My father and I are huge Peter Mayle fans, and we travelled through Provence using his books practically as a guide. I picked up this book, set in the same region, to get a perspective from a Provencal writer about life in that golden sunlight. This couldn't be more different from Peter Mayle's accounts in the Provencal sun, peopled by quirky locals.
Giono's Provence is a difficult place to live in, with people's lives, and fortunes, driven entirely by weather conditions, where making it through the years is a struggle. Rivalries are never forgotten, and are passed on from one generation to another. In one particularly powerful paragraph, Giono writes that Sartre had no place here, only the language of the gun. Getting by is so hard, that it leaves no space in the human heart for kindness, or empathy, or even morality. There's some lyrical writing about the landscape, both its harshness and its beauty, but in Giono's Provence, a sunny day doesn't inspire you to paint, it inspires you to hunt.
I'm really glad I read this book, it's short, but thought-provoking. If I had known, however, that the quaint picturesque little towns of Uzes and Sault held such dark passions, I might have thought twice about visiting!!

Reading this novel feels like you've just bought a ticket for a ride at an amusement park, when you're not quite sure if you want to go on this ride at all, but you get on anyway, because your friend says it's going to be so much fun, and at some point during the ride you know your friend was sorely mistaken, because you're well on your way to a vertiginous and unpleasant and embarrassing outcome if the ride doesn't end soon, but then the ride does end. and you think: wow, that was incredible, and get back in line for another turn.

The French title of this book is Ennemonde and Other Characters, and I really think the publisher and author of this new translation should have stuck to that, as it gives of better idea of the novel, which is really an overview of a peasant community in the Camargue, even though, admittedly, Ennemonde herself is the most prominent person to be featured. There’s also a second narrative which appears without warning towards the end, and it took me a while to realise that it’s not actually connected to the main story. An introduction wouldn’t have gone amiss either. Perhaps the publisher should take note. Be that as it may, I didn’t enjoy this. There are some vivid and evocative descriptions of the natural world and the countryside, but the characters in general are so eccentric as to be caricatures, and Ennemonde herself equally so. I couldn’t relate to them, and became bored with the descriptions of the land and peasant life. Jean Giono is a much acclaimed French writer but I don’t think this short work will attract many new readers.

I really enjoyed the bulk of this classic novella, the characters of Ennemonde and her family members coming to life in Giono's simple yet stylistic prose. The story was a relatively basic one - not much of a story, in the end, with several unfinished plotlines - but was told well and kept me interested, for the most part.
That being said, there were certain unnecessary passages that felt like a waste and made the story drag, particularly the entire final section which seemed completely unnecessary. These ruined the more prosaic and beautiful sections, making it a more difficult read. The translation, however, was excellently done.

This is a pretty story told in the manner of an ancient storyteller. For some reason it reminds me of the narrator in the Don Camillo stories, albeit taking place in a remote region of France and not about a priest in Northern Italy.
Apart from the very poetic descriptions of French landscapes, it is full of concierge gossip: who went with whom, which ancient family feud has erupted again, who received which nickname and for what reason. An intimate peek into these remote villages, their eccentric characters and way of life.
And then, when you’ve almost given up, in comes bigger-than-life Ennemonde, emerging from a loveless marriage, having borne 13 children and suddenly, suddenly discovering love and passion. I did like her story, but, sadly, at about 75%, the book starts to waffle. Too many place names and too many characters make this a slow read.