Book Review

Book Review: Bonjour Happiness by Jamie Cat Callan

January is turning out to be a month of exploring the power of myth, and there is no myth more pervasive among American women than the impossible chicness of French women. French women don’t get fat, they don’t sleep alone, they have secrets to fashion, cooking and aging gracefully. Bonjour Happiness is another addition to the literature trying to deconstruct the myth of the French woman.

In Bonjour Happiness, Jamie Cat Callan travels the orphan archetype’s journey. She starts out orphaned from French culture (her grandmother was French) by her Irish family and American upbringing, and goes on a personal journey to reconstruct her joie de vivre by a combination of trips to France, trial and error and Weight Watchers.

Yes you read that right, Weight Watchers. In fact there is more Weight Watchers than any other topic which goes to show Ms. Callan is most definitely American. She points out that some of the secrets of French women are actually Weight Watchers tips, such as drinking lots of water, no snacking and walking everywhere. The trick is probably that French women actually do these things rather than write and talk about doing them. I’ve never been to a Weight Watchers meeting, but this advice and all the rest of her main takeaways (stand up straight, clean out the closet, don’t be sloppy on the weekend) fall into another category: “Things My Mother Told Me Over Christmas Break”.

There is value in these simple things, and in being reminded of them. But the advice about walking and taking stairs, well, there is a more complicated truth at work here. Americans prefer driving. Years of car advertisements have convinced us that driving is synonymous with freedom, independence and happiness. It’s not efficient to walk anywhere and at time you take your life in your hands. The USA is also a much bigger place than France, and we live further apart. When things are far away and separated by six lanes of highway going 80 miles an hour, well you need to drive. I remember living in the Residence Inn in North Chicago during my MBA internship. There was a shopping complex less than a mile away but on the first day we were given a memo advised never to try and walk there – too many previous guests at the inn were killed and maimed trying to cross the highway that separated the two buildings.

I am one of those rare Americans who grew up in a family without a car till I was a teenager, my mother walking to the grocery store every few days buying what we needed and lugging it all back – 8 blocks – back to the house. Now that I’m a mom myself, I realize what a labor and a pain this must have been. My mom wasn’t the only person on the block to do this, I can still see Mrs. Scardino walking up the block in her heels, one full bag of groceries in each arm. The results were meals that were fresh and small – my mom was always cooking and baking. The fact is, stopping at the grocery everyday on the way home after working all day and picking up the kid at day care is just not feasible (my mom was stay-at-home, Ms. Callan has one adult child). For this to work on a regular basis I would need a shorter work week (ahh the secret behind the myth! Ms. Callan glosses over these facts).

On another note, it is to Ms. Callan’s credit that she doesn’t let her early French experiences dissuade her from her mission to find her joie de vivre. The myth is so pervasive for Ms. Callan it prevails even when her first trip to France is a disaster. As a budget traveler, she was hungry, cold and people were routinely mean to her. An ex-boyfriend tells her to go back to the U.S. Even her French grandmother was mean to her – giving her a girdle on the first day of junior high that resulted in her having vomit episodes. That she didn’t give up is a testament to the power of myth.

The best two things that come out of this book are the following: try to buy three panties for every bra (genius) and I’m going to look out for apple ice cream (after four years of living in New Hampshire and trying just about everything you could do to an apple – I have to admit I had not come across apple ice cream). As that’s two more tips then I usually get out of a randomly chosen fashion magazine and I don’t disagree with the other advice I can’t classify this book as completely useless. It is at best a harmless light read worth it if you won’t beat yourself up for wasting a bit of time and want to know more about Weight Watchers.