French Leave: A Love Affair with France

• Paperback - 01 February, 2003 - Robert Hale Limited
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• By: Michael De Larrabeiti
• ISBN: 0709071728

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Reviews by readers

A Fifty Year Love Affair

French Leave is about Michael de Larrabeiti's love affair with France. He goes to France the first time at fifteen, by himself, from his home in England. He knows some school French, but it only gets him in trouble. Still, he returns time after time to France, and he tells stories of characters and adventures he has encountered over these fifty-odd years.

As easy-to-take as these short recollections are, there is something missing. There doesn't seem to be any thread to connect the memories, all those years. It seems that a love affair with France leaves no room for a true love affair with anyone else. Sure, de Larrabeiti has plenty of trysts with attractive French girls, but there is no relationship that makes it into the next chapter. And yet, the biographical notes on the book flap indicate that he is married and has three grown daughters. I wish he had included something about them.

But overall, French Leave is very enjoyable, and the story de Larrabeiti tells of admiring a medieval French tapestry in Paris in the morning and Concorde-ing to New York the same day to see its twin tapestry in a small museum is worth the price of the book alone. The normally bicycle-riding de Larrabeiti is so thrilled with his rare splurge for art that he makes a point of striking up a conversation with an art teacher also viewing the tapestry so that he can brag about it. Perfectly understandable.

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