Waxing nostalgia about the bygone days of Paris is hardly new or rare, but that doesn't make us eat up pitch-perfect prose on the City of Light any less. And when it's written by the likes of Pulitzer Prize winner Stanley Karnow, who does it with such je ne sais quoi, we're mere putty in his hands. Karnow—father of one of our favorite Traveler photographers, Catherine—penned a lovely account of living in Paris for ten years as a young man, starting in 1947, called Paris in the Fifties. We checked in with him recently to get his pulse on Paris, then and now.
How has Paris changed since you lived there in the 1950s?
You can’t afford it! There’s a phrase, one I use in my book: Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose—the more things change, the more things stay the same. Things have changed tremendously in Paris since my first time, but yet there’s a lot that hasn’t changed. It certainly still ranks as one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and its beauty has been greatly enhanced in recent years.
The marvelous thing about a lot of the changes that have taken place is that the French were very good—if they wanted to modernize something, they would maintain the facade and change things internally. You’ll walk by a building from the 17th or 18th century, and the outside is how it always has been, but the inside is air-conditioned and all that.
How do you think the French people have changed?
The whole younger generation of France travels more. There’s a lot of mythology about the French being anti-American. They’re not at all. They love America and come here a lot.
And the new president of France is very pro-American. One of the things that is important is to speak the language. When you speak the language—my French is now fluent—I think the French very much appreciate that. I think if you speak the language you’re way ahead. But now, of course, a lot of French speak English.
What changes do you lament?
They made some mistakes by building some of the new towers, like the Montparnasse. There used to be a time—and it was originally planned that way—if you stood in the Tuileries Gardens, and you looked out past the obelisque, which was brought by Napoleon from Egypt, and up the Champs-Elysées, and saw the Arc de Triomphe. Then they started building behind it, like La Défense. It’s atrocious, and it’s spoiled that perspective, by heedless building. So nothing is perfect.
But still, it’s a beautiful city, and the marvelous thing is that it’s the best walking city in the world. When I was a kid in Paris, I didn’t have any money. If I didn’t take a bus—which I did often, because in those days they had buses with platforms in the bus, so you could be hanging out back, having a cigarette and looking at the city—if you didn’t do that, you’d walk. Up and down, and so forth, so I got to know the city from the ground up. You would learn a lot about French history, because the streets are all named for historical figures—musicians, writers, composers. In Hemingway’s words, it was a moveable feast.
When you visit Paris now, where do you go?
We go to the same places we used to go to if they’re still open. One of our favorite hangouts is the Brasserie Lipp, which is this really old-fashioned brasserie, so we go there. Another place, in Montparnasse, is La Closerie des Lilas, which has this little garden. That was my local café.
Photo: Catherine Karnow
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