Seduction And French Politics

Former IMF Managing Director Dominque Strauss-Kahn (International Monetary Fund/ Flickr/Creative Commons)

In her book, Elaine Sciolino discusses now former International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Dominque Strauss-Kahn (DSK) — who was controversial even before his now-dropped, highly publicized hotel maid rape case in New York this year. Many U.S. media outlets reported that DSK's political prospects in France are dim now that his reputation has been further tarnished by the rape scandal. Sciolino weighed in.

"DSK is back in France, but he has not been welcomed back. No matter what the truth about the encounter with the hotel maid in New York, too many tawdry details about his private life have been put into the public domain. Michel Rocard, the Socialist former prime minister, said publicly what others had said privately for years: That DSK has a 'mental illness' because he cannot contol his 'impulses,'" Sciolino said.

President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy with U.S. President Barack Obama in 2009 (scrapetv.com)

Sciolino also offered her take on why French President Nicolas Sarkozy is not exactly beloved by the French. "At first, one of the main reasons Sarkozy was perceived so negatively was that he wasn't seductive enough. He has a fierce temper and doesn't seem comfortable mingling with ordinary folk," Sciolino said.

Sciolino described Sarkozy's frank communication style and his tendency to use "naked flattery and insults rather than subtle wooing," as a turn-off for the French. She added that in France Sarkozy is seen as "contemptuous rather than enamored of the complicated codes of politesse. Unlike François Mitterrand, who used language to caress and mesmerize, Sarkozy contracts his words and salts his sentences with rough slang," Sciolino said.

Futhermore, Sciolino observed, in a country where food and wine are essential to the national identity, she said Sarkozy "prefers snack gobbling to meal savoring. French people of all classes disapproved of what they called Sarkozy's 'bling-bling' style early in his presidency: His Ray-Bans, his Rolex, his gold necklace, his penchant for hanging out with French billionaires."

The Fallout Of Infidelity In France

Is it a cross-cultural misperception that French marriages tend to survive infidelities, sometimes for many years, while many American marriages and political careers crumble after an infidelity has been discovered?

"Private lives and politics are different," Sciolino said.

"Private life first. The French, like Americans, have not figured out a way to inoculate themselves against the pain of a partner's unfaithfulness. Jealousy and guilt are alive and well. Adultery is a major reason for divorce in France, as in the United States. When infidelity turns serious and the unfaithful spouse leaves to live with a lover, a scorned wife, especially if she is no longer young, can have a much harder time recovering than a scorned husband, even in France," Sciolino said.

Here's where the French and Americans in particular part ways. Sciolino posits that for Americans, infidelity is a black-and-white betrayal and the violation of a marriage contract that often means the end of a marriage. While an American might call a divorce lawyer when a spouse has cheated, the French tend to stick together. Why stay in an unfaithful marriage? Staying in an imperfect marriage keeps the order of things. "Parents stay together; the children are spared emotional trauma; property stays in the family; financial security is maintained; family history is kept; vacations are taken," Sciolino said.

In France, Sciolino has observed that infidelity is not as serious or as destructive as it would be for those "with an Anglo-Saxon worldview, especially if it is played out in secret and no one gets hurt." Sciolino cited a poll in 2008 that indicated that 46 percent of the French believe an infidelity should not be "confessed."

As for politics, Sciolino agreed that American and French cultures do tend to judge the act of infidelity differently when it comes to public figures.

"Politicians in any democratic country must woo the public, but in France it is assumed that their powers should not only be personal and magnetic but also extend to the bedroom. Appealing political positions are not enough," Sciolino said. "Politicians are not hounded out of office for sexual indiscretions, and the public is often happy to let their secrets remain officially under wraps. But seduction flows as an undercurrent in public and private life, so it is natural that talking about politicians' personal lives is part of the national discourse."

Is there a double standard when it comes to women? The author acknowledged that there is one exception to the sexual indiscretion allowance: Gender. A female politician is expected to be faithful to one partner.

