An Analysis of New Orleans, Mon Amour by Andrei Codrescu
February 25, 2014
English 150
An Insider’s Approach: Laissez-Faire If an individual has a high admiration for their home, whether it’s in the heart of a bustling city or the far reaches of a quite country town, that individual has most certainly dealt with the burden of lending a piece of their sanctuary, and what constructs it, to the passing tourist. Spending a weekend in a particular city or place usually does not give the common vacationist or sight-seer the true sense of what natives feel constitutes their special home. In Andrei Codrescu’s New Orleans, Mon Amour, the author feels his city under attack from the tourists escaping their realities for a Mardi Gras fantasy that much of “America” associates New Orleans with. By definition, Codrescu is not a true native himself, being born in Romania and moving to New Orleans in his adulthood. However, like many other people, Codrescu was able to understand the beauty of New Orleans as something more than a “cheap trick”, and has become one of the many “people who never left” (Codrescu, 69). Now considering himself a New Orleanian, Codrescue does not criticize all tourism, but directs his angst at the vacationers who leave their true identities at home and travel to the city “to get drunk, to get weird, and to get laid” (148). Throughout the novel, the author depicts his home as a historical city filled with “the dead” and their vast cemeteries and stories, yet at the same time a flesh city, ruled by “dreams, masques, and shifting identities” (66, 133). Codrescue’s artistic, intricate depiction of New Orleans serves to show what is at stake for him and his fellow citizens. New Orleans is “for a specific life-form, a dreamy, lazy, sentimental, musical one” (135), not the loud and obnoxious weekenders that threaten to threaten the city’s identity. Codrescu’s attack on the “outsiders” of his city may seem a bit too critical of people looking for a short New Orleans visit. His main goal is not to condemn all
English 150
An Insider’s Approach: Laissez-Faire If an individual has a high admiration for their home, whether it’s in the heart of a bustling city or the far reaches of a quite country town, that individual has most certainly dealt with the burden of lending a piece of their sanctuary, and what constructs it, to the passing tourist. Spending a weekend in a particular city or place usually does not give the common vacationist or sight-seer the true sense of what natives feel constitutes their special home. In Andrei Codrescu’s New Orleans, Mon Amour, the author feels his city under attack from the tourists escaping their realities for a Mardi Gras fantasy that much of “America” associates New Orleans with. By definition, Codrescu is not a true native himself, being born in Romania and moving to New Orleans in his adulthood. However, like many other people, Codrescu was able to understand the beauty of New Orleans as something more than a “cheap trick”, and has become one of the many “people who never left” (Codrescu, 69). Now considering himself a New Orleanian, Codrescue does not criticize all tourism, but directs his angst at the vacationers who leave their true identities at home and travel to the city “to get drunk, to get weird, and to get laid” (148). Throughout the novel, the author depicts his home as a historical city filled with “the dead” and their vast cemeteries and stories, yet at the same time a flesh city, ruled by “dreams, masques, and shifting identities” (66, 133). Codrescue’s artistic, intricate depiction of New Orleans serves to show what is at stake for him and his fellow citizens. New Orleans is “for a specific life-form, a dreamy, lazy, sentimental, musical one” (135), not the loud and obnoxious weekenders that threaten to threaten the city’s identity. Codrescu’s attack on the “outsiders” of his city may seem a bit too critical of people looking for a short New Orleans visit. His main goal is not to condemn all