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Paris My Heart (2017) • On Saint Ronan Street (1976)
Two Novels, Same Story, 40 Years and Two Cities Far Apart.
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7. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, and Paris Affaire
No, I had nothing to do with the 1964 movie (of that name). I don't remember ever seeing it except for excerpts.
It is a very poetic title, which has haunted me (background noise, along with a thousand other trivia and Ohrwürme*) for much of my life—remote, yearning, poetic, exotic, mysterious, and above all, about a love affair. I think I am still haunted by the powerfully wistful, achingly romantic, poetically lyric and bittersweet movie trailers I saw as a teenager when the movie first came out. And, I must say, I suffered from a bit of etymological dysphoria, thinking that 'Cherbourg' meant something like 'Chèrebourg' (Dear City, Love City, something like that) when in fact it refers to a grim, gray fortess by the sea. The name is said to combine an ancient Celtic term for 'army' with an ancient Latin term for 'fort' (very poetic, *not*). The film is equally disconcerting in every way, I find. I spent a great deal of time every day prowling in libraries and bookstores, studying what makes stories work in all their various media including books, magazines, film, theater, and the Internet. Around 2015 or so, it happened to be time to take a closer look at the classic movie.
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*Ohrwürme Old German expression for a tune or a sound you just cannot get out of your brain. It literally means 'ear-worm' as if it lived in your ear, wiggling away and annoying you, and you just cannot shake it but can't remember where you heard it. Some people (including myself) in recent years for example have had this experience with a rather compelling (world hit) pop song called Stereo Love composed by the Romanian Edward Maya, sung by Moldavian-Romanian musician Vika Jigulina, and actually based on an Azarbaijan folk tune. There are several versions at YouTube these days, including Stereo Love. Warning: once the little accordion riff starts, you may be hooked forever. It was a 2009 hit, went global, and made the top whatsis in many nations including the US & around Europe. The story it tells is universal (love, broken hearts, desperate hope, beautiful dreams, what else is new?). That's a good way of describing how the poet in me perceived the haunting title of the film The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. So then you may understand how I connected On Saint Ronan Street via that oddly different French telegraph wire to my later Paris Affaire…and then, if you read both, you'll find that I wasn't satisfied with that Cherbourg flavor, and added a totally unique new ending in 2016 which however sprang very powerfully and fulfillingly from the raw soil of the original 1977ish Jon+Merile. Okay, I'll give a hint. The other girl was there all along. Enough said. Go for it.
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