A Year in Provence

Rating:
Summary: Delightful!
Review: This book was a joy to read. First of all, I found Peter Mayle's writing style to be charming and amiable. While keeping the story light and humorous (the book has many very funny parts) the author gives a reader a chance to learn something new. When he described anything from cuisine to Provence locals I found myself either salivating while reading "food paragraphs" or I felt that I met all the characters myself. That's how good the author is with words. Good book and what a great vacation from all other modern fiction books.

Rating:
Summary: Mixed feelings about an entertaining book
Review: Nothing would be easier than adding another 5-star review of A YEAR IN PROVENCE. It is a hard book not to like, but seldom have I finished a book with such ambivalent feelings. A classically casual armchair travel book, A YEAR IN PROVENCE goes down easy like a fine wine, requiring nothing of its readers except a brief swirl around the mind before swallowing. The story is light-hearted, the writing breezy and funny, the food delectable, the local citizenry picaresque, the scenery pastoral, the wine earthy, the weather alternately wonderful and dreadful. A year of domestic calamities come and go, resolved with the gravitas of a TV sitcom. All ends well in each episode, with everyone smiling and bellies full.

Peter Mayle's A YEAR IN PROVENCE is filled with amusing anecdotes and gentle humor. He evokes the Provence countryside effectively, particularly the effects of climate and season on local temperaments and pace of life. Yet throughout this book, I repeatedly felt a sense of carefully-disguised, or perhaps inadvertant, distance. Mayle reveals little of himself and even less of his wife, who remains oddly nameless, faceless, and personality-less for the duration of the book.

More disturbing are the locals, the Provencals. Each comes across as something of a caricature, a French version of Normal Rockwell's characters, or maybe a French version of the old comedy show Green Acres. There's Faustin, the tenant farmer, always expecting the worst, and Menicucci, the plumber extraordinaire, bigger than life and full of small philosophies, and Massot, the local crank and German-hater. And Christian the architect, Didier the mason, Ramon the plasterer, and Jean-Pierre the carpet layer. Mayle's world isn't populated by people with lives, just role players in the theater of the author's own life, bit parts to Mayle's Everyman, named according to their professions.

Even the secondary characters are presented this way. The men are all salts of the earth, the women all earth mothers. Every chef and baker is a dedicated but understated master, every craftsman an artist who would rather eat, every English visitor a clown or a boor, every Parisian an effete snob, every St. Tropez beachgoer an SPF-slicked fool. And above it all, mildly bemused, sits Peter Mayle, the only non-Provencal to have discovered the truth about life, olive oil, wine, goat cheese, wine, French bread, wine, mushrooms, truffles, and wine.

A YEAR IN PROVENCE is an upscale, clean-hands-and-shoes view of Provence for readers enthralled by Michelin ratings, truffles, finding the perfect wine for each occasion, or discovering the ultimate olive oil. This is not life in Provence, it's a year's vacation in a French country house with a pool in back and money to spend on whatever moves you.

I finished the book feeling as stuffed full of Provencal food and wine as a local at lunchtime, but I was far less sure I had learned what makes a Provencal tick. Seven lines from the end, Mayle writes: "It had been a self-absorbed year..." I couldn't have summarized the book any better myself.

Three stars for an entertaining but disappointingly superficial book.

Rating:
Summary: Monsieur Mayle, tu es un tresor!
Review: This is a truly enjoyable book of memoirs from Peter and Annie Mayle's first year in Provence. As others before me, I felt immediately compelled to pack my suitcase and set out on my own adventure in Provence! This book provides an intimate look into their experiences in day-to-day living in this lovely region in France, and it is nothing but either pure enchantment or true comedy from the quirky Provencaux to their former English countrymen. Written with dry British wit, it is very accessible and augmented throughout with French phrases that can be understood contextually for those who are not familiar with the French language. I highly recommend this book for francophiles, anglophiles, and any who are interested in starting a new adventure in a foreign country!

Rating:
Summary: FUN!
Review: Fun AND FUNNY! It was like going on vacation... with someone else's money! :-)

Rating:
Summary: funny and delightful
Review: In A Year in Provence, Peter Mayle descibes his and his wife's first year living in Provence as British expatriats. The book is divided into twelve chapters, one for each month, and takes us through the Mayles adjusting to life in France and getting their old farmhouse renovated. Mayle writes with self-deprecating wit and genuine pleasure for his new home. He is clearly bemused and captivated by his new friends. For example, before the cherry harvest (his land has 30 cherry trees), natives warn him repeatedly of the coming migrant "gypsies" who officially come to harvest the cherries but also have a habit of thievery. The stories are so overblown, that Mayle can't wait to meet these horrible gypsies; the results are hilarious. He and his wife also learn to contend with the Mistral, a harsh wind coming from Siberia, which their plumber informs them is getting stronger year by year, which can only mean that somewhere between Provence and Siberia the earth is getting flatter. In addition to all the home repairs are descriptions of excellent meals in perfect little restaurants around Provence. All is written with breezy good humor and infectious delight for both Provence and the Provenceaux.

Rating:
Summary: Worth a read
Review: An account of one man's move to Provence and his first year there. The book deals with mundane issues - building a house, meeting neighbors, and eating - but it is well written and successfully interests the reader in the small details of his life.