for us to get along and have really rich discussions in class. I will possibly try to talk to more people in my USC classes going forward! 

Second: Doing a deep read of the book, noticing the locations described in the book and making connections in the real world to history and the present, was so worth it. I’ll make another humbling admission: I have a super short attention span, to the point where when I have to read for class, I will usually listen to the audiobook at 2x speed while doing like three other things at the same time. So a lot of the time I just get the plot and a sense for the prose. But for this class I really dug into these books, spending a lot of time with them, especially Les Mis. And although I probably could have “gotten away” with reading less in depth, I don’t regret the amount of time and energy I put into reading it. There were so many quote-able moments, or moments where I was like “hold on hold on let me think on that.” Making time for myself to really reflect on the texts instead of trying to read them really quickly just to do it enabled me to get so much more out of them. Also, it was really satisfying when I could recall what happened in a scene off the top of my head, and it allowed me to participate more freely in the discussions and excursions. Even if I can get away with just skimming, I’d like to push myself to read more deeply and spend more time with the text because I will gain more from it. I’m typically worried that I’m wasting my time on books that are “meh”, but it’s a self fulfilling prophecy. I don’t give books a fair shot at teaching me something if I’m breezing through them. I will probably always consider Les Mis as an example of how the more you put into a book, the more you’ll get out of it. And yeah, it brings me no small satisfaction to be able to say that I’ve read it.

Who could EVER have imagined I’d find a little sewer outlet cool… not me!!!

Third: The possibility for deeper travel experiences has opened up for me! I really like traveling- I have done some work experiences abroad, some volunteering, a lot of tourism, some normal “just living” in my destination countries… but I have never read a book as a way to engage with the place I visit. It may have been that the books we read were just very history-oriented, but it felt like I was visiting and living in Victorian London and Revolutionary Paris. Which was SO COOL because ordinarily I would have just seen the tourist sites, walked around admiring the pretty architecture, and eaten some relevant food. I feel like the idea of “bookpacking” has unlocked a whole new world for me! I’m excited to do it going forward, can’t wait!

So yeah, I had a really great experience bookpacking London and Paris with everyone! I’m really grateful for our class, for the opportunity to come on this trip, and for the work that Andrew did to create such an enriching experience! I’m also glad to have had the opportunity to reflect on these experiences in the form of blogs- I hope that Future Me comes back to these one day and re-experiences what I’ve been writing about. To Future Me: Be a flaneur, Stay curious, Reflect, Push yourself, Make friends, Enjoy Life!

Flaneuring & The French Quality of Life

I have really loved these last two weeks in Paris during which our excursions have been a little shorter and less-regimented. I feel like with more time and a chiller agenda in terms of Things To See, I have really been able to experience the slow pace of life here. I’m really living it up with the people-watching and cafe society which are so endemic to Paris. Just the other day, I met and had a conversation with a bartender who was also studying literature and wanted to be a writer. He said he liked working as a bartender because it was great for character studies. Awesome, right? I can totally imagine Dickens or Hugo hanging around a cafe, pub, or bar watching people walk through the door and thinking about how to render them in writing. 

Beautiful garden we happened upon when flaneuring, that made me smile :) It feels like such a privilege to have moments like these!

It feels so luxurious to be able to spend my afternoons lounging around, going to cafes, and flaneuring because it is such a different pace than what I’m used to back in Los Angeles. To the point where I’m really dreading returning to real life. At home, there are always things to do- I’m volunteering, working, studying, going to class, cooking, cleaning, walking my dog, trying to network, etc etc etc. I maintain a constant state of doing things, to the point where I feel guilty when I find a little bit of down time. It’s like, we have such a culture of productivity in the States, where time is money and if you’re not making money you’re being lazy. And I know this mentality is totally a social construct. As a sociology major, I’ve read theories behind this; Weber’s book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism suggests that when the Protestants originally came to the States, maintaining a good work ethic was evidence you were predestined to go to heaven, and the accumulation of capital was for the glorification of God. But along the way, the means to worship became the end- good work ethic and reinvestment for the continual growth of capital just became valued for what it was, and is a huge part of American culture today. And despite so many French people saying Paris has a busy busy work culture, I haven’t felt even the tiniest speck of what I feel in the US here. Maybe that’s because I’m here as a student, and I have most of the day available. But it really does feel that life in France is different. Is this why all the writers flocked here in the 1800s?

