Line #5 Literature/AprilInParis


1	"April in Paris" is a fluffy short story by Creator/UrsulaKLeGuin.
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3	Professor Barry Pennywither, teaching French at Munson College, Indiana, is an acutely lonely man who is really only interested in medieval French poets. In an attempt to cheer up, he goes to Paris and rents a small room, just like when he was a student.
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5	But then, weird things start to happen and Barry finds himself mysteriously transported five centuries back in time.
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7	!! Tropes featured in the story:
8	* BornInTheWrongCentury:
9	** Barry is deeply unhappy in 1961, only caring about medieval France.
10	** Kislk is bored and miserable in her overly perfect world. Hence the government assigning her the job of an archaeologist.
11	* DubNameChange: The Russian translation by Nora Gal changed Kislk's name to Keslk, probably because the original name would be too similar to the Russian word ''kisly'' meaning "sour".
12	* DumbJock: Barry thinks that Kislk's French is worse than that [[TakeThat of a football-scholarship freshman]]. Kislk, in addition, has the excuse of living several millennia later than Barry's contemporaries and only learning French from the writings that have survived.
13	* FirstFriend: Jehan and Barry, each of them being an AbsentMindedProfessor caring for little outside his studies, have never had any friends before meeting each other.
14	* FishOutOfTemporalWater: Bota, Barry and Kislk all end up in the 15th century. Since Barry and Kislk have studied the time period and Bota is simply happy to leave slavery behind, they all adjust incredibly well.
15	* GrewASpine: Over a single week, Bota, initially a timid slave, becomes a lot more cheerful and open-natured.
16	* HasAType: Played with. One of the reasons Barry and Jehan have stayed single for a long time (Barry is forty at the start of the story) is that the women from their own time are the exact inversion of their type.
17	** Barry feels intimidated by fashionable [[ProudBeauty Proud Beauties]]. He finds love with a sweet, easygoing Gaulish woman.
18	** Jehan, on the other hand, isn't attracted to short, unkempt women of the 15th century. He finds love with a tall beauty from the system of Altair.
19	* HotBlooded: Jehan's temper can be pretty explosive.
20	* HugeGuyTinyGirl and TinyGuyHugeGirl: Barry is significantly taller than Bota, and Jehan is noticeably shorter than Kislk. Both times, the height difference is lampshaded by the women – Bota is instantly attracted to Barry because of his height, and Kislk is happy to see a man shorter than her after the boringly similar tall, handsome and healthy men of her time.
21	* IChooseToStay: At first Jehan sends Barry back to 1961, but Barry quickly regrets it, realizing that he would be lonely again and that he can't even prove his 15th-century historical discoveries, not that anyone in the 20th century would care about them. Thankfully, Jehan, too, decides to bring Barry back.
22	* LonelyTogether: Bota, Jehan, Barry, and Kislk have wildly different backgrounds but are all desperately lonely. Barry figures out that this was what made Jehan's magic possible and brought them all together in the same time period.
23	* MustHaveCaffeine: Coffee is the only 1961 thing Barry misses.
24	* NoAntagonist: There is no bad entity here except the loneliness.
25	* NoBloodTies: In Kislk's society, children are raised and assigned their future jobs by the State Pre-School Homes. Judging by Kislk's case, the job-assigning system, at least, is working pretty well.
26	* SexyFlaw: Kislk is elated that Jehan has bad teeth and a short temper.
27	* SickeninglySweet: Kislk isn't interested in her sparkly perfect world and is blissfully happy to end up in the 15th-century France.
28	* SingleWomanSeeksGoodMan: Bota falls in love with Barry due to his kindness. More than justified, considering her past as a slave.
29	* SkewedPriorities: Jehan is more shocked by a woman speaking Latin than said woman is by her abrupt time travel.
30	* StatuesqueStunner: Kislk is tall and gorgeous (like everybody else in her time, as she explains).
31	* TimeTravelRomance: An American philologist ends up with a Gaulish girl, and a French alchemist with an interstellar archaeologist.
32	* UglyGuyHotWife: Kislk is a striking beauty, and Jehan, while not ugly per se, looks the way a poor alchemist from the 15th century would look.

Context Literature / AprilInParis