Book Review: Every Frenchman Has One by Olivia de Havilland
Four Stars
“I’m not at all sure if you know that I’m alive.”
So she was/is. One hundred years old, and still living in Paris, which was the point when she wrote this book sixty years ago. She was a big Hollywood deal before most of us were born.
This short book is a chatty, personal memoir of her moving to Paris and marrying a Frenchman in the 1950s. Paris then–France then–clutched the tatters of its legacy as the center of the world, politically and in fashion. Though she still lives there; she probably doesn’t recognize today’s Paris.
“If you are loved by the French as a whole, you really feel loved.
Her adjustment to France and the French made for many humorous episodes which she relates in a conversational style. She suffered many of the misconceptions of fellow Americans and committed many gaffes, but no faux pas. (The significant difference is explained therein.)
What does every Frenchman have? A liver. And how he cares for it makes for a humorous tale in itself.
She learned, “The importance of tact, restraint, subtlety, and the avoidance of banality.”
As a Matter of Fancy 