Touché: A French Woman's Take on the English
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"Poirier skillfully fuses commentary and autobiography, and her writing -- smart, slightly bossy but also sometimes self-mocking -- is consistently engaging" (John Dugdale GUARDIAN )
DAILY TELEGRAPH
'Perhaps it doesn't sound like much fun to be set straight on everything... by a French "intellectual"... Strangely, it is.'
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
If you're looking for chicklit, this is definitely not for you. In that aspect, the cover is really misleading, as if the marketing department hadn't read the book. It's not heavy stuff but it's substantial, political, in the French tradition, and yet funny, in the English one. In other word, it's a book for a sophisticated readership (who don't mind a silly cover). Touche is thoughtful, informed, touching and thought-provoking.
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
There are a few interesting bits in this book, but they'd take you 10 minutes to read. She's good on the way we use French phrases constantly, but are unaware of their exact meaning in French. It's interesting to know that the French separation of religion and education has led to a widespread mistrust of religion. And it can't be said too often that the English are as obsessed with class as they ever were. French journalists all have PhDs and give opinions, she says, whereas British journalists are detectives (chalk one up to us, then). Otherwise, she demonstrates La Différence by giving very few facts and observations, stuck into too-short chapters that are otherwise mainly waffle (or gauffret). Just as you're getting interested, she moves on to another subject. And she gets titles of publications and authors' names wrong. Some of the awkwardness of her style can be blamed on her English co-writer, who has failed to tell her that the British don't refer to all working-class men as "thugs". She wanted to call herself Agnes Parrot because it would be easier for us to pronounce - fortunately she was laughed out of it.
13 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I did come to this book with an open mind and even an open heart. I was to be sorely disappointed at both levels. It's twee, it's chi-chi and it's a regurgitation of everything you already know - from ''Ow are French women zo vairy thin when zey eet zuch reeech food?' to 'hilarious anecdotes of my English boyfriend' that could have been culled from any Carla Lane sitcom C.1980 - and delivered in a sickly-sweet style that would induce diabetes in a yak.
This is a book that seems to have been rushed out to cash in on a spate of 'Anglos vs France' books - of which the funniest and most devastatingly insightful is the appallingly named '50 Reasons To Hate The French' by Jules Eden but also include 'More France Please, We're British!: 15 Lessons on Life in France' by Helena Frith-Powell and 'French Flea Bites' by George East. If you want to know more about the relationships between the French and their Anglo-Saxon opposite numbers or vice versa, i recommend you start with these.
This is a book that seems to have been rushed out to cash in on a spate of 'Anglos vs France' books - of which the funniest and most devastatingly insightful is the appallingly named '50 Reasons To Hate The French' by Jules Eden but also include 'More France Please, We're British!: 15 Lessons on Life in France' by Helena Frith-Powell and 'French Flea Bites' by George East. If you want to know more about the relationships between the French and their Anglo-Saxon opposite numbers or vice versa, i recommend you start with these.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Britain/England - England/Britain
Yup, a very well-written book indeed, smart in its way and a good laugh -if you're a British person who doesn't mind being called English. In other words, if you're English. Read more
Published on 20 Dec 2008 by Àdhamh Ó Broin
clever and entertaining
What I like best is to be enlightened AND entertained. Problem is I hate serious stuff but I also dislike fluff and what Touché achieves is to be light and profound at the... Read more
Published on 3 Feb 2008 by Charlie " a reader"
Fab and fun
Am a fan of her writing in The Guardian. The book is as witty and insightful: serious at times but always tongue in cheeck. Well done, Agie!
Published on 30 Jan 2008 by Jane T " a reader"
Too cocksure
The author and I crossed the Channel in opposite directions at roughly the same time, in the mid 1990s. She was in her early 20s and I was approaching 50. Read more
Published on 28 Jan 2008 by Josquine
Funny and clever book comparing the differences
This is an unusual book in that it is not the average book that you might expect on this subject but instead it cleverly combines together both anecdotes and rather more... Read more
Published on 18 Jan 2008 by Mr X
Disappointing
I've enjoyed some of her newspaper articles, but the book is a disappointment. She's not quite as clever as she thinks she is, and her unthinking anti-Americanism is just annoying. Read more
Published on 17 Jan 2008 by M. Morgan
Vacuous
I discussed this book with a young French guy (in France) who was about to go to LA to study film making. Read more
Published on 30 Oct 2007 by Mr. Jm Bradley
Formidable!
I bought the book as I wanted to compare with Stephen Clarke's novels which I love. It's a different style, non-fiction, more journalistic and informative, but it's as good. Read more
Published on 6 Sep 2007 by Sam Wood '"Sam Wood"
Adult conversation
This book is like the very best of nouvelle cuisine--substantially nourishing but not overloaded with fat and attractively presented on a plate large enough to give her ideas... Read more
Published on 10 July 2007 by John Whiting
Simply great
The most fascinating thing about this book is that it tells us as much about the French as it informs us on how we're viewed by the French. Read more
Published on 3 July 2007 by Jane Austen Junior
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