Going to Shakespeare and Co where famous authors like Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald lived felt right. I could totally understand why Americans would want to come here to write. The balance of life is better and the social value on quality of life is more inspiring and conducive to art. Reading the excerpt from Edmund White’s The Flaneur confirmed for me that a culture which accepts being - not producing, not working - but just being and noticing, sparks creativity in a way that the deadline-oriented States does not.

“The flâneur is by definition endowed with enormous leisure, someone who can take off a morning or afternoon for undirected ambling. since a specific goal or a close rationing of time is antithetical to the true spirit of the flâneur. An excess of the work ethic (or a driving desire to see everything and meet everyone of recognized value) inhibits the browsing, cruising ambition to ‘wed the crowd’. Americans are particularly ill-suited to be flâneurs.”

To be fair, and in agreement with the quote above, I am discussing the quality of life for a very specific and privileged group of individuals. Maintaining a slow pace of life, the passivity of a flaneur, presupposes the means to maintain such a lifestyle. Furthermore, I found myself a little hesitant to flaneur around by myself in unfamiliar areas as a woman. So being a flaneur is furthermore restricted by safety considerations. Actually, thinking about how identities shape the ability to be a flaneur, I wonder: if Hugo and Dickens had been wealthy flaneurs from the start, would they be as concerned with the state of society? Probably not! They might be curious about it, but I think without Dickens growing up poor, working in a boot blacking factory, he would not have been able to write a character like Dr. Manette. And Hugo was an activist whose villainous character Thenardier was named after political opponent Louis Thenard. Both of their real-life struggles shaped the novels we read and celebrate today, and I really don’t think they would carry the same punch if the authors were truly flaneurs. So maybe, while flaneuring can allow breathing room for creativity, some pressure is also necessary to create art. There is a balance to be found between the Parisian lifestyle and the American lifestyle, or at least that’s what I’ll tell myself as I woefully fly home. Well, I don’t have the answers. it’s at least something to ponder as I wiggle on… 

Rendering History... or is it Fiction?

The craziest thing happened the other day! I was flaneuring with Roy and Vincent and we saw a man in full 18th century dress- powdered face, wig, and all- walking around the corner. Naturally, we decided to follow him. And we were not disappointed. From the opposite side of the road we saw about fifty women walking towards us, all dressed as peasants (I think?) from the same era. Now, at this point, we didn’t know exactly what time period they were from. And yet, immediately, a vivid image of these women storming the Bastille came to me. As it turns out, they were extras in an AppleTV series retelling Benjamin Franklin’s trip to France to ask for support for the American Revolutionary War. It was perfect and SO fitting for our class topic. I don’t really identify as religious, but it seriously felt like an act of divine intervention… truly a Les Mis moment in which some divine hand, call it fate perhaps, was at work. 

As the crew walked by, I asked one man what scenes were being filmed that day. He said that Ben Franklin’s arrival in France was supposed to be kept on the down low, but news had leaked and a crowd of locals was waiting for him. So they were reenacting this momentous, but somewhat secret, arrival. This explained the mass of extras in common person costume. And it also meant we got to see what the masses would have looked like during the time depicted in A Tale of Two Cities! Here’s the thing though. As this man, the stand-in for Ben Franklin (Michael Douglas) himself, was passionately explaining the historical moment being rendered in film, I was skeptical of how it would be portrayed. I caught myself thinking, there’s no way a “secret” moment can be comparable to the original event without being totally dramatized and warped by nostalgia. And why are they even making this series? I question this. Plus, if it were really hushed up, it should not have been such a huge event during which journalists detailed the composition of the crowd, what streets he walked down, and how the people acted when they saw him. My skepticism towards the tv show made me reflect on the way we accept our novels by contrast as semi-historical documents,  especially Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. If I'm questioning this TV rendition and its sources, why aren’t I questioning Dickens? Because he wasn’t even alive for the French Revolution... he was only born in 1812, after the storming of the Bastille, after the Terror, heck, he wasn’t even an adult until even after Napoleon’s reign! And yet, my picture of middle class domestic life in the late 1700s is so heavily shaped by this one novel. Which is fine, I actually think walking into this show was a reminder to view the novel as a historical drama- I can take the picture of domestic life seriously but the portrayal of historical events with a healthy dose of skepticism. 

So anyways, in the spirit of bookpacking, we stood watching for a full 30 minutes before flaneuring on our way! I even got a photo with one of the extras :)

I had no idea that Hugo was an artist, much less a talented one! This is quite a bleak illustration… it is reminiscent of how he portrays society in Les Mis.

