Fullerton and Norwalk, a reterritorialization of Chavignolles in Gustave Flaubert’s Bouvard and Pécuchet (1881) to Harry Newman Jr.’s Orange Mall (1971), in progress.
Epigraphs Pictures of an ideal Chavignolles pursued him in his dreams. Flaubert, Bouvard & Pécuchet (1881)
Below the cobblestones, the beach! Unknown graffiti artist (1968)
We moved from store to store, rejecting not only items in certain departments, not only entire departments but whole stores, mammoth corporations that did not strike our fancy for one reason or another. Don DeLillo, White Noise (1985)
Product description In 1976, two Southern Californians, Fullerton and Norwalk, meet by chance in Paris. Their chemistry transcends their past experiences of friendship. «Fraternité!» proposes Fullerton, clinking glasses of 1970 Château Margaux with Norwalk. Both are 47. Both are screen printers. Both wear Eagles t-shirts and have scored every one of the band’s albums to date, while resembling older versions of Seals and Crofts. Norwalk (Seals) toasts, «To Ripley’s Believe it or Not!» A French pop song heard in a taxi in the Rue de Verneuil tests their compatibility. They write down «Serge Gainsbourg», followed by a question mark. Tour-guided into the capital’s Passages, ancestors of America’s suburban shopping centers, the seasoned consumers are captivated by the Passage de l’Opéra, destroyed in World War I. Under one roof were the Théâtre Moderne, Caron (gun smith), Marguerie (music publisher), a philatelist, a cane and walking-stick shop, Café Certa (HQ of Breton and Aragon), a hairdresser for ladies, a hairdresser for gentlemen (Courbet would pay with a painting), Lemonnier (funeral items made of hair), two art galleries (du Thermomètre and du Baromètre) and a public bath. They leave with a «peaceful, easy feeling» (Eagles, Asylum, 1972). At Orly Airport, the travelers use flyers advertising the haunts of novelists, painters and philosophers as mats to absorb the condensation dripping from their Coca-Colas. On souvenir postcards, under blurbs in six languages, they scrawl caricatures of Citroën Amis. Back in the Golden State, reunited at Falcon Field, the boys in Beach Boys tees overhear a sermon on stocks and bonds by Huntington, mall developer and poet. His congregation is Stanton, surfer and lawyer, and Rev. Tustin, high-school football coach. After allotting six days for soul searching and market analyses, Fullerton and Norwalk shake hands and cross fingers at OC Zoo. Tenants of Orange Mall are in their investment portfolio. The shareholders proceed to exasperate franchise owners and store managers by taking a proprietary interest in B. Dalton, La Fiesta, Orange Mall 6, Radio Shack, Russo’s Pets, Sears, Spencer Gifts, Sweats n Surf, Woolworth’s, et al. They see room for improvement.
Free sample In the summer heat of 1976 Paris, a year of doubt, decline and anti-Americanism in the popular imagination, Fullerton strides alongside one-way vehicular traffic in the Boulevard Bourdon from the direction of Jardin des Plantes. Norwalk takes measured steps from Place de la Bastille. Their views of the Bassin de l’Arsenal would not turn the postcard trade on its head. The two hail each other, embrace, then, flourishing tickets for the same Pan Am flight to LA, rejoice in unison.
«We’ll drive real cars again!»
The meeting is a reunion. Seven days ago, two strangers sat, independently, at the same moment on the same bench in a deserted Boulevard Bourdon. A fast-food wrapper, an abandoned tabloid (Paris Match) and the torn page of a book were evidence of recent humanity. If the California natives had known French, the words on the torn page would have occasioned both of them to remark «Trippy!».
A confused murmur rose in the distance into the sultry atmosphere, and everything seemed to heave with sabbath calm and the melancholy of summer days.
Two men appeared.
