Restraint? Probably not here
I’m afraid that Mireille Guiliano, best-selling author of “French Women Don’t Get Fat,” and now, “French Women for All Seasons,” is leading a doomed cause in the United States.
Both books are premised on the concept of restraint.
The idea is: French women instinctively practice restraint, because they understand, deeply, that less is more. A little black sheath dress: perfection with the proper scarf draped around your willowy neck. A tiny truffle of the finest dark chocolate: so much more satisfying than an entire inferior candy bar.
If we could just get that into our heads, we, too, could be stylish, sexy, mysterious and slim. But despite Guiliano’s efforts, it’s hard to imagine an idea less likely to take hold in this country than restraint.
That’s not to say “French Women for All Seasons” isn’t wonderful. It is. In a pleasing, conversational tone, Guiliano has dispensed another volume of sound, reasonable, doable advice about living more mindfully.
Mindfulness, she believes, leads to restraint, which is the key to weight loss. Eat a wide variety of delicious food, pay attention to what you eat, and you won’t want, or need, to eat as much as you normally do.
Guiliano provides enough examples and reminders throughout the book that the message is likely to sink in. But instead of coming across as a guru, it’s as if she’s drinking a café crème with you while supposedly revealing almost all about the French mystique.
Of course not every French woman is as Guiliano describes. Even she admits that the differences she’s illuminating are less about particular French vs. American ideas and more about two opposing worldviews. But I believe that the French in particular, who still at least pretend not to eat fast food and who haven’t yet begun to shop in bulk, have much to teach us about living well.
And that includes how to dress. I love that Guiliano gives directions for tying scarves. I’ve always suspected there is a special French gene for wearing them with flair, but Guiliano at least gives us the benefit of the doubt, along with the mechanics of the technique.
If food, not fashion, is where your interests lie, the book is worth the purchase price for the recipes alone, not to mention the author’s food and wine pairing insights. For instance, if you’d like to try wine with your pizza, Guiliano suggests her favorite, champagne, but also recommends Chianti, zinfandel, or Barbera.
Guiliano arranges the book by spring, summer, fall, and winter, filling the chapters with personal reminiscences about cutting and arranging flowers, making lemonade and lying around in the shade, and eating dinner by the fire. She shares why she thinks travel is good for us and why she needs to do yoga in winter.
She makes life seem so effortless, civilized and lovely, it is too easy to envy her. If this gets in the way of readers enjoying her book, it might help to remember: Guiliano may be human, but she is French, not American. French people certainly have their problems like the rest of us, but they don’t air their dirty laundry. (There’s that restraint thing again.)
She’s not going to confess to much worse than having a weakness for bread and chocolate, much less share what she and her husband quarrel about, or the worries that keep her awake at night.
In any case, sales of her book won’t be one of those worries. Funny how restraint never created a best seller.