Three Wardrobe Essentials

Elegance and style are pre-requisites for seduction, so as we wrapped up our correspondence, I could not resist asking the long-time Paris resident to share what's on her must-have wardrobe list. Here's what Elaine Sciolino recommended for women:

1. A great black dress that fits perfectly.

2. Elegant shoes that are also very comfortable, enough for a lot of walking.

3. A well-cut jacket made from a fine fabric.

Sciolino was quick to be clear that clothes alone do not make someone seductive. "Much more important than a wardrobe is the willingness to find common ground with the other – the butcher, the newspaper vendor, the bureaucrat, the sales person – and to carry on a conversation. Seduction is nothing more than a conversation without end."

Cover of Elaine Sciolino's book. (Courtesy Times Books)

BOSTON — For the French, seduction isn't simply a question of sex. It's a mindset that transcends sexual conquest, relating to how one approaches one's life as a whole. Elaine Sciolino, Paris correspondent and former Paris bureau chief for The New York Times, offers a few tips for Americans in her new book, La Seduction: How the French Play the Game of Life. She shared some thoughts on the book over email. 

Seduction ≠ Sex

Sciolino described seduction in France as omnipresent in everything: From sharing a meal, to the scent of a perfume; from a walk through the Versailles gardens, to a night-tour of Paris — or the elegant hand-kiss of a charming man. "It is an all-encompassing word that can stand for persuasion, attraction, influence; soft power," Sciolino explained.

Sciolino makes it clear that seduction is a force that seems to infiltrate all areas of French life, whether it is present in flirtatious conversation or political debate. "I was fascinated by newspaper headlines that more than often made use of this word, séduction, to qualify situations, people, or even objects. Saying that a politician is 'a seducer' does not necessarily mean that he is physically or sexually attractive, it can mean that he has great charisma, that he is a talented speaker, a brilliant mind," Sciolino said.

Nikos Aliagas demonstrates the je ne sais quoi of "the look." (via greekadman/Creative Commons )

The Look

In her book, Sciolino describes seduction in France, and in Paris particularly, as being inextricably wrapped up in a strong sensibility of quiet sophistication; much of which is transmitted and translated between people non-verbally throughout the culture. Sciolino explained the foundation of seduction as, le regard, "the look." It is without question, the first step in the art of French seduction.

"'Le regard' is the electric charge between two people. Their eyes lock and there is an immediate understanding. So much of seduction and seducing the other has to do with le regard, it holds promise and mystery, it's much more subtle than words, it has to do with the body without being overtly physical and sexual, but it can be enough to destabilize another, or to form a strong connection," Sciolino said.

I asked Sciolino to boil the game of seduction down to three rules (for busy American readers), or in this case, three acts of the "play." She accepted the challenge.

Author Elaine Sciolino on Charlie Rose in July 2011. (via Charlie Rose)

Act One: Le Regard

"Master the look. You never walk alone on the streets of Paris. (This is not New York!) Someone is always looking at you and you can look back. The look is powerful. There is something chaste and pure about 'the look,' as there is no sullying of the body. But there is also something inherently unfaithful about it, because with the look, you never stop falling in love. Stendhal, the nineteenth- century novelist, said, 'You can say everything in one look, and yet you can always deny the look, for it cannot be quoted word for word," Sciolino said.

This seemed to beg a question. Should "the look" be accompanied by a smile?

"Smiling is complicated in France," Sciolino said. "Avoid it in the beginning. Americans are accustomed to smiling at strangers; the French, particularly the Parisian, are not." That might help explain why some Americans find Parisians rude.

"The reluctance to smile does not indicate the absence of kindness in the French character, but it does signal reserve. A French smile is fraught with too much meaning to be bestowed as a mere pleasantry," Sciolino said.

Act Two: Intellectual Foreplay

"Turn conversation into a verbal caress and learn the pleasure of process. For the French, life is rarely about simply reaching the goal. It is also about the leisurely art of pursuing it and persuading others to join in. How much fun would sex be without the flirtation, or dinner without the bouquet of the wine? What joy is there in words without wordplay, or in ideas without fencing and parrying?" Sciolino said.

Act Three: The Kill

"Where an American might see 'the kill' as the sex act, the French might see it in the moment of pre-consummation. Some of the most unlikely characters throughout French history have valued the sizzle more than the steak. Georges Clemenceau is best known in the United States as a French prime minister. But he was also a novelist. There's a line in one of his novels that I love: 'The most beautiful moment in love is when I climb the staircase,'" Sciolino said.

