The Paris That's Not in the Guide Books

by Basil Woon

A diverting social survey of Paris clubs, fashions, restaurants, people from the 1920s.

269 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1926

Reviews

[Sketchbook · Rating 5 out of 5]

Basil Woon knows steack au poivre all too well. His gossipy
social chronicle of Paris, 1926, is seriously sauced. The
names and sites have changed, but the customs of the country blaze on. He reminds us that when you start an evening out in Paris, you never finish it in the same restaurant. Your night begins c 7 pm with an aperitif in a smart sidewalk cafe, moves to a restaurant around 9 pm and ends with a midnight restorative at a club. In 1926 it was the Chateau de Madrid.

Another matter for Americans : Most French entertaining is done in restaurants and hotels. Americans throw open their homely, surgically bright dining-rooms; the French keep theirs private. There's also the
honored institution known as the "cinq a sept" (5 to 7), those dulcet afternoon hours which have a significent meaning to the French. "The hours of rendezvous, guilty and otherwise - nobody is ever guilty of infidelity in Paris. They merely uphold tradition."

The French are highly conscious of style, but, cautions Basil Woon, "Creating a style is like writing a best-seller. One always tries to do it and seldom succeeds."

None of this is in any guidebook, and it's of strategic importance for understanding the French psyche. Live and let live, say the French. "This pervasive feeling of freedom is the definition defying thing that is the charm of Paris," applauds Woon.

Joining the demimonde, he buttons his Cholly Knickerbocker tux : Princess Fahmy, the courtesan who shot dead her Egyptian husband of 6 months for giving her piles, and was acquitted in a British court ("Scandal at the Savoy" by Andrew Rose), shimmies at the Chateau de Madrid wearing jewels and little else. "She disposed of her husband far more effectively than those who merely divorce them," he marvels.

Perfomer Gaby Deslys died of the McGuffin Disease in 1920, age 38, but Harry Pilcer, her romantic dance partner -- long after portly Manuel, the former King of Portugal came and went -- was faithful to her memory for two years. Is that fidelity or Harry's fancy?

I am fond of Jean Nash who adored married life, but not with the same man. She divorced #3 because "he loved her too much." Following a flirt w Baron Lederman von Wartberg, she married an Egyptian sheik, Prince Sabit Bey. Dining at the Ritz they disagreed about the temperature of the soup.

"That's that," she told Our Man in Paris.

"What's that?" Basil Woon asked.

Our marriage is over, she said. "We were married under Moslem law. All he had to do was point his finger at me and say, 'I divorce you - you are no longer my wife.'"

And then? "And then we finished lunch," said Jean Nash.

I endorse Basil Woon's reLAXative. By the way, to the shock of Americans who dine at dusk at home (there are reports of dining at 5:30 in the burbs), Paris dines at 9, or even later. As in the '20s, there wont be ice in the water, and the food, cooked in pure olive oil, will be seasoned with white wine. Alas, forever gone: Les Halles - for onion soup at dawn. But then Svengali, with his big blonde, is gone too. So, let's try a late club in the Marais.

[Paul Bradley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Certainly invaluable, and entertaining enough when familiar characters traipse through the narrative, however there are large swathes of droll and drab. Highlights include detailed insights into the business and character of The Ritz Paris, Henry's, The New York Bar (later Harry's New York Bar) and Ciro's as well as brief glimpses of Erskine Gwyne, Harry McElhone, Frank Meier & Henry Tepe amongst others. I also have some leads on finding more detailed drinking habits and narrowed down the eras for further research.

[Sam García · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like the time travel feeling this book llaves me, but at the same time, most of the places Woon mentions in the book, doesn't exist anymore or were transformed into another thing, but I like the investigation and the way of selling you cool-old places of Paris. Definitely a good one...

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Basil Woon was a well known American journalist in the 1920s. In this book he has written a gossipy and enjoyable look at what a visitor to Paris c1925 might expect from the city. He takes you through the hig points like the Ritz hotel and into seedy dives in Montmartre and points out the eccentricities of the city and its citizens. We are supplied with enjoyable short biographies of various people who are mostly American or French and the places in the city they lurk.

If you are looking for a social background to Paris in the 1920s that includes the wider French community and doesn't solely concentrate on the American expat community then this is a good book to pick up.