meIf you were asked to imagine life as an expat in Paris, your mind would likely wander to one of two images, both similar and radically different. The first is literary misery, the starving artist, as described in books like George Orwell’s. Down and Out in Paris and London and Henry Miller Tropic of Cancer. The second is the coffee society associated with figures like F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Straddling the two categories is the quintessential Parisian literary expat, Ernest Hemingway. In a moving partyHemingway writes about walking through Paris with an empty stomach and a head full of ideas, resembling the anonymous narrator of the 1890 novel. Hunger of Knut Hamsun, of whom Hemingway says that “he taught me to write”.
Before he became the hungry flaneur, Hemingway was the Paris correspondent for the Toronto Star newspaper, a post to which he was appointed at the advanced age of 22. Hemingway’s articles from this period, written in the stars lean, declarative style, which would come to characterize American fiction—are highly revealing of life in Paris a century ago.
In an article titled “A Canadian on $1,000 a Year Can Live Very Comfortably and Pleasantly in Paris,” Hemingway discusses the amount of money needed to live well in the City of Light.
“My wife and I had an excellent meal there,” says the young journalist of a restaurant on the corner of Rue Bonaparte and Rue Jacob, “equal in cuisine and quality of food to the best restaurants in the United States, for fifty cents each. . … It sounds unbelievable, but it is simply a case of prices not advancing in proportion to the increase in the value of the dollar.”
1,000 Canadian dollars in 1922 is equivalent to 17,000 Canadian dollars or 13,000 US dollars today. Even with the dollar on par with the euro, today it would be difficult to live on that sum in Paris. But it is possible to live well as an artist in the French capital in 2022.
In the five years I have lived here, I have found time to write three novels and I still live better than in London, where I worked full time. I worked, on average, 15 hours per week in the last fiscal year. However, I ate out in restaurants once a week, drank in cafes frequently, took a three-week vacation to Italy and a three-week vacation to Australia, and had €8,000 left over.
Not bad for a humble teacher. After studying law in Australia and living in the UK for a few years, I got tired of work-obsessed London and decided to try my luck as a writer in Paris. Upon arrival, a friend told me that she took legal English classes throughout her law studies and that she should look for a job teaching these courses at one of the universities.
I decided to aim high and sent my CV to the Coordinator of English for Law Studies at the Sorbonne. This led to a spirited meeting and an even more spirited offer to teach as many classes as he wanted. Although poorly paid, I enjoyed this position and transferred to private institutions, where salaries are higher than in the most prestigious public schools.
Law is a specialized field, but the demand for native English-speaking teachers is high in all subjects. I have friends, none of whom have doctorates, who have been asked to teach courses in areas including graphic design, fashion, history, and literature. Teaching provides a well-balanced routine for creative work. The working week is short. Vacations are long. The pay isn’t extravagant, but it’s enough to enjoy what Paris has to offer.
I live with my fiancée in the Marais, in my opinion the most attractive place in the city. neighborhood. My apartment is 530 square feet, large by Parisian standards, and has a lovely interior with parquet floors. The afternoon sun streams in through five large windows overlooking the spire of Saint-Paul Cathedral, whose shadow reaches the banks of the Seine, where I run to clear my head several times a week.
The area was favored by the aristocracy in the 17th century. Today it is a hub for the gay and Orthodox Jewish communities and boasts an inordinate number of restaurants, bars and museums in the old private hotels. Within walking distance of my apartment there is a café where I play chess, a bar where I play pool, and a brasserie that I frequent for its cheap wine (€3.40 a glass) and steak tartare for €12. Prices include taxes, bread and tap water, and tipping is optional.
For our flat, my fiancee and I pay 1,500 euros a month. The bills add up to another 75 a month each, a total of about 10,000 a year for my accommodation. A monthly transport subscription costs 75 euros per month, or 900 euros per year. I spend about 70 euros on groceries per week. In total, my basic expense is about 14,500 euros a year. My income is around 35,000, which leaves me with a healthy surplus for other expenses, entertainment and vacations.
This is not cheap in absolute terms. But in Paris, I feel like I get a lot for what I pay for, while in London, I felt like I was just getting by. The city is small and well connected. Space is limited, but the upside is that people are always itching to get out. It has been easier for me to meet people with similar interests, including writers, who were once mythical creatures for me, in Paris than at any other time in my life. Gone are the Hemingway-era Gertrude Stein salons. But the spirit of the Belle Epoque and the interwar period survives.
While social life and work are fairly easy to achieve for native English speakers, settling in here is not without its challenges. France’s reputation for vexatious administration is well deserved. Obtaining any type of official document is like trying to escape from a nightmare. Every turn you take leads you to another dead end. Language is not a picnic either. The French insist that you speak French, but will fall back on rudimentary English as soon as they hear you desecrating their sacred language.
These difficulties are real. But the rewards are rich for those who endure. Once your papers are in order and your language skills are at a reasonable level, an enviable lifestyle can be achieved.
I will never forget the mixture of pity and disbelief on my boss’s face in London when I told him I wanted to work part-time so I could have more time to write. Whatever his flaws, and they are multiple, this would never happen in France. Streets and subway stations are named after writers. Artists enjoy a privileged place among the great statesmen of the Pantheon. “La littérature, c’est la France”, it is sometimes said.
France’s respect for art and hostility to the lucrative “Anglo-Saxon” mentality is both a weakness and a strength. For my part, I have earned relatively little and have lived very well most of the time I have lived here. Working full time and moving up the corporate ladder is a rational choice for many. But for those who need time for creative work, to live as the young Hemingway did, the French capital remains one of the world’s great cities.
RJ Smith is an Australian teacher and fiction author living in Paris.
Source: news.google.com