This idea of anticipation as the apex of seduction is clearly illustrated on the jacket of Sciolino's book. In this case, a well-heeled woman climbs the staircase. One of the things a reader takes away from Sciolino's book is that for many French women in particular seduction = war. But is war a good metaphor for seduction?

"Arielle Dombasle, a singer and actress who is a character in my book, told me that seduction is war," Sciolino said. "So did Moliere's fictional character, Don Juan. Seduction can be war, but it's much more than that. Seduction has so many different facets. It's not simply war, it's not simply persuasion, it's a combination of all these different tactics, skills, emotions, processes. That's what makes it so complicated," Sciolino said.

Part Two: The Fallout Of Infidelity In France & Seduction In Politics

Salman Rushdie in WGBH's studios. (Vanessa Weigel/WGBH)

BOSTON — The novelist who became a household name for having a Fatwah on his head is, these days, thinking about video games.

In 1981, Salman Rushdie published the novel Midnight's Children, which earned him the prestigious Booker Prize and a host of other awards. Seven years later, the Iranian government called for his death because of what they said were irreverent depictions of Islam in his novel, The Satanic Verses.

But Rushdie kept writing. His work transcends the globe and the ages, exploring past and present with his famous magical realist style.

Rushdie's newest book, Luka and the Fire of Life, is a children's book of sorts. A follow-up to Rushdie's first book for younger readers, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, Luka is a fantastical journey through a video-game world.

Rushdie told WGBH's Emily Rooney that any technological leanings in Luka's subject matter don't represent a huge leap from the epic, layered historical fiction for which he's known. "The thing that interested me (about video games) were the paralells with very old-fashioned quest stories that you find in this leveling up that's what goes on in these games," Rushie said. "Because what happens in these old narratives is the same thing."

"When Beowolf kills the monster, Grendel, he immediately has to face a bigger monster, which is his mother. And that idea that the obstacles go on increasing in magnitude and difficulty and you have to overcome them as you achieve your goal, it's both a very ancient way of telling a story and a very modern (one)."

It's a very personal book, Rushdie said, written for his son Milan. Rushdie was about 50 when Milan was born -- which, he said, causes his mortality to loom large for his kids. "There's this fear amongst children that they might lose their parents," Rushdie said.

And that, he said, is the engine of the story. "He looks like his father and is in fact filling up with his father's fading life," Rushdie says of the title character.

Rushdie was relieved to learn his son actually liked what is quite a scary story. "I thought, maybe this kid has a little dark side in him."

Interview Highlights

On Children's Books vs. Grownup Books

I think (Luka and the Fire of Life) is an everybody's book... One of the things I really liked about Haroun and the Sea of Stories, what happened to that book, is that adults enjoyed it as much as children. Grown-ups came at it and got one set of things from it, kids got another set of things. There are some interesting books nowadays that sit on this borderline between young adults and adults.

There's a point at which you stop asking yourself the question who's it for and you just write. I think children are wiser and smarter than we think, and maybe grown-ups are more playful and childlike than we think so everyone crosses over and meets in the middle.

On The Harry Potter Series

I had to read them to keep up (with my son)... In fact, I was fortunate enough to be able to introduce him to J.K. Rowling and they had a few minutes of conversation, during which he spoke with the erudition of a Ph. D. student. He was saying to her, 'You know how in Vol. III, Snape says such-and-such, how do you reconcile that with the fact that in Vol. V,  the following happens.' And her jaw was hanging open and she said, 'Well, you've really read these carefully, haven't you?' Which, of course, everybody did, all these kids did. I think we all owe her a debt of gratitude (because) she's managed to persuade children to read 900-page novels. This is a good thing!

On His Favorite Writer

One of my all-time favorite writers is P. G. Wodehouse, and I can, if pushed, quote passages from various books. Christopher Hitchens and I vie for who knows more P.G. Wodehouse than the other. As usual, he wins, of course.

On His Forthcoming Autobiography

The point of origin of the book was to tell that story (of the Fatwah placed on my life by the Iranian government in 1989). I think if, as a writer, you have the misfortune of acquiring an interesting life, there's a point at which you have to tell the story.
 

