54 pages • 1 hour read
Ruth ReichlThe Paris Novel
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Authorial Context: Ruth Reichl
Ruth Reichl is a New York Times best-selling author of several memoirs, including Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table (1998), Comfort Me With Apples: More Adventures at the Table (2001), Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise (2005), and Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir (2019), and two novels, Delicious! (2014) and The Paris Novel. She was editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine for 10 years and published several cookbooks. In addition to her writing and editorial career, Reichl spent two decades as a food critic for both the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times. She has received six James Beard awards for her work in journalism and feature writing, and the foundation awarded her a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2024.
Reichl’s background as a food writer and critic permeates The Paris Novel. Descriptions of food and the experience of eating are rendered in rich, evocative sensory detail, emphasizing its importance both as a staple of French culture and in the narrative. Food becomes the catalyst for Stella to allow more pleasure and novelty into her life. She begins to find herself and meet people who help her grow. Reichl’s rich descriptions of food stem from her own real-life experiences. As she states in the Author’s Note, all the chefs featured in The Paris Novel (aside from Django) are “real people who changed the shape of dining in France” (269). Her descriptions of Stella’s experiences with their food are therefore directly derived from meals that she has had herself. Due to her long career as a food critic, Reichl vividly illustrates not only the experience of French dining but also the passion that the chefs express through their craft.
Geographical Context: Paris
The Paris Novel is set in 1980s Paris and incorporates a blend of fictionalized and real-life characters and settings from this time period. France boasts a deep relationship with food and culinary arts, so it’s fitting that Stella’s experience of Paris is guided predominantly by her experiences with food. After she meets Jules, he introduces her to traditional French cuisine, visiting real-life restaurants such as Les Deux Magots—an iconic Parisian restaurant established in 1914 and made famous as a gathering place for philosophers such as Jean-Paul Satre and Simone de Beauvoir, artists like Pablo Picasso, and writers such as Allen Ginsberg and James Baldwin, both of whom play a role in Reichl’s narrative. Les Deux Magots also appears in other classic literary works such as A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway and Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce; both writers were real-life patrons of the famous restaurant.
In addition to French cuisine, Reichl also pays homage to Paris’s relationship with the worlds of fine art and fashion. Stella’s encounter with a vintage Dior dress catalyzes her journey of self-discovery, and the shopkeeper recounts stories of her time working for the fashion house and the designers she worked alongside, including Yves Saint Laurent, who was hired by Christian Dior in 1955. He went on to establish his own fashion house—Yves Saint Laurent—and grew to become one of the most influential designers in the world. Like Reichl, Saint Laurent made explicit the connection between fashion and fine art, as he wrote in a letter to Michel de Brunhoff in 1954: “As you recommended, I paint profusely and also continue to design scale models, sets, and costumes as well as dresses” (“The Dior Years.” Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris). Stella’s appreciation for art becomes vital to her personal growth, both through her trips to the Musée de Jeu de Paume with Jules and through chance encounters with artists like American food writer, cook, and painter Richard Olney, who moved to France in 1951.
The famous bookstore Shakespeare and Company, where Stella first finds a community and surrogate family in Paris, opened in 1951 and frequently hosted well-known writers, artists, and intellectuals—a tradition that continues to this day. Owner George Whitman ran the bookstore until his death in 2011, leaving its operations to his daughter Silva. Reichl’s references to real-life figures who frequented the shops and restaurants of Paris during this period present Paris as a veritable haven for renowned artists, chefs, and designers, providing the ideal background for Stella’s journey of Self-Discovery Through Food and Art.
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By Ruth Reichl
