I was lucky enough to be in Paris a couple of weeks ago and, in the time I wasn’t eating, drinking or watching the world go by (activities that, it has to be said, took up an alarming proportion of the holiday) I paid a visit to Père Lachaise cemetery, reputedly the most visited cemetery in the world.
Famously the burial place of The Doors’ Jim Morrison (whose grave comes complete with a full-time security guard), the cemetery also houses some well-known composers (Georges Bizet and Frederic Chopin), artists (Pissarro and Seurat), some of France’s greatest film stars (Simone Signoret and Yves Montand), and the singer Edith Piaf (I couldn’t resist attempting a quick rendition of ‘Je ne regrette rien’…) You can take a look around yourself here.
The graves of some of Hesperus’ authors are also there: French greats Honoré de Balzac and Marcel Proust, along with Oscar Wilde, whose fantastic art-deco monument you should be able to make out in the photograph I’ve uploaded (technology permitting!) As you can see, I just happened to have a copy of our edition of Oscar Wilde’s brilliant The Portrait of Mr W.H. with me when I visited… what a coincidence I hear you cry! I apologise for the cheesy smile. I did get a few strange looks as, while most people were applying lipstick and following the tradition of kissing the grave to leave their mark, I was posing with my book…
Visiting a cemetery as a tourist is an odd thing. Père Lachaise is still a ‘working’ cemetery and I couldn’t avoid feeling a little intrusive, wandering around with my map pointing out ‘all the famous ones’. In fact, I found that, in the end, some of the most impressive, interesting and moving monuments belonged to people I had never heard of. Yet it is still worth going to see Balzac, Proust, Wilde et al, if only to see evidence of the influence and effect they have had on people. Each of them made a hugely significant contribution to the world of literature and that is, after all, why we at Hesperus choose to publish them.
Anyway time to plan my next trip I think… first stop, the Dickens theme park!
RM
I’m kicking myself that I was in the UK on holiday less than a month ago and knew nothing about the Dickens theme park.
I just have to hope it stays open at least a year so I can go the next time I make the trip. Or at least that one of you Hesperus Press folks goes and gives a full report.
I adored Pere Lachaise when we visited back in about 1998. We were too mean to buy a guide map thinking there can’t be that much to finding your way around a cemetery, only to get hopelessly lost and think we may never find our way out ever again. It was a grey October morning and suddenly the heavens opened and we got drenched but still carried on walking around and drinking in that hinterland feel for the place. All those amazing burial houses and suddenly coming across someone really famous… then of course there was Jim, and no security guard when we went.Then we came across Victor Noir and that had us musing at why “that bit of him” looked so well polished.It wasn’t until I looked him up when we arrived home that I found out what I was supposed to have done to him. Thankfully I didn’t because three children was quite enough thankyou!