She demystifies the French way of life in an entertaining and personal narrative that carries us from the neighborhood shops of Paris to the halls of government, from the gardens of Versailles to the agricultural heartland. In La Seduction, Sciolino gives us an inside view of how seduction works in all areas, analyzing its limits as well as its power. While sexual repartee and conquest remain at the heart of seduction, for the French seduction has become a philosophy of life, even an ideology, that can confuse outsiders. Seduction plays a crucial role in how the French relate to one another-not just in romantic relationships but also in how they conduct business, enjoy food and drink, define style, engage in intellectual debate, elect politicians, and project power around the world. But Elaine Sciolino, the longtime Paris bureau chief of The New York Times, has discovered that seduction is much more than a game to the French: it is the key to understanding France.

(Feb.The hidden truth about the French way of life: it's all about seduction-its rules, its pleasures, its secretsįrance is a seductive country, seductive in its elegance, its beauty, its sensual pleasures, and its joie de vivre. Passionate, critical and discursive, this account feels very French.

She believes that the French mistreated even Picasso, just as they do so many (non-French) 'Others,' and that they seem to have abandoned once vibrant art, literature and creativity. Drawing on her deep knowledge and love of French art, she includes reproductions of some of her favorite paintings and sculptures through the centuries. She considers the widespread French collaboration with the Germans during WWII-and finds echoes in how the French have treated immigrant Algerians and now the substantial ghettoized Muslim minority, as well as the country's persistent anti-Semitism. from Latvia, and toward her seductive adopted country.

In this extended meditation, she gracefully weaves together her eclectic feelings of love and fury toward her father, a Jew who immigrated to the U.S. ) left New York for Paris with her husband, a painter, in 2000. Spurred, in part, by her father's unrealized dreams, art historian Lipton ( Alias Olympia: A Woman's Search for Manet's Notorious Model and Her Own Desire

French Seduction by Laura Hault