Product Description

In Jean de Florette and Manon of the Springs, Marcel Pagnol (called by Andre Malraux "one of the great writers of our generation" and by Jean Renoir "the leading film artist of his age") achieve the fullest and most satisfying expression of a story that haunted him for years, a Provencal legend of vengeance exacted by a mysterious sheperdess. Pagnol brings to his treatment of this powerful, moving story his dramatist's sense of place, ambience, and character and his keen understanding of the Provencal countryside and its people. Rich with twists and ramifications, Jean de Florette and Manon of the Springs sets an idealistic city man against two secretive and deceitful Provencal country men in a superbly realized story of a struggle for life, of crime and punishment, of betrayal and revenge, and of judgment and forgiveness. In this edition, illustrated with images from the acclaimed film adaptation by Claude Berri, North Point presents Pagnol's enduring story in W.E. van Heyningen's exact and sensitive translation.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #161248 in Books
• Published on: 1988-03-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Playwright, filmmaker and novelist Pagnol (1895-1974) affectionately celebrated his native Provence along with the shrewdness and comic foibles of the folk. Jean Cadoret is a hunchback of charm and intelligence who comes from town to settle on his inherited estate where he plans to farm scientifically. His wife Aimee, a former small-time opera singer, and adoring little daughter Manon work by his side. But the jealous Soubeyransthe local patriarch Cesar and his nephew, the clownish Ugolincraftily plug up a spring on Jean's farm and wait for him to fail. When a cruel summer drought drives Jean to despair and eventually death, the Soubeyrans buy his land cheaply and divert the water for their own lucrative carnation farm. In the sequel, Manon appears as a picturesque goat-girl/dryad, scampering over the rocks in cast-off opera gear and playing her pipes. She avenges her parents and falls in love. The end brings astonishing revelations. Pagnol depicts his villagers as post-Roman pagans whose "natural brutality" shows through their Christian veneer. As in the author's earlier naturalist novels, the landscape and the willful spring are forces molding human fates. Those who offend nature, here lushly described, pay a penalty. There are eight pages of photos (not seen by PW), from the recently released films, which follow the novels closely.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
The recent success of two French films based on Pagnol's two-part novel will no doubt guarantee a ready-made audience for this book. But its appearance for the first time in English is an event in itself. With sweeping strokes Pagnol creates Greek tragedy in the hillsides north of Marseilles, hills teeming with wild game, fragrant with fig and almond trees, but only fitfully fed by underground streams. It is the search for precious water to irrigate his crops that drives the hunchbacked idealist Jean de Florette to his death. In Manon , the tables turn, and Jean's daughter redeems her father's wasted life while she wreaks vengeance on his enemies. The charm of Pagnol's work lies in his love for the peasants of his native Provence. Lisa Mullenneaux, Iowa City
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: French

Customer Reviews

Masterful, rich, rewarding
(The two novels read as one, the second simply taking up--with no exposition--where the first leaves off.) One of the best books I've read in the last decade. Simple, charming, and often very funny, but also poignant, moving, characterized by profound human understanding, generating surprising emotional power, and rising to the haunting grandeur of genuine tragedy. The sharp, insightful portrayals of the leading Provence peasant characters are unforgettably vivid and "right," thoroughly convincing, and the evocations of their lives and speech and the countryside through which they move could only have been written by a true countryman. A magnificent achievement and a great read. Don't miss this under-rated classic of modern French literature.

As poignant as any trilogy of ancient Grecian tragedy
This story runs as inevitable Grecian tragedy building on the prideful ignorance of Jean, the main character. He does not know of the spring which was blocked and concealed by the neighbor who desires not only his land to grow chrysthanthemums upon, but one day when she blooms, his daughter Manon. With the conspiracy of friends, this covetous neighbor blocks the spring which would bring life and fertility to the farm. Jean tries everything including tragically dynamite to bring the waters to flow with abundant life.

When all is too late we discover unknown family ties which would have made Jean not a rejected outsider intruding upon and rejected by this enclosed and impoverished mountain farming community but embraced as a lost son. The inevitable development and tragedy of these two films together is as stately as as horrifying as a trilogy of ancient Greek plays, as profound and as universal. Watch them carefully and rivers of understanding will wash you with renewed humanity.

Immensely enjoyable
I bought this book after I had seen the films. The stories are full of wonderful character- isations, and the writing is disarmingly concise. The details from the films are fleshed out, as is to be expected, and a whole little world comes to life. I enjoyed this book and these stories immensely. Highly recommended.