To be honest, I had similar questions when I walked through the Victor Hugo house. Questions about why the directors chose to highlight certain parts of his life: what narrative they were building and with what purpose. I downloaded the Victor Hugo House app which contained images and audio guides. As I was walking through the rooms, I learned about his life in exile and was struck by just how little I knew about his life as an activist. And I didn’t even know he was an artist! Going from thinking Hugo was just an author to thinking about Hugo as an activist was disorienting. I was like, wow this dude really kept himself busy. With the way the directors focused almost exclusively on his life and not at all on his books, it almost seemed to me like his novels were secondary to his activism.

I’m glad that I downloaded and read through the content on the app because I think its perspective on Hugo’s political life balanced out my one-sided perspective of Hugo as a writer. My attention towards why the directors chose to portray Hugo as an activist actually made me realize just how intertwined his political life and his novel writing were. Even as he protests against judicial violence, he renders his arguments in literature through the redemption arc of Jean Valjean. This interplay between his novels and his struggle to shape the real world lends credibility, a sense of his stories being rooted in the painful reality, to Hugo. 

This is an example of the media included in the Victor Hugo Museum App which emphasizes Hugo’s life as an activist. I can see how the attitudes which he voices to the senate are rendered in his literature in the themes of forgiveness and progress.

“The publication in 1829 of The Last Day of a Condemned Man - a plea against the death penalty, considered by Hugo to be “judicial violence”, highlights society’s responsibility for the destitution of the lower classes. This empathy and deep humanism would now go hand in hand with both Hugo’s literary work and his political commitments, leading him to intervene by turns as a man of letters, a politician, an orator or exile in favour of liberty.”

— Victor Hugo Museum Guide

Hugo actively shaped not only his present by his activism, but also how people considered the past: the revolution of 1832 was literally not significant until he wrote about it and memorialized it. His credibility as someone politically active in the times he portrayed in his novels allowed him to call attention to the state of society. Similarly, in the present, the Hugo House’s focus on his life rather than his novels does presuppose familiarity with his writing subjects; however, it ultimately deepens the readers’ understanding and belief for his message. 

So my two encounters with companies retelling history (AppleTV and the Victor Hugo Museum) made me question how and why each of the narratives are presented as they are, and ultimately led me to question the same about the two texts we read. I concluded that Dickens should not be read as a historical document, but rather taken with a grain of salt keeping in mind where and when he is writing from. In contrast, my experience in the Hugo House helps me trust Hugo’s writing even more as a historical and political document. He witnessed and involved himself in the politics of his time in a way that Dickens could not.

Louvre Reflections

In 1793, Henri-Pierre Danloux painted Jean-Francois de La Marche (1729-1805), comte-évêque de Saint-Pol-de-Leon, émigre en Angleterre en 1791. This is exactly how I picture Mr. Lorry!

We went to the Louvre on Saturday, and despite the crowds, saw so many characters from our books in the Denon wing! I spotted figures which could have been Lucy, Eponine and Marius, and Mr. Lorry! Okay, the characters were definitely not present in the same way that Gavroche was in Liberty Leading the People, but the likenesses were similar enough that I could picture the characters when I saw the paintings. 

I imagined the characters would have been wearing similar clothing, but more than anything, the things the artists chose to highlight resembled the aspects the author chose to emphasize.

For example, the themes of light and dark pictured in Le Christ Sur La Croix by Pierre-Paul Prud’hon. In this painting, there is a strong contrast between light and dark, where Christ’s body is almost entirely white and the background is almost entirely black. One can make out a shadowy figure in the background, but the central figure is unquestionably Christ, whose body is disproportionately illuminated by an imaginary light source. This painting really strikes me because of the veneration of Christ which pervades the entire piece. Elevating and illuminating his body to such an extent in the portrait reminds me of Les Mis and its themes of extreme goodness and extreme evil. There is no in-between with Hugo. Jean Valjean is saintly and Thenardier is evil. I wonder if this type of religious painting was going through Hugo’s and his  readers’ heads when they wrote/read Les Mis. As a modern reader, it is tempting to read the book with a secular mind, as we are used to reading texts from a variety of time periods which are shaped by different religious beliefs and politics, but at the time of its writing, both Hugo and his audience were probably deeply religious, as this painting really helps me visualize. Seeing this painting helped me reevaluate the novel in a religious context, much like seeing the musical did. It’s so religious! The morals, the good vs evil is all shaped by a religious context, which is important to today because morals are a social construct changing through time and place. 

