Arts & Entertainment
Paris je t’aime: David McCullough on his Americans in Paris
Pulitzer prize winning author was in Wayzata this week to talk the role of Paris in 19th century America.
Author and historian David McCullough was in town this week as part of a current tour to promote his latest book, “The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris.” The lecture and book-signing event was hosted by The Bookcase and took place at Wayzata Community Church.
Pillsburys and Steinhafels aside, Wikipedia-worthy celebrities don’t pass through Wayzata often, and Tuesday night’s pouring rain couldn’t keep a crowd of more than 850 from filling pews and folding chairs and standing in line for nearly an hour to receive McCullough’s signature in their front cover or, for some, get a picture with him.
The newly released book archives the accomplishments of a number of 19th century Americans seeking professional and personal inspiration in Paris.
For McCullough, though, someone who for the last 40 years has specialized in American history, writing an account of some Americans’ flight to Paris seems an antithetical undertaking. He waves aside all notions of ex-patriotism, however, and considers the book to be the luckiest strike in his professional career—and his personal favorite.
“I was finally able to indulge in what’d been a lifelong interest long before I began writing history,” he said. “Gene Kelly was just a local boy who’d graduated a few years earlier than my brother, and the next thing we see is him dancing in An American in Paris.”
McCullough grew up in Pittsburgh and studied English literature at Yale University. He worked as a writer in New York City before publishing his own books at the age of 35. “The Greater Journey,” which can be purchased at The Bookcase, is his ninth book.
Tuesday night he delivered an anecdotal and passionate lecture on how Paris is actually an integral part of American history.
McCullough elaborated on the significance of his subjects, some of which include Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mary Cassatt, John Singer Sargent and Charles Sumner, who wrote a “superbly written” diary with which McCullough is particularly enthralled. (The diary now resides in the Library of Congress, but McCullough says he wants to publish it).
McCullough said he was amazed by the work ethic of them all.
“These Americans arrived in Paris not to be rich, famous or powerful, but to excel in what they do, and to bring that excellence back,” he said. “They wanted to improve themselves, to catch up, to enhance our country.”
McCullough explained that there were good reasons to go to France: America, at the time, lacked the culture, sophistication and progressive intellect of Paris.
The Université Paris-Sorbonne, meanwhile, was thriving, and school there was free.
McCullough presented a slide show of pictures of people, artwork, and architecture to give those in attendance a visual sense of the intellectual and artistic prowess in Paris at the time.
What struck McCullough most in his research for “The Greater Journey”, though, was realizing that any struggle towards greatness by these individuals had nothing to do with fame. It was about duty and self-betterment.
“The most talented people imaginable were extremely hard workers,” he said. “Once they got anywhere, they had to keep working. Each was competing with himself to do better.”
One wonders why this Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient chose petite Wayzata to lecture and sign.
He must have found The Bookcase, the oldest independent bookstore of the Twin Cities and proponent of Wayzata community events, enticing. Literarily promising.
It’s certainly a compliment to the city.
“All history is local,” McCullough said in ending his discourse, perhaps reminding the Wayzata community that it too boasts its own history and progressive potential.
