Title: Aveyron, A Bridge to French Arcadia
Author: Thirza Vallois
Publisher: Illiad Books, 2007
Format: softbound, pp 260; 40 color plates
Available for purchase here: http://www.thirzavallois.com/

Book Review by Norman Barth

Paris Kiosque - October 2007 - Volume 14, Number 10
Copyright © 2007 Norman Barth

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If millions of people around the world think the Champs-Elysées is the most beautiful street in Paris, then in some ways it is. But it is not. If they think Paris is the heart of France, then in some ways it is. But in fact this is not true either.

The beauty and heart of any culture is much more complicated, subtle, delicate and hidden. To move beyond the throngs, the masses, bent on Paris or bust, you will have to move beyond this tyranny of numbers, and open yourself to those places and ideas beyond the "glitz"; beyond the "glam" - places and ideas where people, their past, present and hoped for future, are connected because that connected-ness is what has allowed them to survive.

"Aveyron, A Bridge to French Arcadia" the new book by Thirza Vallois is about just such a place. The Department of Aveyron is in southwestern France, and has been long before it was named one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. North of Montpellier, east of Toulouse, south of Clermont-Ferrand, its capitol is Rodez - its residents known as Ruthénois, in a nod to the tribe that was living in the region when the Romans came, the Rutenii. But even before the Rutenii, there were other inhabitants in Aveyron and they have left their prehistoric ruins scattered throughout the region.

Connecting this past, to the present, and on to its future is the new bridge near Millau, spanning the river Tarn - the Viaduc de Millau formally opened just three years ago in December 2004. It is the tallest vehicular bridge in the world; cable-stayed with seven tremendous towers, the tallest being 343 metres high (higher than the Eiffel Tower, and only 38 metres (125 ft) shorter than the Empire State Building).

Les dramatic, but no less full of historical and cultural drama are Aveyron's famous Languiole knives, and its Rocquefort cheese. These are signature items of France - found in the best boutiques and markets of Paris, or anywhere else in France - but they are really from Aveyron; further testimony to the opening thesis that Frances heart and soul lie elsewhere than Paris.

And it is here in Aveyron that Thirza Vallois has focused her fifth and latest book. Part travelogue, part literary prose, all true, she has once again made connections between all of those pieces that go into a place: its history, its cuisine, its relics, its towns, rivers, mountains, farms, crops, animals, and most of all, its people. Among the world's experts on Paris - her three volume work "Around and About Paris" - placed her immediately in the pantheon of contemporary Paris connaisseurati. "Aveyron, A Bridge to French Arcadia" is an implicit acknowledgement that if you seek to understand Paris, you must go elsewhere than Paris, and that "little people count." Aveyron is full of "little people" - people who have worked hard and asked for little in return - people far away from the spotlight that shines daily on Paris.

But if Aveyron is too far away for you to visit - do not worry. Thirza Vallois will bring you there with this latest flower in what is becoming a marvelous bouquet.

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Norman Barth is the editor of the Paris Kiosque, and webmaster/creator of The Paris Pages.

Aveyron, A Bridge to French Arcadia may be purchased here: http://www.thirzavallois.com/