The next painting that struck me as similar to the themes in the books was also by Prud’hon. His portrayal of this woman in The Soul breaking the bonds that bind it to the earth in an angelic light reminds me of Dickens’ portrayal of Lucy. Not only is the woman in the picture absolutely glowing, but the painting is also placed at the head of the hall in a place it would receive a lot of light, thus amplifying the angelic feeling of the piece. It reminds me of Lucy, whose character is revered throughout the novel. Not only are her actions and words kind, but the other characters constantly praise her compassion and hold her up as an angel. The Louvre does the same thing as Dickens by holding women up in an angelic light, except it’s literal rather than figurative.

Then, there was Eponine by contrast, who I chose to highlight in this post for a different reason. I found her portrait interesting because it wasn’t even remotely a portrait of her. It was a painting of a totally different historical event, and she wasn’t even a central figure, but I saw her in it. I found a painting by Delacriox called Massacres at Chios; Greek Families Awaiting Death or Slavery and saw a man and woman slumped onto the ground. The man is wounded, staring intensely into space while the woman has downcast eyes and looks resigned to her fate. This reminded me of Eponine and Marius, where Eponine is looking for a place to die for Marius, and Marius has never once looked at her the same way even as she is suffering for him. It would be a stretch to say Hugo saw this painting; what’s more concrete to notice is that when I saw this portrait as a modern reader, although the events of the painting are a totally different place and before our revolution, I couldn’t help but project my knowledge into it and see what I wanted to see. I think my process of viewing the art and relating it back to things I have read reflects what we do when we learn new information, particularly about the past. Because we have such a poor grasp on time, we are always learning things in relation to the other things we know. So any history uncovered today… How much of is it shaped by what we want to know?

The final painting I wanted to reflect on was a self-portrait of/by Jacques Louis David. According to the information placard, David painted this portrait while he was in prison in 1794 after having served the revolutionary government during the Reign of Terror. What struck me was his hard, angry stare. I can imagine him staring for hours at himself in a mirror trying to capture each detail, down to the lines in his forehead and the circles under his eyes. His grim face is the face of a man who once believed in the revolution but has been cast away by it. In noticing this painting, I can’t help but think of all the similar attitudes held by people who lived through the revolutions and its aftermath. This bitterness does not just go away with the restoration and a little bit of time. I can imagine that both Hugo and Dickens were writing amidst tumultuous times surrounded by many different political attitudes and resentment. This painting helps me realize that not only were Dickens and Hugo recording the historical events of the times, but they were also informed by the prevailing attitudes.

So in all, my visit to the Louvre enlivened and enriched my thoughts around the books. I think I got a better picture of the time in which the authors were writing, and the context of which they were writing about. The books also significantly deepened my experience of the Louvre. As someone who isn’t a painting person, I would never have imagined spending as much time enjoying the art as I did after having discussed the novels and learned the history. I should do this for every museum I go to! Very cool!

Exercising Empathy to Access the Past

I ended my last blog with a question: 

What personal insights can I draw from the bookpacking experience when I consider the authors’ and characters’ experiences, hopes, disappointments, and especially fears when seeing the sites?

I tried to keep this question in mind the last couple days as we bookpacked Paris for A Tale of Two Cities. In the last few days, we found La Force, the prison where Charles Darnay was held, and walked the route Sydney Carton took in the tumbril towards his execution. We also visited the Conciergerie where Darnay was held and tried. Each of these routes and buildings are now repurposed. La Force is now sort of hidden in a shopping street, only marked by a plaque. The route Sydney was taken on is a wide shopping road; we walked from the Louvre to the Tuileries and passed numerous souvenir shops and nearly got run over a few times by busy Parisians. The only place that really commemorated the Revolution of 1789 and the Terror was the Conciergerie which is now a museum.

As I was walking through these areas, I tried to imagine how Darnay would have felt. It was harder for me to empathize with him when we were standing in front of La Force than when we were in the Conciergerie. The efforts made by the museum to preserve a sense of the events that occurred there went a long way towards helping me get a feel for the significance of the complex. I did visit the Conciergerie about six weeks ago and when I say I breezed through it, I mean I played the Rick Steve audio guide, read most of the informational blurbs, and got literally nothing from it. I glanced into the room with the list of names of people killed from the Conciergerie but nothing stuck with me. This time around, I was much more intentional about my visit. I really tried to think about how Darnay and Dickens might have experienced the space. I felt a sense of injustice and confinement in the overwhelmingly thick walls, even all these years later. Using the museum guide really helped me visualize how crammed the cells were and increased my feelings of unfairness that Darnay had to pay for his meals in prison. I really tried to use my attachment to Darnay to better understand the space, and I got a much deeper experience of it than the first time I went. So for me, my connection to the humans who occupied the space made the history more accessible to me. 

