Since catching the travel bug early, I've always yearned to travel to places far and wide, with one significant exception. Those places I cannot travel to, I read about. Between actual trips and wanderings in the pages of books, I've been just about everywhere. The one place I never had any interest in going to was France. I'd probably spent more time reading about travel to Slovenia than to, say, Paris. This all changed a couple years back. Perhaps the trauma of middle school French class had finally worn away. Recently I've developed a keen interest in French history, culture, cuisine and geography, accumulating the info needed to perhaps someday travel to that country.
One doesn't get very far in researching travel to France before running into A Year in Provence by Englishmen Peter Mayle. I'd heard about this book and the hordes it inspired to journey to the South of France with visions of quaint, rustic farmhouses dancing in their skulls. I wondered if Provençal's have the same love hate relationship with A Year in Provence as Savannahians do with Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (which, in Savannah, is simply known as The Book). I approached the book with caution because I thought that to have inspired such a swelling of interest in Provence, Mayle must have painted an unrealistically romanticized version of life there.
A Year in Provence chronicles, from January to December, a year in the life of Mayle and his wife, newly arrived in Provence. Any misgivings that Mayle was about to paint an idealized picture of Shangri-la in the South of France were dispelled in the first chapter, "January". In it he describes the Mistral, the icy, brutal wind that rips down the Rhone Valley every winter, tearing shingles and shutters off houses and, if it lasts long enough, driving some to suicide (So powerful is this wind that the French have named a class of warships and a missile for it).
The book is very readable and, more than anything, is about the process of the Mayles' adjustment to life in their new home. The common thread that runs through all twelve chapters is the renovation of their farmhouse near the village of Menerbes. Much to Mayle's chagrin, life goes at its own pace in Provence. Dates to begin work and deadlines to complete it are fluid and depend greatly on everything falling exactly into place as it should (which it rarely does). Despite despairing that the project will ever proceed to completion, it doesn't take Mayle long to come to grips with his new reality. Halfway through the book he seems to surrender to the rhythm of life in Provence, stating that he cannot remember the last time he wore a watch.
Some have written reviews criticizing Mayle for what they see as condescension towards his new neighbors. To me, he did not come across that way at all. I found his writing style humble and self-deprecating and was struck by the fondness with which he describes the people of Provence. The author's Provençal's are proud and passionate people who admirably eschew the modern get-it-done-now-now-now ethos. If the men working on the writer's house adhere to a, at times, frustratingly flexible concept of time, once they get down to it, they attack their jobs, be it building a wall or installing a central heating system, with skill and professionalism. Whether it be butchering a pig, playing a game of boule, eating a meal or having a conversation about the weather, Provençals live each experience to the fullest. From his crusty neighbor Massot to his outstandingly named insurance agent, Thierry Fructus, it's obvious that Mayle likes the people he lives with, idiosyncrasies and all. He saves his greatest criticism for his countrymen; holiday makers and would be carpetbaggers, some who were no more than nodding acquaintances back in the UK, who presumptuously descend on his little slice of heaven expecting to be put up and fed.
I am particularly susceptible to good food writing and A Year in Provence provides a wealth of it. The book is stuffed with all manner and preparation of cheeses, breads, meat from field and farm, mushrooms, truffles, vegetables, fish and pastries, fresh and available every day at the local market, sopped up with locally produced olive oil and washed down with a variety of homegrown wines and liquors. Mayle and his wife journey to tiny villages to experience some of the top restaurants in France. In most of these very small family owned establishments, no menu is posted. The diner sits and eats what the chefs prepare. More often than not, the Mayles were already planning their trip back before the bill was paid. There is something very attractive about an area and culture that places food, its preparation and consumption, in such a central and exalted station.
Peter Mayle paints a very vivid picture of Provence with his characters and, yes, the region's food. My criticisms of the book are minor. I would have liked a little more context to his year in Provence. Perhaps a forward about how the decision to move had been made and what the fact finding trip was like before they finally pulled the trigger would have helped. While I was able to get through many of the French phrases in the book, it would have been nice to have had a glossary or perhaps footnotes to translate some of the more obscure verbiage. Mayle, obviously, quotes all his prices in francs. About halfway through the book I finally jumped online to look up the exchange rate in 1988 (approximately six francs to the dollar). Maybe in some future edition a note will be made of this in order to provide a little insight as to how much things cost while Mayle was living there.
The book has a nostalgic feel to it and I can't decide whether to attribute it to being set in an era right before cellphones and the Internet or the laidback lifestyle which Mayle describes. Since I finished A Year in Provence, I've resisted the temptation to plan my next vacation around this area. I'd be very disappointed to arrive there and find that Mayle's Provence has caught up with the rest of us.
David