Many writers have explored Paris through art, literature and food, but “Nobody Sits Like the French” takes a different approach, thanks to Minnesota writer Charles Pappas’ knowledge of the exposition industry.
Using seven universal expositions that took place in Paris from 1855-1937, Pappas guides readers through their global impact, and the fashion, art, technology and furniture-related innovations that we know today.
With its 24 easy-to-digest chapters, the book even has the colors of the French flag painted on its edges. A map of Paris, organized by its 20 arrondissements, or districts, pinpoints locations mentioned in each chapter, so tourists can visit them.
The number of inventions, ideas and people introduced through expos in Paris feels too numerous to name. German cabinet maker Michael Thonet introduced the bistro chair, known as “no. 14 chair” or the Thonet, at the 1867 Exposition Universelle in Paris. Actor Sarah Bernhardt, who sailed in a hot air balloon at the 1878 fair, may be as well known as she is because of her participation in these fairs. Same for Louis Vuitton, who won a bronze medal at the 1867 World’s Fair and became the luggage supplier for King Alfonso XII of Spain and the future tsar of Russia, Nicholas II.
This book offers a unique and engaging approach to Paris. But for all the effort the writer spends teleporting readers to the past ― even exploring how streetlights went from gas to electric, or how streets went from maze-like roads to huge boulevards ― he also inserts distracting comparisons to the present-day.
In discussing Bernhardt, he makes it clear she was ahead of her time: “She didn’t so much push gender boundaries as rudely shove them aside, playing saints (Joan of Arc, Phaedra), sluts (Cleopatra), and slackers (Hamlet).”
But at the end of the chapter, he inserts a superfluous comparison: “Some people when confronted by modernity rush to the woods to start building their Unabomber cabin. Others like Sarah Bernhardt used world expositions … to keep herself from becoming as antique as an ivory cameo.”
Or in talking about Louis Vuitton’s trunks, he calls storage compartments inside trunks “as significant an improvement over the traditional trunks as the iPhone was over the rotary telephone.” And in the chapter about the Eiffel Tower, he compares the controversy over its creation to “the sort of verbal abuse typically only seen on a comedy roast or X.”
