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A review by slippy_underfoot
Mrs. Harris Goes To Paris by Paul Gallico, Paul Gallico
4.0
Oh what a joy.
It’s the 1950s in dreary, post war London. Mrs Ada Harris, a widowed cleaning lady in her late middle age, keeps herself busy with a small set of regular clients. When she encounters a pair of Dior dresses in one of the apartments she is smitten. Utterly bewitched by the garments she pledges that one day she will have one for herself, and begins to make her plans...
This is such a warm and lovely book. Ada is a wonderful character, strong, resourceful and resilient. She finds pleasure in every small win and opens her heart to every possible joy. She brims with compassion and humanity, and those who are drawn into her orbit are spun away delighted.
As you might expect for book written by a man in the 1950s, some of the depictions of female ambition and psychology can feel limiting and outdated, but to give Gallico his due, there are several elements in his book which perhaps make for a more modern depiction of women than the recent film adaptation.
This film is very lovely in its own way, but it differs greatly. In the film Mrs Harris only gets to Paris and into Dior’s salon because men enable her - in the book she does this all by herself, assisted only by a bond she shares with Dior’s female manager, no men involved. The book has no romance element, Mrs Harris does not win because she gets a man, she wins because she realises her ambition, thanks to her own strength of character.
I can see why the changes were made. It’s an adaptation to a different medium and the original tale might have been too small, slow, and undramatic for the screen and, regardless, I really did enjoy the film.
But I love small stories, and I think the book does much more justice to the remarkable nature of Mrs Harris and the women of her time, even if some of it does jar to a modern sensibility.
Gallico’s writing is genial, humorous and respectful. Mrs Harris is a something of an oddity at large, but he never makes fun of her - he’s with her all the way, applauding her modest, but steely, magnificence.
This is the first in a series of Mrs Harris books and I surely will read them all, they are right in my wheelhouse.
It’s the 1950s in dreary, post war London. Mrs Ada Harris, a widowed cleaning lady in her late middle age, keeps herself busy with a small set of regular clients. When she encounters a pair of Dior dresses in one of the apartments she is smitten. Utterly bewitched by the garments she pledges that one day she will have one for herself, and begins to make her plans...
This is such a warm and lovely book. Ada is a wonderful character, strong, resourceful and resilient. She finds pleasure in every small win and opens her heart to every possible joy. She brims with compassion and humanity, and those who are drawn into her orbit are spun away delighted.
As you might expect for book written by a man in the 1950s, some of the depictions of female ambition and psychology can feel limiting and outdated, but to give Gallico his due, there are several elements in his book which perhaps make for a more modern depiction of women than the recent film adaptation.
This film is very lovely in its own way, but it differs greatly. In the film Mrs Harris only gets to Paris and into Dior’s salon because men enable her - in the book she does this all by herself, assisted only by a bond she shares with Dior’s female manager, no men involved. The book has no romance element, Mrs Harris does not win because she gets a man, she wins because she realises her ambition, thanks to her own strength of character.
I can see why the changes were made. It’s an adaptation to a different medium and the original tale might have been too small, slow, and undramatic for the screen and, regardless, I really did enjoy the film.
But I love small stories, and I think the book does much more justice to the remarkable nature of Mrs Harris and the women of her time, even if some of it does jar to a modern sensibility.
Gallico’s writing is genial, humorous and respectful. Mrs Harris is a something of an oddity at large, but he never makes fun of her - he’s with her all the way, applauding her modest, but steely, magnificence.
This is the first in a series of Mrs Harris books and I surely will read them all, they are right in my wheelhouse.