Book Excerpt: Luka and the Fire of Life

Chapter One: The Terrible Thing That Happened on the Beautiful Starry Night

There was once, in the city of Kahani, in the land of Alifbay, a boy named Luka who had two pets, a bear named Dog and a dog named Bear, which meant that whenever he called out, "Dog!" the bear waddled up amiably on his hind legs, and when he shouted, "Bear!" the dog bounded toward him, wagging his tail. Dog, the brown bear, could be a little gruff and bearish at times, but he was an expert dancer, able to get up onto his hind legs and perform with subtlety and grace the waltz, the polka, the rhumba, the wah-watusi, and the twist, as well as dances from nearer home, the pounding bhangra, the twirling ghoomar (for which he wore a wide mirror-worked skirt), the warrior dances known as the spaw and the thang-ta, and the peacock dance of the south. Bear, the dog, was a chocolate Labrador, and a gentle, friendly dog, though sometimes a bit excitable and nervous; he absolutely could not dance, having, as the saying goes, four left feet, but to make up for his clumsiness he possessed the gift of perfect pitch, so he could sing up a storm, howling out the melodies of the most popular songs of the day, and never going out of tune. Bear, the dog, and Dog, the bear, quickly became much more than Luka's pets. They turned into his closest allies and most loyal protectors, so fierce in his defense that nobody would ever have dreamed of bully_ing him when they were nearby, not even his appalling classmate Ratshit, whose behavior was usually out of control.

This is how Luka came to have such unusual companions. One fine day when he was twelve years old, the circus came to town-and not just any circus, but the GROF, or Great Rings of Fire, itself; the most celebrated circus in all of Alifbay, "featuring the Famous Incredible Fire Illusion." So Luka was at first bitterly disappointed when his father, the storyteller Rashid Khalifa, told him they would not be going to the show. "Unkind to animals," Rashid explained. "Once it may have had its glory days but these days the GROF has fallen far from Grace." The Lioness had tooth decay, Rashid told Luka, and the Tigress was blind and the Elephants were hungry and the rest of the circus menagerie was just plain miserable. The Ringmaster of the Great Rings of Fire was the terrifying and enormous Captain Aag, a.k.a. Grandmaster Flame. The animals were so scared of the crack of his whip that the Lioness with toothache and the blind Tigress continued to jump through hoops and play dead and the skinny Elephants still made Pachyderm Pyramids for fear of angering him, for Aag was a man who was quick to anger and slow to laugh. And even when he put his cigar-smoking head into the Lioness's yawning mouth, she was too scared to bite it off just in case it decided to kill her from inside her belly.

Rashid was walking Luka home from school, wearing, as usual, one of his brightly colored bush shirts (this one was vermilion) and his beloved, battered Panama hat, and listening to the story of Luka's day. Luka had forgotten the name of the tip of South America and had labeled it "Hawaii" in a geography test. However, he had remembered the name of his country's first president and spelled it correctly in a history test. He had been smacked on the side of the head by Ratshit's hockey stick during games. On the other hand, he had scored two goals in the match and defeated his enemy's team. He had also finally got the hang of snapping his fingers properly, so that they made a satisfying cracking noise. So there were pluses and minuses. Not a bad day overall; but it was about to become a very important day indeed, because this was the day they saw the circus parade going by on its way to raise its Big Top near the banks of the mighty Silsila. The Silsila was the wide, lazy, ugly river with mud-colored water that flowed through the city not far from their home. The sight of the droopy cockatoos in their cages and the sad dromedaries humphing along the street touched Luka's generous young heart. But saddest of all, he thought, was the cage in which a mournful dog and a doleful bear stared wretchedly all about. Bringing up the rear of the cavalcade was Captain Aag with his pirate's hard black eyes and his barbarian's untamed beard. All of a sudden Luka became angry (and he was a boy who was slow to anger and quick to laugh). When Grandmaster Flame was right in front of him Luka shouted out at the top of his voice, "May your animals stop obeying your commands and your rings of fire eat up your stupid tent."

