Stalking the French is nothing very new. Nineteenth-century geographers gave the sport its lore, and "nombrilism"--the notion that France was the navel of the world--tried to bring to the French people the order, place and nationality that history and circumstance had not. These days, though, such certainty is far off. In distinguishing the French fact from the myth, historians not only fear generalizations--the mark of any good culture-watcher--but fail to draw any conclusions whatsoever.

In his previous work, the highly acclaimed two-volume History of France 1848-1945, Theodore Zeldin may have frustrated some readers with inconclusiveness. Zeldin debunked the traditional manner of approaching the French, as well-oiled members of a neatly defined system. The contradictions of the country's many regions, the varying linguistic needs, and the lack of a unified French political and cultural awareness forced him to reexamine France's mythical unity; worn-out classifications of Bourgeoisie, Peasant and Worker were aerated, their subtle variations revealed. Zeldin also scrutinized French politics and patriotism, trying to analyze how they really affected citizens. But his work remained ambiguous throughout, begged the question of French identity, avoided the task of drawing conclusions.

The French will only fuel such criticism. As an attempt to explain the French, the book is a frustratingly inconclusive sketch; it turns out to be not serious research but a more intimate, impressionistic picture of a people the author knows extremely well. "The characters in the book," he finally admits in the conclusion, "are not a scientifically selected sample, but people whom I happen to have gotten to know." The Oxford historian's wish is nothing short of becoming the cartographer of French passions; he writes that "if only as much were known about human passion as is known about the production of grain or sale of soup...world maps could be drawn showing the regional distribution of attitudes and temperments..." Impressionistic or not, it's a tall order.

Taking on too much in 500 pages to be helpful in the particular, the book offers vague chapter headings ("How to Love Them," "How to Appreciate Their Taste," "How to Recognize Culture") which misleadingly hint at an objectivity and certainty their content never approaches. Zeldin can't be naive enough to believe he can do what his title suggests; this is not a Guide Michelin to French character.

We meet individuals mostly, each supposedly filling a pocket of French life. There are three comedians, who turn out to have nothing in common except that they "take defenseless little children seriously. "There are lovers ("The French are moving towards a society of pals, away from an ideal of passion.") There are workers and scattered archetypes: the bourgeois Plane Bourcel who fears the rise of laziness, or "je m'en foutisme"; the Duc de Brossac who does not know the meaning of the word meritocracy. More often, Zeldin offers type and then shatters it (we discover that Brigitte Bardot likes "looking after her house.") The ineffectiveness of such examples merely shows Zeldin is looking for something he cannot humanly give--stereotypes.

Zeldin's loose sociological approach reveals itself in a strong chapter on class relations. Rather than particularize feelings along class lines, he concerns him-self with "how people perceive social relationships," reducing French society to three groups--those who like to lead others, those who hate or resent their boss, and those who opt out of the hierarchical system. The Duc de Brissac's "aristocratic" qualities are as easily found in M. Perrin, a worker in the Rossignol Ski Factory in Voiron, or in M. Cazeau, an engineer from Toulouse.

In a country where a quarter of the survivors of "old" families are highly placed in modern industry, where three-quarters of industrial managers are sons of the well-to-do, where only a fifth of the work force is unionized, and where the peasant still seeks to protect and work his own land, defining "aristocratic" values is no easy task. Zeldin judges the image of French egalitarianism "more false than true." Even the highly competitive school system reinforces ingrained notions of privilege: 65 percent of managers' children get into the prestigious option C of the baccalaureate program as compared to 5 percent of workers' children. Plus ca change...

Zeldin's longstanding interest in regionalism fills his new work. "Culture," he notes, "now divides France instead of unifying it." Having passed through nationalist and internationalist phases. France is presently in a pluralist stage whereby culture "is a battle for the right to live freely," he says, quoting minister Jack Lang. This notion underlies much of Zeldin's analysis of social mores as well. Defining a French national culture is "an unattainable goal." Styles of life "are ceasing to be homogeneous." There is "French taste, and French good taste." Contrary to previous stereotypes. "There is no established French attitude toward love."

The glaring irrelevancy of using Loulou de la Falaise as an example of someone "undoubtedly elegant, chic" may be excused if one keeps in mind the impossibility of defining the French in an uncontroversial way. One might paraphrase Antishthenes: One can know such and such a Frenchman, but never Frenchness. As Zeldin puts it, the book's intent is to show "what absurdities follow" when one sums up the French or any other culture in a phrase or epigram