OK, the Americans had liberated Paris, now it was time for Paris to do something for me. The city lay under a black depression . . . . The gloom everywhere was heavy and vile. The Seine looked and smelled like some medical mixture. Bread and coal were still being rationed. The French hated us. I had a Jewish explanation for this: bad conscience. Not only had they been overrun by the Germans in three weeks, but they had collaborated. Vichy had made them cynical. They pretended that there was a vast underground throughout the war, but the fact seemed to be that they had spent the war years scrounging for food in the countryside. And these fuckers were also patriots. La France h... » Want to continue? Login below: 
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The Paradoxes of Anti-Americanism
Interviewed
by Philip Roth, Saul Bellow recounted a particular episode in his career, his move to Paris in 1948: