Petite Anglaise

I write as a Petite Anglaise convertee. I shall first explain how I discovered the blog of Petite Anglaise. I was browsing a French newspaper one morning when I came upon an article detailing her court case against her former employer. The article mentioned her blog and being very bored at the time, I immediately looked it up. I have to say the synopsis did not impress me much - English secretary, with partner for eight years, has a child, leaves partner for man she met on blog and (at the time I started reading) had recently been fired and also dumped by "Lover". Bloody great, I thought, what did she go and mess it up for? Admittedly this was more a reflection on myself, my own hopes and dreams about establishing my life in France, rather than a personal attack on Petite. You see, whilst I wasn't always a Francophile, since moving here in 2003 I have fallen in love with the country, and later in love with a Frenchman, and I was at the point in my relationship when I was very much wondering whether it would all work and whether love and a lasting relationship was possible between a French person and an English person or could love not survive the cultural differences. In a way I resented Petite for proving that such a relationship could not work (again, my fault not hers). I then started reading all her blog entries from the beginning to find out what on earth had happened. I have to say that through reading the blog I was converted into being a modest Petite Anglaise fan and I thoroughly enjoyed her accounts of Paris and her writing style. I will even admit that the Petite Anglaise site was one of the main reasons for this blog, although I wanted to blog just to express my opinion and had no intention of revealing so much personal details. Anyway having read the blog I wanted to read the book to find out what exactly was the story behind the blog.

I did enjoy the book on the whole. The first few chapters I felt that Catherine's usual writing style had clearly been jazzed up (somewhat necessarily) by the over use of a thesaurus but as the story got going, her natural narrative style appeared and I did enjoy the rest of the book.

Like other blog readers I was somewhat disappointed that the book did not go on to reveal the inside story as to what happened when she was fired and what has happened since but I appreciate that at the time of writing she wanted to end the book on a positive note and therefore I think it was well done.

There have been those who have judged the book for showing a rather superficial, selfish, immature character. At one point I have to say that I myself did cringe at some points thinking "How can a 34 year old be so naïve?" but I corrected my own judgment by reasoning that in fact age does not equal wisdom and only life experience teaches you what decisions to make later on. Yes it is easy to judge those who have cheated on a partner and/or left them, but the old proverb of "don’t judge a person until you have walked a mile in their shoes" applies in such a situation, and in light of my own experiences it is easier to judge how Catherine should have acted but it is only by living those experiences that you learn the hard lessons.

The truth is in writing the book Catherine has laid bare parts of her real life and therefore laid her life and not just her writing open to judgment from anyone and everyone. As I continue to read the blog it would appear that Catherine/Petite and her fans react very aggressively to the slightest criticism made by commentators or those who have written reviews on Amazon and I think Catherine should be a bit more thick skinned. Easier to say if you haven't written a book I suppose but even so, given the thousands of adoring fans which log onto to Petite's website everyday, it is my opinion that she should be proud of what she has achieved, be pleased with all this support, take the constructive criticism on the nose as it is intended and ignore the other vicious criticisms. But that said, once again, I am judging Catherine's reactions by what I myself have learnt from life - easy to say, not so easy to take on board!

So I would advise anyone who is wondering about life in France to read Catherine's blog and book, they are both enjoyable reads and I look forward to Catherine's next book when, hopefully, she will truly establish herself as a writer.