Customer Reviews

French Spirits: A House, a Village, and a Love Affair in Burgundy

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4 star:		(3)
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2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I just finished reading this book. I have never wriiten a review , but I do feel compelled to after reading some of the other reviews posted here. For me, this is a memoir, not a travel guide. I admire anyone who is willing to share his life experiences with me--I find it a most generous act. I feel like writing to the author to thank him for his book. He brought the area and the people to life for me. I am studying French; so the sentences in French (don't be alarmed, he supplies a translation just following) were fun for me to figure out. I liked learning about Henri IV's locks, and learning about the author's childhood. I love a good memoir--and particularly, one by someone who is not famous except in his own circle. I would encourage anyone who feels the same to buy, or borrow this book--and order "Eyewitness France" if you want a travel guide. This book is a lovely eyewitness to a man's life.

I have read just about every book on restoring homes in France and Italy. (Non, I'm not a voyeur or dreamer.... I have done something similar in SW France & wanted to check out others' experiences.) In my view, Jeffrey Greene's poetic and self-revealing (without being self-centered) memoir of his experiences with his neighbors (as well as his family members) and his presbytery is simply the best of the genre. He treats his new acquaintances in the Burgundy village in the same way he approaches his building restoration: with delicacy and good will.

Greene's vignettes (e.g., one can SEE the car secured with boards and covers by the village square and the woman who leaves it there)add up to a loving portrait of a place and a time. Greene is a poetic observer who gives us, his readers, a feeling -- and understanding -- for his world. Thank you!!!

This is the 5th book of it's type I've read in a row. You know the genre, Americans buy a home in ruins and fix it up. I'm a sucker for this kind of book. But the things I've learned from these books are: 1. You have to have bottomless pockets. 2. French government regulations are enough to drive me insane. 3. If I ever do buy a house in France, I will find one that someone else has already roofed, tiled, windowed, painted, landscaped etc etc etc! What a nightmare.

If you like this sort of book, this one is great because it's located in a different, less written about area of France. And it's every bit as good as Ann Barry's. I always thought Ann was a ninny sort of wimp that depended on the kindness of her neighbors way too much. At least Jeff Greene and his wife were more self reliant.

I just finished French Spirits and then read other reviews. It never occurred to me that the author was being a braggard. The story is full of real characters and the author's acceptance and appreciation of their quirks is obvious. My only complaint is that this swift read ends abruptly. There are implications that his mother does not continue to live with them in France, but we never learn what happens to her. Surely there is a sequel, but perhaps more life has to be lived before he will be ready to write it. I will certainly be waiting.

This book combines the best of both the travel AND memoir genre. The reviewers who found fault with this book have critiqued the book based on expectations that the book is exclusively a travel book or a "romance." The book should be evaluated on its own merits. What is described by one reviewer as "vanity" on the part of the author is a positive aspect to me; it's the very thing that elevates the book beyond the run-of-the-mill travel piece that rarely dares to delve beyond the superficial. It is also difficult to understand how a reader can expect a "romance" in the Gothic tradition; this is a book about a love affair that is real and mature and satisfying.

I admit it: I'm a sucker for a travelogue in the style of Peter Mayle or even Francis Mayes: a bit self-indulgent, but entertaining. If I cannot live abroad myself, reading "A
Year in Provence" or "Under the Tuscan Sky" is the next best thing. My delight in finding a new author in the genre was quickly dashed however.

This book is a vanity piece.

Why, you ask? Here's an example: the author, Jeffrey Greene, spends two chapters discussing his wedding under a pear tree in the remote village of Rogney, deep in the heart of Burgundy. Why is that vain? Because he goes to great lengths to tell us about all the folks from back home who had to fly over, the musical celebrity guests that felt compelled to perform, and how the "simple back yard wedding" turned into several days of celebration including an extended in a nearby chateau for all the guests. And all of this because everyone was so happy for him. His bride through all this is a bit player, by the way, which is a good thing as I don't think Greene, and his ego could legally marry a third person. Perhaps the most gratuitous bit a fluff in a book so filled with fluff that it could fill a pillow, is the vows at the wedding itself: the various friends that officiate quote Greene's own poems along with the standard liturgy, and CS Lewis.

When Greene is not talking about himself, he talks about the village drunk/idiot. Given the choice, I would rather spend time with the drunk than with the author.

When you write this sort of book, you are supposed to be an observer, not the topic, and this is why this book fails: Greene goes to France, and tells us nothing about the experience, only about himself.

I loved this book. It is not egotistical at all; it writes of an area less explored than Provence or Tuscany; and the author has a knack of bringing his characters alive; the house itself is so well described one feels one has walked through it. There was not a chapter I found dull, and I devoured it in a sitting. Greene doesn't laugh at the locals, or sneer at the imagined "quaintness" of Europe. You can't do better than this for travel narrative.

I am beginning my third reading of this memoir of creating a life and finding a world in Burgundy...and that should say how highly I think of Jeffrey Greene's writing. I feel as if I too moved to the old presbyterie with its hundreds of empty wine bottles left by the last, somewhat alcoholic priest/resident. The people and the place are so personally described. Love, life, leaky roofs and fascinating neighbors all wound together by a poet! We are fortunate readers!

It's not often that a poet buys a run-down presbytery in France and shares with his readers the total experience of adapting to a new way of life. In this book we meet the charming, eccentric villagers of Rogny; we relate to the frustrations that come with any renovation; and we share in the plans for the wedding that miraculously takes place amid the rubble of reconstruction. This book is beautifully and entertainingly written, and this reader hopes for a sequel.

"French Spirits" is a well-written and -researched nonfictional account of a sensitive and cautious American man making, together with his wife, a bold move: buying and restoring a presbytery -- "a ruin" -- in rural France. It's meticulously detailed and often joyous and witty with much local color splashed throughout. The characters range from a shifty-eyed furniture salesman who turns out to be on the up and up to the village drunk who comes across by turns as sage, outdoors man, construction consultant and clown ("Hokay! Hokay!"). An award-winning poet, Jeffrey Greene has a wonderful ear; every sentence rings true, which had me devouring his tome in just a few sittings. Moreover, he has a novelist's hand in achieving narrative drive. Just when I'd feel the twinges of a yawn, e.g., when his mother prepares to move in with him and his wife, he'd exceed the reader's -- this reader's -- expectations. His mother's a character! -- in every sense of the word, as is the architect with his repetition of shop worn English -- "at the end of the day." Lots of wonderful little character tags (Jeffrey, you'd write a great novel!). Having interviewed Jeffrey Greene in his Paris apartment for a magazine feature on expat writers living in Paris, I recall my ignorance of a certain word when he told me what his book was about. I didn't have the nerve to ask him what a presbytery was (I only knew it was related to church), and he had the sensitivity not to be condescending by volunteering a definition. On that note, the epigraph by Colette is a gem. Read this fine book.