Now it so happened that the moment when Luka shouted out in anger was one of those rare instants when by some inexplicable accident all the noises of the universe fall silent at the same time, the cars stop honking, the scooters stop phut-phuttering, the birds stop squawking in the trees, and everyone stops talking at once, and in that magical hush Luka's voice rang out as clearly as a gunshot, and his words expanded until they filled the sky, and perhaps even found their way to the invisible home of the Fates, who, according to some people, rule the world. Captain Aag winced as if somebody had slapped him on the face, and then he stared straight into Luka's eyes, giving him a look of such blazing hatred that the young boy was almost knocked off his feet. Then the world started making its usual racket again, and the circus parade moved on, and Luka and Rashid went home for dinner. But Luka's words were still out there in the air, doing their secret business.

That night it was reported on the TV news that, in an astonishing development, the animals of the GROF circus had unanimously refused to perform. In a crowded tent, and to the amazement of costumed clowns and plainclothes customers alike, they rebelled against their master in an unprecedented act of defiance. Grandmaster Flame stood in the center ring of the three Great Rings of Fire, bellowing orders and cracking his whip, but when he saw all the animals beginning to walk calmly and slowly to_ward him, in step, as if they were an army, closing in on him from all directions until they formed an animal circle of rage, his nerve cracked and he fell to his knees, weeping and whimpering and begging for his life. The audience began to boo and throw fruit and cushions, and then har_der objects, stones, for example, and walnuts, and telephone directories. Aag turned and fled. The animals parted ranks and let him through, and he ran away crying like a baby.

That was the first amazing thing. The second took place later that night. A noise started up around midnight, a noise like the rustling and crackling of a billion autumn leaves, or maybe even a billion billion, a noise that spread all the way from the Big Top by the banks of the Silsila to Luka's bedroom, and woke him up. When he looked out his bedroom window he saw that the great tent was on fire, burning brightly in the field by the river's edge. The Great Rings of Fire were ablaze; and it was not an illusion.

Luka's curse had worked.

The third amazing thing happened the next morning. A dog with a tag on its collar reading "Bear" and a bear with a tag on its collar reading "Dog" showed up at Luka's door-afterward Luka would wonder exactly how they had found their way there-and Dog, the bear, began to twirl and jig enthusiastically while Bear, the dog, yowled out a foot-tapping melody. Luka and his father, Rashid Khalifa, and his mother, Soraya, and his older brother, Haroun, gathered at the door of their house to watch, while from her verandah their neighbor Miss Oneeta shouted, "Have a care! When animals begin to sing and dance, then plainly some witchy business is afoot!" But Soraya Khalifa laughed. "The animals are celebrating their freedom," she said. Then Rashid adopted a grave expression, and told his wife about Luka's curse. "It seems to me," he opined, "that if any witchy business has been done it is our young Luka who has done it, and these good creatures have come to thank him."

The other circus animals had escaped into the Wild and were never seen again, but the dog and the bear had plainly come to stay. They had even brought their own snacks. The bear was carrying a bucket of fish, and the dog wore a little coat with a pocket full of bones. "Why not, after all?" cried Rashid Khalifa gaily. "My storytelling performances could do with a little help. Nothing like a dog-and-bear song-and-dance act to get an audience's attention." So it was settled, and later that day it was Luka's brother, Haroun, who had the last word. "I knew it would happen soon," he said. "You've reached the age at which people in this family cross the border into the magical world. It's your turn for an adventure-yes, it's finally here!-and it certainly looks like you've started something now. But be careful. Cursing is a dangerous power. I was never able to do anything so, well, dark."

