Customer Reviews

A Gift from Brittany

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Marjorie Price paints as skillfully with words as with watercolors and oils. The Breton village in which she spent the early years of her married life, and her life as an artist, is made present in a series of vividly sketched images: a sudden, violent summer storm in the fields of new-mown hay; the tide receding from a rocky shore; a black-clad Breton woman gathering mussels in her knotted apron. The people in her life, including the brilliant artist husband whose dark side gradually emerges, are captured in quick, deft strokes, and her own journey to self-awareness as an artist is beautifully integrated with the rest of the story. Most of all, however, this is a story of friendship--of the author's enduring friendship with the remarkable Jeanne Montrelay, and of the richness of a bond between two women who have nothing in common except greatness of heart.

When you wake up at 5 in the morning to continue reading, you know that the book has pulled you in! Written with both passion and restraint, the book resonates with the reader throughout. You cannot help but connect with this remarkable woman as she experiences life, love, loss and, most of all, friendship. It takes place in Paris and in Brittany, but really appllies anywhere because of its honesty and spirit. It is a DON'T-MISS book!

In 1960 twenty-eight year old Marjorie Price did a daring and brave thing. She bought a ticket on a transatlantic ship to Paris, third class. Alone. Her family and friends (who call her Midge) are shocked and dismayed. Young ladies just don't DO that in 1960. But Midge is determined. She is an artist, a painter, and Paris is where artists are nurtured, taught, inspired.

Of course, she meets a man. Fellow artist, and native Frenchman, Yves sweeps Midge off her feet and they are soon married. They are very happy together and have a beautiful daughter, Danielle. After a couple of years they begin looking for a summer place. A little cottage in the country by the sea where they can escape the bustle of Paris and paint in peace.

Yves finds a place he says is perfect. An ancient farm house and other buildings that make up half of a tiny hamlet in Brittany. Spartan and without any modern conveniences, it is far from what Midge had in mind. But he is insistent and she is forced into the purchase of La Salle.

At first living conditions are rough but the place works its charm and they begin to fix it up. Midge meets her neighbors, among them Jeanne, a peasant woman nearing seventy who lives in a cottage with no running water or plumbing, has never ridden in a car, eaten in a restaurant, watched television, talked on the telephone, or even been farther than a few miles from her home.

Over the next few years, Yves' personality begins to change radically. As her marriage disintegrates, Jeanne becomes the closest friend that Midge has ever known, they form a bond of friendship that transcends their differences in culture, age or language.

I loved this book. It is a wonderful, loving tribute to a special woman who was the product of a dying way of life. Even during the years she lived at La Salle, Midge saw beautiful old stone farms being bulldozed to make room for pre-fab houses. The peasant life the Jeanne endured is completely gone now. While the country life may seem like an idyll, the author makes clear that Jeanne's life was one filled with back breaking labor and a paucity of sentiment.

This is a story that is at once heartwarming and heartbreaking. Here is a peek at a European way of life that endured for centuries and then completely died out in a few decades. It is one of the best memoirs that I have ever read and I highly recommend it. It would be an excellent choice for book clubs.

A Gift from Brittany is tagged as "A memoir of love and loss in the French Countryside." Although that is true, I do not think that the book is best described as such. This book is best classified as a (late blooming) coming-of-age memoir in the French Countryside.Midge, a young artist in 1960, starts on a journey towards self-discovery the minute she lands in France. This journey is put on hold abruptly after her arrival, due to meeting and marrying an exciting and promising artist, the self-proclaimed "genius" Yves. Over the next few years Midge slowly and somewhat reluctantly begins to sacrifice bits of herself and her art for the sake of her husband and marital happiness.
One such sacrifice is the purchase of half a hamlet in Brittany. Now a mother and dutiful wife, Midge tries to make a home out of the aged stone structures among strangers. The going is rough, and Yves relegates Midge to the task of finishing the dwelling while he devotes his time to "his art." An unlikely friendship between Midge and Jeanne, a traditional and illiterate French peasant woman, proves the saving grace for Midge. With Jeanne's guidance and nurturing friendship Midge eventually learns to trust herself despite her difficult circumstances and begins to once again take control of her life, returning to art and making peace with her past.
The last portion of the book is a sweet homage to Jeanne and the friendship that so sustained Midge.
My favorite exchange between Midge and Jeanne occurs after Yves forbids Midge to paint and Jeanne gives her permission to hide her art in Jeanne's stable:
"'We'll put them in a box on the shelf with the chickens. They'll be safe there.' She put down her knitting and frowned. 'But painting pictures is what you do. Didn't you once tell me you always did it, even when you were little?'
'I can't remember when I didn't paint. But he feels too strongly about it.'
'It's not right. No one ought to clip the wings off a bird.'"