Copy Characters Clemente, tennis player and doctor
Brea, Orange Mall super
Huntington, poet and mall developer
Irvine, aka Jesus, mayor of Orange Mall
Yorba Linda, high-school volleyball coach
Margarita, La Fiesta franchise owner
Placentia, real estate agent and Fullerton’s ex
Stanton, surfer and lawyer
Rev. Tustin, high-school football coach
Vic, Fullerton’s nephew
Victoria, Fullerton’s niece
Copy Cameos Mélie, Comtesse de Bouvard-Pécuchet
Pat Nixon, first lady
Shirley Babashoff, swimmer
Suzanne Daniels, pupil of Charloma Schwankovsky (Carden Method)
Original Characters (partial list) Barberou, Bouvard’s Paris friend
Vaucorbeil, doctor
Hurel, factotum of Comte de Faverges
Marianne, Madame Bordin’s maid
Gouy, farmer
Comte de Faverges, country gentry
Foureau, mayor and public prosecutor
La Germaine, servant
Beljambe, innkeeper
Madame Bordin, widow of private means
Marescot, lawyer
Abbé Jeufroy
Victorine, protégé of Bouvard and Pécuchet
Victoria, protégé of Bouvard and Pécuchet
Copy Locations Chapter 1, Paris: friendship, tourism
Chapter 2, Disneyland: architecture, investments, suburban planning
Chapter 3, Orange Mall, La Fiesta: carnivorism, immigration
Chapter 4, Orange Mall, Sweats n Surf: sports (soccer)
Chapter 5, Orange Mall, B. Dalton: graffiti, illiteracy
Chapter 6, Orange Mall (Radio Shack): technology (Hughes Aircraft)
Chapter 7, Orange Mall, Orange Mall 6: Last Tango in Paris
Chapter 8, Orange Mall, Sears: guns, shoplifting, Vietnam
Chapter 9, Orange Mall, Russo’s Pets: retrofuturism
Chapter 10, Orange Mall, Woolworth’s: pop music (The Woodlice)
Chapter 11, Orange Mall, Spencer Gifts: double-sided desk
Appendix: Obituaries
Original Locations Chapter 1, Paris: friendship, inheritance
Chapter 2, Properties, respectively, of Bouvard and Pécuchet and Comte de Faverges, Calvados, Normandy: agriculture, landscape gardening, food preservation
Chapter 3, Chavignolles: chemistry, anatomy, medicine, biology, geology
Chapter 4, Chavignolles: archeology, architecture, history, mnemonics
Chapter 5, Chavignolles: literature, drama, grammar, aesthetics
Chapter 6, Chavignolles: politics
Chapter 7, Chavignolles: love
Chapter 8, Chavignolles: gymnastics, spiritualism, hypnotism, Swedenborgianism, magic, theology, philosophy, suicide, Christmas
Chapter 9, Chavignolles: religion
Chapter 10, Chavignolles: education, music, urban planning
Likely ending, Chavignolles: speeches at the Golden Cross Inn, futurism, narrow escape from prison, double-sided desk
Note on the Text To copy as in the old days is based on readings of the Alban J. Krailsheimer translation (1976) of Bouvard & Pécuchet, which is «taken from the Garnier-Flammion edition by Jacques Suffel (1966), which incorporates the text established by Alberto Cento for his critical edition of 1964. It [Krailsheimer’s translation] varies in places from earlier editions». Flaubert’s Dictionary of Received Ideas (see below) was intended to follow Bouvard & Pécuchet as part of a second volume.
Bookshelf (notes available upon request) David Bellos, Jacques Tati: His Life and Art (2012).
Walter Benjamin, The Arcade Project (Das Passagen-Werk, written between 1927 and 1940, trans. Eiland and McLaughlin, 1999).
Emily Bludworth de Barrios, Shopping, or The End of Time (2022).
David Caute, The Year of the Barricades: A Journey Through 1968 (1988).
Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature (1975) (trans. Dana Polan, 1986).
Gustave Flaubert, Bouvard & Pécuchet (1881, trans. Krailsheimer, 1976).
Gustave Flaubert, Dictionary of Received Ideas (published posthumously 1911-13, trans. Robert Baldick, 1976).
Mac Griswold and Eleanor Weller, The Golden Age of American Gardens: Proud Owners, Private Estates, 1890-1940 (1991).
Éric Hazan, The Invention of Paris: A History in Footsteps (2002, trans. David Fernbach, 2011).
Éric Hazan, Paris in turmoil: a city between past and future (2021, trans. David Fernbach, 2022).
Éric Hazan, A Walk through Paris (2016, trans. David Fernbach, 2018).
Eleanor Jourdain and Charlotte Moberly, An Adventure (1911).
Franz Kafka, Forschungen eines Hundes (Investigations of a Dog, 1922).
Alexandra Lange, Meet Me by the Fountain (2022).
Simon Morley, Writing on the Wall: Word and Image in Modern Art (2003).
Harry Newman Jr., Turning 21: A Businessman’s Poetic Odyssey to the New Century (1999).
Matthew Newton, Shopping Mall (2017).
Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past (1913-1927), trans. C. K. Scott Moncrieff (1922-1930).
John Russell, Paris (1960).
Caroline Weber, Proust’s Duchess (2018),
Future Reading Regina Bittner, The World of Malls (2016).
Kate Black, Big Mall: Shopping for Meaning (2024).
Roger Caillois, A Little Guide to the 15th Arrondissement for the Use of Phantoms (collected texts 1933-1978, published posthumously 2007).
Louis Chevalier, The Assassination of Paris (1977).
Ruth Schwartz Cowan, More Work for Mother (1983).
Arlene Dávila, El Mall (2016).
Michael Galinsky, The Decline of the Mall (2019).
Victor Gruen, Shopping Town: Designing the City in Suburban America (trans. and ed. Anette Baldauf, 2017).
M. Jeffrey Hardwick, Mall Maker: Victor Gruen, Architect of an American Dream (2004).
Alex Wall, Victor Gruen: From Urban Shop to New City (2005).
Avital Ronnell, Stupidity (2002).
Filmography Jacques Tati, Playtime (1967)
Bernardo Bertolucci, Last Tango in Paris (1972)
Picture Gallery
Image Credits Fullerton and Norwalk’s avian totems: Suzanne Daniels (2023). Mall prototype (Versailles FR): Eleanor Hohman (1958). Chavignol Mall (Orange CA): unidentified artist’s rendering of Orange Mall, Los Angeles Times, February 22, 1970. Anchor store prototype (Dior, 30 Avenue Montaigne, Paris FR): Eleanor Hohman (1958). Verbal plan (The Commons, Columbus IN): Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects.