Blog Nº 57
“Rain they take as a personal affront, shaking their heads and commiserating with each other in the cafés, looking with profound suspicion at the sky as though a plague of locusts is about to descend, and picking their way with distaste through the puddles on the pavement.”
I confess that I have not read many memoirs, let alone travel themed ones, but after reading A Year In Provence I can see why it has a reputation for revolutionising this kind of writing and accidentally creating a new genre. Once an exclusively high-brow preserve, Peter Maybe brought travel writing to the reading public and A Year in Provence remains one of the most successful travel books of all time.
The book follows the author as he and his wife up sticks from London and move to the village of Menerbes in the south of France in the late eighties. Mayle said that he had intended to write a novel upon moving but got so distracted by the ways of the Provencaux that he couldn’t help but write about that instead. Set out in chapters following the months of the year, we experience Peter and his wife navigating all sorts, everything underpinned by amusing and unexpected cultural differences. The cuisine and meals out, work on the couple’s house, garden and vineyard, grappling with strange local customs and a strong local dialect, wanted and unwanted guests, truffle hunting, goat races and coming to terms with the infuriating complexity of French bureaucracy all feature in this year of learning curves and growing pains.
While I don’t envy some of the more challenging experiences in A Year in Provence I couldn’t help but wish I could teleport to Provence every time I opened the book. In many ways Mayle perfectly captures the idyllic quality of French rural life. The sense of community and the kindness of the locals, the beautiful surroundings and the exceptional gastronomy to name a few. Mayle writes with incredible wit, making me smile with delight or even laugh out loud on several occasions.
Written 35 years ago, it is interesting to compare the experience of expats then and now. Though they only moved across the channel, they may as well have moved to a new world. No internet or mobile phones to help with translating, navigation or pre-departure regional research. No FaceTime to see home anytime you want. Reading A Year In Provence as a borderline millenial/Gen Z-er, I know that if I moved somewhere with an unfamiliar culture and language it would never be such full immersion as experienced by the Mayles due to the advancements of technology in an increasingly connected world. In this sense, the book represents a precious snapshot in time.
A Year In Provence did so well that it even became a bestseller in France, following some initial resistance. Mayle continued to write about his life in Provence, having to move away for a few years just to escape the hordes of tourists coming to Menerbes to seek him out. He even wrote a novel partly inspired by his own memoir in 2004 called A Good Year, which was subsequently made into a film starring Russell Crowe and Marion Cotillard. As we head into winter here in England, I highly recommend A Year in Provence as a suitable escape to the idylls of southern France.
Happy reading,
Imo x
ImoReads 