197. Seeing Paris Behind the Postcard -- Amit Chaudhuri

Amit Chaudhuri rejoins me to discuss his new novel/memoir/essay, Chateau Rouge. The book is about a writer who finds himself in a region of Paris, Chateau Rouge, filled with immigrants and their small business hustles, not cafes and patisseries. Shocked by how different Chateau Rouge is from the Paris of Hemingway and Proust, the narrator has to find a new way to understand what Paris is and what it means, without reliance on Parisian cliche.

Amit and I discuss all of this, and also the broader question of how you find the meaning in the mundane. We also conclude the interview talking a bit about the filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu, whose films were also about the meaning of the mundane. I recommend starting Ozu with his film Good Morning, linked below. Amit recommends I was Born, But... also linked below. And you may be interested to learn that Good Morning is Ozu's own remake of I was Born, But...

Chateau Rouge: https://flyleafbooks.com/book/9798896230878

Good Morning: https://archive.org/details/good-morning_202012

I was Born, But...: https://archive.org/details/i-was-born-but