France Profonde
Readers of Prospect Magazine may have noticed that the December issue carries the final France Profonde for a while (it’s about that excellent hedonist thinker and writer, Michel Onfray). Dogged by fear of getting stuck in a rut, all editors believe that change is necessary - if only to avoid a feeling of déjà-lu. One way to do that is to change the regular columns so they are not too, well, regular. David Goodhart feels that five years of the France Profonde column is enough for the moment. However that will not affect this blog, which he has kindly agreed to keep under the Prospect banner (although as someone unkindly remarked, that means he can continue to benefit from my time and energy (read: prodigious talent, scintillating wit, deep knowledge) while no longer having to pay for it).
In fact the two are quite different. A column has a set number of words (FP had 870), a blog has no restrictions of length. Cutting and refining from a first draft of say 1,400 words is, for me, one of the most satisfying aspects of commissioned writing. It is time-consuming but fascinating to see how writing works. Like film-making, it is not about wonderful sentences (or in film terms beautiful shots) but juxtapositions of words and ideas, so that if you take out one sentence something else further along that used to work, now doesn’t. It’s also satisfying to have a piece of writing you think is polished and tight and right to send. I shall miss it immensely (but simply don’t have the time to do that amount of refining to my blog).
The France Profonde column was I think one of the first in Prospect, following Mark Cousin’s excellent Widescreen column which richly deserves to continue. I think readers found them helpful, short moments of respite, coming up for air, in between the longer, more demanding articles. Certainly their number in the magazine has increased, mirroring (or causing?) the rapidly increasing readership, with now about ten columns - from Bagdad, on the law, on science as well as the arts.
Perhaps the main regret for the passing of the France Profonde column in a magazine that is making a serious mark with more and more readers, is that under the presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy, France is becoming increasingly interesting to an international readership. But with luck I shall continue to write longer pieces for Prospect, and, as one of the deputy editors told me, we must assume that all Prospect readers use the web, so perhaps that increasing interest can be stimulated or partially satisfied on this blog. Anyway, just because the column is taking a rest, please do not stop reading (and talking about) the France Profonde blog.
November 26th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
While I can appreciate the editor’s perspective on keeping the content fresh, I also think that France has become hugely interesting - in a way that it has not been for years. It is going to be fascinating to see whether Sarkozy can deliver on his manifesto. There will be lessons to learn for the UK - the huge growth in public sector employment here (with the future cost of index linked pensions) will be a major chanlenge for future governments. We are building up some of the same problems that France is finally attempting to address.
This blog is book-marked!
November 26th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
Sorry to hear Tim’s column on France is disappearing for a while at least. The cliché France Profonde may not have been so helpful. I would love to read stimulating comparisons between France and the UK in a future column under a heading like, for instance, “More than the sum of its parts” which can more easily be said of the two countries than of other nations
November 28th, 2007 at 4:20 pm
Tim -
You’re bookmarked by this Brit on the other side of the Atlantic desperate for astute commentary on France. I have to echo Michael in acknowledging that David Goodhart’s timing is off. The Sarkozy era is surely going to be a fascinating and thought-provoking one.
December 2nd, 2007 at 11:21 am
sorry to learn that. The Gallia in Profundis chronicles were superb. On the one hand the Editor of Prospect is right: France has nothing exceptional within the European world, same problems, same pressures. Why not look at Latvia instead ? On the other he is wrong: the difficulties of the French to keep in within the competition are specific, and Fran,ce is, in a sense , a mirror image of Britain, the sister whom ones loves and hates at the same time. I disagree, however, on the exceptionality of the Sarkozy sequence. It may well be- well, it is - a complete smoke screen. Behind the mediatic agitation and self promotion of the character, which is indeed made to give the impression that something important is happening, there is simply the traditional French taste for symbolic rather than real action, and , as a British commentator in the last issue of the TLS, sheer emptiness. The real problems for the French are , among other things, quite well diagnosed by the literary critic and professor at Columbia and the College de France , Antoine Compagnon.
http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3232,36-983940,0.html
December 4th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
I must say that I am glad the blog will continue, and am grateful for the insights you have continued to give on the country we see as our second home since we returned to the UK 20 years ago. Reading the French press is not at all the same. And France is the mirror image of the UK IN EVERY sense, contrary to Ange’s comment. I loved living there but hated working there. Now we go as often as possible to holiday.
Keep the blog going.
December 11th, 2007 at 11:42 pm
I very much regret Goodhart’s decision to drop France Profonde. We spend a lot of time in France and your commentaries have shed a valuable light on the realities that underlie appearances and conventional truisms. At a time when the British are becoming increasingly uninterested in the EU and its major components, mirroring perhaps the collapse of language teaching here, and the insularity and triviality of our press, it’s sad that one of the few journals carrying mature and intellectual comment in depth should decide to retreat from regular high quality comment on our neighbour. The blog is excellent, long may it continue.
December 12th, 2007 at 8:02 am
Thanks for all these kind words. As for the blog, 25 hours in the day would help! Where do they all go?
January 8th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
I’ve just got round to reading December’s Prospect [ quite hectic Christmas, a pile of other things to read and, yes, I am a slow reader!] but I now know that Tim’s December column will be the last. May it please return in the future David Goodhart ! I like the columns, they provide welcomed breaks amongst the lengthier stuff. and Manneken Pis and Tim King were always amonst my first reads. I have to declare a special interest because I live only a few miles down the road but I did welcome Tim’s acute views of the French scene at large and, as someone else has said above, what’s happening in France is not a million miles from our English interests. Thanks for the blog Tim. Please keep it up if you can find that 25th hour!