A trip down memory lane takes me to my first time in Paris. I had read the literature, watched the movies, felt that I knew the city inside and out. I was in love with Paris before setting foot in it. It was going to be the trip where everything, EVERTYHING, was going to be not only beautiful and perfect but above all romantic; Single at the time (Mr. Fabulous and I had not met yet), I hoped a Hugo, with a silent H, was waiting to realise that it was me he’d been waiting for all his life. Needless to say of course, reality dealt my imagination the blow everyone could see coming, except myself. Safe to say that I soon snapped out of it and have very fond memories each time I go back for a visit. Lucky for Mr. Fabulous, I never met an Hugo, with a silent H.
Other tourists, particularly the Japanese, are not as lucky. When
these tourists’ expectations of Paris fail to add up to the one in their
imaginations some of them have suffered such sadness, such acute feelings of
persecution and shock that they have had to be transported back home under
medication. Psychologists have coined this little known, but quite real
affliction, ‘The Paris Syndrome’. Tahir Shah, one of my favorite authors, has
just written a novel based on this most fascinating and bizarre malady of the
mind.
‘Paris Syndrome’, the novel, sees its Japanese heroine, ten-year-old
Miki Suzuki from Sendai listening to her grandfather’s describe a place where
‘all the women were beautiful and dressed in the finest gowns,’ and ‘all the
men were handsome, like movie stars’. The city where ‘the sun never stopped
shining and the warm air was filled with butterflies and birdsong.’ The city,
of course, was Paris.
Miki’s grandfather had been to Paris on a short visit in the decade
after the War and on the last day of his trip, had glimpsed a coin pouch in
Louis Vuitton’s shop window. It was ‘the most exquisite thing’ he had ever
seen. But the shop was closed and he had had to leave home the next day without
buying it. And ‘almost every day which has passed since then’ he has thought of
his lost chance.
Twenty years pass and Miki is now selling discounted beauty products
door-to-door for the dubious Angel Flower Beauty Company. She has never
forgotten her grandfather’s story and his dream has become hers and intensified
in such a way that the French capital becomes to her not only a symbol of all
that was good and right but also the place where she knew she was destined to
find true love and happiness.
Things are not easy for Miki. At home her apartment is freezing and
she can barely afford a heater. Things are not much nicer at work. She is
assigned an officious angry boss named Kiato Yamato aka Pun Pun who seems to
dislike her although she ‘was kind in a deep down way, a quality that endeared
her to almost everyone she met’.
However, destiny steps in (probably egged on by Miki’s prayers to
her ancestors) and her life changes forever. Her company, run by a man feared
more than Pun Pun, announces a competition whereby the sales person who manages
to sell the most products will be sent on an all-expenses paid trip to the city
of Paris. As expected, Miki wins the competition accidentally becoming a
celebrity in the process. Accompanied by two of the company’s female customers,
her boss Pun Pun, his mistress Noemi and the Chairman of the company Miki is on
her way with two promises; to buy the pouch at LV for her grandfather and the
other one she’d promised to the sales clerk at the Kinokuniya bookshop: to
visit the Nissim de Camondo Museum.
Once Miki sets foot in the French capital, ‘Paris Syndrome’, the
affliction, rears its head as an ugly snake ready to deal Miki the mother of
all bites.
‘The Paris Syndrome’ is on the face of it a very straight forward,
entertaining tale of the adventures of a young, single woman out to make right
on a vow to her grandfather. However, it is also a tale with a dark sinister
undertone. The media plays a big part in the unfolding of events in this story
and the reader is left with an uncomfortable nauseating sensation that there
are powers that be who control what stories the masses should care about, and
that truth is not high up on the list of priorities when in the pursuit of a
really good story. Looking at the phenomena of sensationalism in today’s media,
it is a message that transcends the pages of the book and resonates quite
loudly with the reader. The message is clear: media highlights heroes but it
can also destroy lives and shatter dreams in the blink of an eye.
Miki’s encounter with the complete opposite of everything she
believed about Paris drives her mad and many readers will connect with her pain
and suffering. When Miki is in the presence of Dr. Mesmer (whose patients were
almost all suffering from some variety or other of Paris Syndrome), one gets
the impression that the problem might have surpassed that of ‘The Paris
Syndrome’ and moved on to deeper, darker psychological terrain. It is a
fascinating process to see the ebb and flow of these emotions and the
understanding that the author has of the limits to which the mind can be stretched
and tested.
‘The Paris Syndrome’ is a very interesting book indeed. Tahir Shah
is at his best doing what he does best: spinning a tale of fantastical
proportions. There is misery and gaiety, ugliness and charm, kindness and
ignorance, fear and courage and a very big blast. I loved it!
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