The museum technology made it easier to envision the prisoners’ situation.

Similarly, when we were walking the path Sydney Carton took to his execution, I tried to imagine the fear he must have felt, traveling such a long distance, knowing the fate that awaited him. The Terror was aptly named; I imagine he must have been terribly afraid despite his resolve. 

My experience of being in the Conciergerie and tumbril path made me reflect on the relationship between remembrance of history and empathy. The more I thought about it, I realized that I was empathizing with fictional characters. And even though Darnay wasn’t a real person, my attachment to him still piqued my interest in the place he was held and the events he survived. My sympathy for Carton led me to a more personal connection to the Terror, an individual-level view rather than an impersonal statistical overview. Standing in the room of names in the Conciergerie this time around, I was struck by the realization that all of these people are real, with narratives every bit as compelling as Darnay’s. Yet to hear their stories I would have had to specifically look them up in the database. 

This reminded me of our class discussion about how novels make history more accessible, even if it’s less accurate. Because it’s interesting! So my reflections on history and empathy within and outside of the novel really cemented for me that the novelist has an important role to inspire people to look into the real lives of people. Even if they aren’t super accurate, they still make sure that the people in history aren’t forgotten and act as footholds for an exploration into the past.

Connecting with Dickens' London, Initial Thoughts on Bookpacking

Week One of Bookpacking London is complete and I can’t believe the amount of stuff we did last week! Although I didn’t have many concrete expectations entering the experience, week one was still pretty different than I had imagined.

My photo of Dickens’ grave, captured with as few people standing in the frame as possible.

First, what is bookpacking? Throughout the last few months, I was asked this countless times by family and friends. I would always give this standard answer: we’re exploring the cities through the lens of the novel. We will be walking the streets the author and characters walked. I imagined standing in a spot, absorbing the sites, and being able to feel a connection with Dickens’s London.

It didn’t quite go like that. Days 1 & 2 were blisteringly hot: record temperatures for the UK. And while we did come to London to see the history, we weren’t there to see history in the making. The heat proved a distraction from the Bookpacking as it fried the metal image I had of gloomy, overcast London right out of my head. 

There’s obviously no way to truly replicate the settings of the novel A Tale of Two Cities, but it became much more difficult to approximate than I had hoped. Not only were there throngs of people everywhere, locals and tourists alike, but also a multitude of cars, buses, signs, lights, and advertisements that all made it hard to see back into the London of our novel. Although the lovely buildings and architecture were well-preserved in the last 200 years at least, they were hard for me to connect to as anything more than buildings.

So it’s the end of Week one and I admit, I have found it hard to connect to the historical sites as we have been walking around. I really like ATTC but I’m lacking a sense of interaction with it and the past during our afternoon literary walks. 

However, two experiences did stand out to me in the way they brought the past into the present. The first was in Jarndyce, the antiquarian bookshop where we saw Dickens’s handwriting for the first time. Although we were just looking at a messy letter, the entire class had a moment of, “whoa, that’s cool” when we saw his signature. Being able to see a piece of Dickens The Human as he lived, not just the streets he walked, helped me appreciate and tap into his writing as art and not just a product of the historical period. 

The letter from Dickens which had us low key oo-ing and ah-ing.

Second, the Severs’ House. The Severs’ house is basically an attempt to capture the life of an 18th/19th century family through the scents, visuals, sounds, and objects of their house. It was so dark and every single thing inside looked like it had rolled right out of a fictional novel, but I guess that’s the point! While Dickens may not have lived in that atmosphere, his characters did, and it made it much easier to consider- how did someone writing or living at this time imagine the world around them? On the top floor, there was a pocket bible open to “Evening Prayer” on a lady’s dressing table. A pair of earrings are placed on top. I can just imagine her saying her prayers as she got ready for bed. Such a deeply intimate glimpse inside the home, and inside the mind of a person of the past! What sort of lessons was she pondering? What values did she hold?

These two experiences were the most engaging, wow-it’s-like-we’re-there moments for me. 

Contrary to when we were seeing the buildings and streets significant to the novel, it felt really personal to glimpse at the real lives behind the fiction. It made me realize that despite how the landscape has changed since the 1800s, people have changed relatively little. So I think I will shift my approach towards bookpacking in the coming weeks- rather than looking at Paris and hoping the buildings reveal more insights about the novels to me, I want to see what I can learn through a more human-centric lens.

What personal insights can I draw from the bookpacking experience when I consider the authors’ and characters’ experiences, hopes, disappointments, and especially fears when seeing the sites?