A Year in Provence (Vintage Departures)

Paperback - 04 June, 1991 - Vintage
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By: Peter Mayle
ISBN: 0679731148

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About this book

Who hasn't dreamed, on a mundane Monday or frowzy Friday, of chucking it all in and packing off to the south of France? Provençal cookbooks and guidebooks entice with provocatively fresh salads and azure skies, but is it really all Côtes-du-Rhône and fleur-de-lis? Author Peter Mayle answers that question with wit, warmth, and wicked candor in A Year in Provence, the chronicle of his own foray into Provençal domesticity.

Beginning, appropriately enough, on New Year's Day with a divine luncheon in a quaint restaurant, Mayle sets the scene and pits his British sensibilities against it. "We had talked about it during the long gray winters and the damp green summers," he writes, "looked with an addict's longing at photographs of village markets and vineyards, dreamed of being woken up by the sun slanting through the bedroom window." He describes in loving detail the charming, 200-year-old farmhouse at the base of the Lubéron Mountains, its thick stone walls and well-tended vines, its wine cave and wells, its shade trees and swimming pool--its lack of central heating. Indeed, not 10 pages into the book, reality comes crashing into conflict with the idyll when the Mistral, that frigid wind that ravages the Rhône valley in winter, cracks the pipes, rips tiles from the roof, and tears a window from its hinges. And that's just January.

In prose that skips along lightly, Mayle records the highlights of each month, from the aberration of snow in February and the algae-filled swimming pool of March through the tourist invasions and unpredictable renovations of the summer months to a quiet Christmas alone. Throughout the book, he paints colorful portraits of his neighbors, the Provençaux grocers and butchers and farmers who amuse, confuse, and befuddle him at every turn. A Year in Provence is part memoir, part homeowner's manual, part travelogue, and all charming fun. --L.A. Smith

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Reviews by readers

A Hilarious Vicarious Journey to France

Englishman Peter Mayle and his wife realize what most of us could only dream about--life in the French countryside of Provence. Food and the hearty French life are the themes that run through this book as the Mayles undertake renovating their 200 year old farmhouse.

Season by season, Mayle infuses the local folk with wit and character, introducing the eccentric Massot who it seems is forever trying to sell his house to someone, Monsieur Menicucci the local plumber who plays clarinet to keep his fingers nimble during the cold season, stonemason Pierrot who lays stone floors as well as making tombstones, and a good array of other fascinating individuals. Discover how Mayle and his wife became the proprieters of a vineyard virtually overnight (weren't things supposed to take forever in Provence, Mayle thinks???), and how to properly prepare a meal of...Fox!

Throughout, food and drink are the ties which binds all together, beyond craft and culture. Or perhaps it is the ultimate craft that makes the culture. At any rate, a lovely fun book, much cheaper than a plane ticket or even renting a place in France. THIS is how to live!

Delicious reading, creme brulee for your head!

I read this book as a follow up to "Almost French" which I thoroughly enjoyed. I wanted more but that author hadn't written anything else (yet?) so I looked to the back cover where there were some recommendations. I am so glad I did!
I always read 2 or more books at one time, usually because I have required reading for my profession. The book became my dessert and I rewarded myself for all kinds of tough accomplishments (even some teeny weeny ones) with a chapter or 2. It went all too fast and I was sorry to have it end! Sometimes, it was so funny that I had to wake my husband up to read him a passage, while my sides were splitting (he laughed too!) If you like reading anything about the French culture, or even just European culture, you will probably enjoy this book.

A delightful travel book

An excellent story of a couple living out their dreams in the beautiful Rhone Valley of France. Mayle fills "A Year in Provence" with his own witty accounts of exursions to near by villages and remodeling a 200-year-old farm farmhouse. The couples daily life is described in great detail, highlighting their delectible French meals. A true joy from begining to end!

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