"An adventure of my very own," Luka thought in wonderment, and his big brother smiled, because he knew perfectly well about Luka's Secret Jealousy, which was actually Not So Secret At All. When Haroun had been Luka's age he had traveled to the Earth's second moon, befriended fishes who spoke in rhyme and a gardener made of lotus roots, and helped to overthrow the evil Cultmaster Khattam-Shud, who was trying to destroy the Sea of Stories itself. By contrast, Luka's biggest adventures to date had taken place during the Great Playground Wars at school, in which he had led his gang, the Intergalactic Penguins Team, to a famous victory over the Imperial Highness Army led by his hated rival Adi Ratshit, a.k.a. Red Bottom, winning the day with a daring aerial attack involving paper planes loaded with itching powder. It had been extremely satisfying to watch Ratshit jump into the playground pond to calm down the itch that had spread all over his body; but Luka knew that, compared to Haroun's achievements, his really didn't amount to very much at all. Haroun, for his part, knew about Luka's desire for a real adventure, preferably one involving improbable creatures, travel to other planets (or at least satellites), and P2C2Es, or Processes Too Complicated to Explain. But until now he had always tried to damp down Luka's lusts. "Be careful what you wish for," he told Luka, who replied, "To be honest with you, that is easily the most annoying thing you have ever said."

In general, however, the two brothers, Haroun, and Luka, rarely quarreled and, in fact, got on unusually well. An eighteen-year age gap had turned out to be a good place to dump most of the problems that can sometimes crop up between brothers, all those little irritations that make the older brother accidentally knock the kid's head against a stone wall or put a pillow over his sleeping face by mistake; or persuade the younger brother that it's a good idea to fill the big fellow's shoes with sweet, sticky mango pickle, or to call the big guy's new girlfriend by a different girlfriend's name and then pretend it was just a really unfortunate slip of the tongue. So none of that happened. Instead Haroun taught his younger brother many useful things, kickboxing, for example, and the rules of cricket, and what music was cool and what was not; and Luka uncomplicatedly adored his older brother, and thought he looked like a big bear-a bit like Dog, the bear, in fact-or, perhaps, like a comfortable stubbly mountain with a wide grin near the top.

Luka had first amazed people just by getting born, because his brother, Haroun, was already eighteen years old when his mother, Soraya, at the age of forty-one gave birth to a second fine young boy. Her husband, Rashid, was lost for words, and so, as usual, found far too many of them. In Soraya's hospital ward he picked up his newborn son, cradled him gently in his arms, and peppered him with unreasonable questions. "Who'd have thought it? Where did you come from, buster? How did you get here? What do you have to say for yourself? What's your name? What will you grow up to be? What is it you want?" He had a question for Soraya, too. "At our age," he marveled, shaking his balding head. "What's the meaning of a wonder like this?" Rashid was fifty years old when Luka arrived, but at that moment he sounded like any young, greenhorn father flummoxed by the arrival of responsibility, and even a little scared.

Soraya took the baby back and calmed its father down. "His name is Luka," she said, "and the meaning of the wonder is that we appear to have brought into the world a fellow who can turn back Time itself, make it flow the wrong way, and make us young again."

Soraya knew what she was talking about. As Luka grew older, his parents seemed to get younger. When baby Luka sat up straight for the first time, for example, his parents became incapable of sitting still. When he began to crawl, they hopped up and down like excited rabbits. When he walked, they jumped for joy. And when he spoke for the first time-well!-you'd have thought the whole of the legendary Torrent of Words had started gushing out of Rashid's mouth, and he was never going to stop spouting on about his son's great achievement.

The Torrent of Words, by the way, thunders down from the Sea of Stories into the Lake of Wisdom, whose waters are illumined by the Dawn of Days, and out of which flows the River of Time. The Lake of Wisdom, as is well known, stands in the shadow of the Mountain of Knowledge, at whose summit burns the Fire of Life. This important information regarding the layout-and, in fact, the very existence-of the Magical World was kept hidden for thousands of years, guarded by mysterious, cloaked spoilsports who called themselves the Aalim, or Learned Ones. However, the secret was out now. It had been made available to the general public by Rashid Khalifa in many celebrated tales. So everyone in Kahani was fully aware that there was a World of Magic existing in parallel with our own non-Magic one, and from that Reality came White Magic, Black Magic, dreams, nightmares, stories, lies, dragons, fairies, blue-bearded genies, mechanical mind-reading birds, buried treasure, music, fiction, hope, fear, the gift of eternal life, the angel of death, the angel of love, interruptions, jokes, good ideas, rotten ideas, happy endings, in fact almost everything of any interest at all.

Excerpted from Luka and the Fire of Life by Salman Rushdie Copyright (c) 2010 by Salman Rushdie. Excerpted by permission of Random House Group, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.