James Fenton, In Paris With You: An analysis.

Don’t talk to me of love. I’ve had an earful
And I get tearful when I’ve downed a drink or two.
I’m one of your talking wounded.
I’m a hostage. I’m maroonded.
But I’m in Paris with you.

Yes I’m angry at the way I’ve been bamboozled
And resentful at the mess I’ve been through.
I admit I’m on the rebound
And I don’t care where are we bound.
I’m in Paris with you.

Do you mind if we do not go to the Louvre
If we say sod off to sodding Notre Dame,
If we skip the Champs Elysées
And remain here in this sleazy

Old hotel room
Doing this and that
To what and whom
Learning who you are,
Learning what I am.

Don’t talk to me of love. Let’s talk of Paris,
The little bit of Paris in our view.
There’s that crack across the ceiling
And the hotel walls are peeling
And I’m in Paris with you.

Don’t talk to me of love. Let’s talk of Paris.
I’m in Paris with the slightest thing you do.
I’m in Paris with your eyes, your mouth,
I’m in Paris with… all points south.
Am I embarrassing you?
I’m in Paris with you.

My solution.

THREE QUESTIONS TO CREATE AN INTERESTING ESSAY.

1) Who is speaking in the poem and where are they speaking from?

This is one of the most important questions you can ask of any text. When you read this poem, you notice an ‘I’ is speaking. They are a first person narrator telling their own ‘story.’ This does not necessarily mean that they are speaking the truth of course. Sometimes first person narrators are very UNRELIABLE and FALLIBLE.As we all are!

First person narrators may also divulge enough information about themselves to make them appear loathsome or certainly unkind.( Think of Pip in Great Expectations for example) This may suggest that first person narration is actually like a form of self-persecution. A confession!–

Here, in this poem,  the speaker seems cynical, possibly drunk and probably full of self pity. The internal rhyme of ‘earful’ with ‘tearful’ seems a bit colloquially crass and forced as if the speaker is drunk or feeling very sorry for themselves.( maudlin)

The rhymes ‘wounded‘ and marroonded‘ heighten the sense of the speaker being full of self pity. They are hurt and even make up a word to emphasise their suffering, significantly ending in ‘ded‘. Has love killed them emotionally? Are they joking too or is there a self indulgent pleasure here in being miserable? Some people love recounting stories of their bad luck, unfortunate relationships and general misery. Is this narrator one of these types?

‘But I am in Paris with you.’ The anticlimax is deliberately flat in tone. The romance of Paris and the intimacy of the second person pronoun ‘you’ is bathetic due to the qualification of the preposition ‘But’. This is a compromise and compromising relationship. There  is no romantic idealism or excitement here…

If the speaker is in Paris then they have been before and this visit is full of revisions and reminders of the previous visit where a more romantic time was perhaps enjoyed.

In other words, the speaker is comparing where he is now, with where he was before when he was full of trust and love! He no longer wishes to partake of Paris-or will he change his mind? And if he does change what will make him change?

Is the speaker therefore  using ‘Paris’ as a metaphor for love or lost love too ? We have to wait and see how this voice untangles his tale..and of course there is no guarantee the speaker is male..we never know the identities or genders of either the I or the you…this makes the poem open to all sorts of possible sexual intimacies..

QUESTION TWO.

2) What is the conflict or source of conflict in the poem?

The poem seems to explore a ‘now’ situation with a ‘before’ time when another relationship was central to the speaker’s existence. . This conflict or tension between two experiences is ironically both humorous and sad; both polarities delivered in a perhaps pseudo-cynical, worldly tone. As as reader we alternate in our feeling towards the speaker and we feel sympathetic to the ‘you’ stuck in Paris with a lover very much hooked on looking backwards towards another love.

However the casual, careless voice who dismisses all the sights of Paris and draws attention to their apparently ‘sleazy’ hotel room, gradually becomes physically involved with the mysterious ‘you’ and things become more interesting. it is almost as if the early ‘you’ is really not the ‘you’ in the room but the ‘you’ in his past, still very much present in his/her mind.The apparently tatty surrounds could be a sign of their economic spending or could be teh way he sees their room as ‘sleazy’ as they know they are not in love with this companion and feel it to be sleazy….

The arbitrariness of ‘Doing this and that’ plays down the sexual contact. There is no expectation of sexual ecstasy or gymnastics here. Yet it is precisely this lack of expectation that ironically gives the promise of change. They may not talk of ‘love’ which is a painful reminder of what happened before, but now, they may refer to what they do as ‘Paris’ a euphemism if ever there was one!

QUESTION THREE

3) How does the poem resolve its tensions/issues, if at all?

The poem’s last stanza shows a change of focus and tone. The world weary dismissal of ‘love’ and ‘Paris’ has become transformed into a celebration of sexual contact. The ‘you’ is now a source of excitement:’ I’m in Paris with the slightest thing you do’… the humour is apparent! This version of ‘Paris’ has liberated the speaker from hurt and recrimination.

The ‘talk’ in bed has healed the cynicism, he/she is eager to make love and to enjoy ‘Paris’ with the partner’s ‘mouth’ and other parts no doubt! The euphemistic ‘south’ with suggestions of sexual arousal and different sexual positioning shows again the shift in the tone and meaning of ‘Paris’ by the end of the poem, so when we arrive at the last line, it really means that ‘I am in Paris with you’ instead of the earlier implication of either bitter regret or that he is mentally actually in Paris with the ‘you‘ he was previously involved with.

A clever, shifting poem that plays with the enigmatic identity of the ‘you’.

When are we ever really present to our presence and even to those we are with?

Dr Janet Lewison, May 2012.