Random Walks in Paris

I’ve gotten into the habit of heading to Paris nearly every Wednesday and Friday as I don’t have class on those days. Paris is one of the best cities in the world to just aimlessly wander. With or without purpose, there is always some interesting things to be found. One fine day, I stroll to Cimetiere de Montparnasse, the burial grounds for many famous French icons..from writers and philosophers to actors and political figures. This place doesn’t feel like a cemetery, rather a place with beautiful monuments. I feel so spiritually and philosophically revived, walking through the resting place of great thinkers. Map in hand, I know exactly whose tomb I am looking for. Jean Paul Sartre; one of the greatest philosophers of all time.  Scenes from his novels flash through my head, as I look onto the grave. His book, Les Mots, was written when he was in his 60’s and chronicles from childhood his evolution into an author. Written with such raw honesty, I am amazed at his vivid descriptions of childhood. If you had to read one of his books, that’d be it. If I had one wish in life, it’d be to have a conversation with Sartre and Camus, at the same time. What’s more romantic, he is buried with his love Simone de Beauvoir, another famous French author. Their love is documented in Beauvoir’s, “Letters to Sartre”; which I’ll have to read one day. I also visit the tombs of other greats such as Marguerite Duras, Baudelaire, Jean Seberg, and of course Samuel Beckett. Another fan had left  the word “Waiting” written with pebbles on his tombstone. How clever as his most famous novel, Waiting for Godot, is about the quest for God.

In one afternoon I have effectively experienced French literary history in a new way, all by walking through a cemetary.