What a delight! This book gets my vote for the perfect summer read! I think it would make a wonderful movie as well.
I was captivated from beginning to end by the adventurous life of this talented author.

Looking back five decades ago, Marjorie Price's memoir, "A Gift from Brittany", transports us to a time and place with a vivid immediacy as if the events had occurred just last month. The author writes of the primitive landscape and people of northwestern France - Brittany - in the 1960s, before trains and travel upended a way of life that existed for centuries. But the book is no anthropological survey. A personal journey, "A Gift from Brittany" opens a window on the close friendship between Jeanne Montrelay, a self-described peasant of the Morbihan region of Brittany, and the author. Though opposites in almost every way, the two develop a kind of bond that most of us are lucky to experience once or twice in our lives. The facts of the story - mental illness, betrayal and home renovations that make Martha Stewart's most challenging projects look like a walk in the park - are all the more compelling when set against the backdrop of the author's indomitable drive and determination to become an independent, working artist well before the Women's Movement had opened so many, new doors. Readers who have enjoyed "A Year in Provence" and "Under the Tuscan Sky" will find in "A Gift from Brittany" a new, compelling voice, providing a personal time machine to a rugged, rapidly disappearing part of France during a formative and fascinating period in the author's life.

A Gift from Brittany is a wonderful gift to the reader. Its descriptions of land and sea, drawn with a precision and sensitivity that reflect the fact that the author is also a painter, go beyond the merely picturesque to the level of poetry. Portraying a France that has largely disappeared, the author, Marjorie Price, has given us a rare look into a bygone era and a way of life peopled by characters she portrays with empathy and exactitude, allowing them to maintain their uniqueness and dignity. She never insults them by depicting them as quaint or as caricatures of French peasantry.

Side by side with her description of a place at once beautiful and harsh, Ms. Price has created a memoir narrating not only her experience living among the people of the village of LsSalle with her husband and young child and the adventure of turning a broken down half a hamlet into a home and studio for their art. She also tells the story of her friendship with her 65-year-old neighbor, Jeanne. The fact that Jeanne never learned to read does not stand in the way of the bond that develops between the two women, nor does it impede the life lessons that Jeanne imparts to the author.

Not least of the book's achievements is the overriding story of Ms. Price's evolution from idealistic art student in love with both France and the artist who becomes her husband to mature artist loyal to her craft no matter what, and a strong, independent woman who weathers the gradual dissolution of her marriage in the face of her husband's unacceptable and violent demands. She narrates her account with candor and simplicity, never descending to the sensationalistic.

A terrific double memoir of a place and a person, this book is a joy to read!

This is a very good read, as others have mentioned.

The book is a memoir of the author's journey alone to Paris to live as a painter, her marriage that eventually falls apart, and her friendship with an older Breton woman from whom she learns self-reliance and wisdom as she learns how to live in the peasant Breton countryside and watches the older way of life gradually change. These changes are seen through the eyes of the author's Breton friends, especially the older Breton woman mentioned above. It has about the level of drama that you would expect from a memoir of this type: mostly the unfolding of a personal self-understanding.

The one thing I missed was more specifics about the Breton way of life. That didn't take away from my enjoyment of the book; it is just a note for people who might be looking for the same thing from the title.

I feel as if my life has been enriched by meeting the wonderful characters in this book and for having had the opportunity to spend some time with them in La Salle. The story is poignant, and the women are inspirational. Marjorie Price has a beautiful way of seeing and describing people, places and emotions. I was reluctant to finish it because I didn't want it to end but it will remain forever in my memory.

I highly recommend this book.

"Demat, the breton word for "bonjour". I am truly overwhelmed by the beauty and message of this timeless book. Having visited Morbihan just twice, it is my imaginary home---the idyllic place I adore, think about constantly, strive to visit again and see everyday in my waking thoughts. Brittany is a place of unimaginable beauty with such a rich heritage (patrimoine). I could visualize every image through your words. I saw the Golfe du Morbihan dancing and sparkling in the distance, the gentle rolling hills, the ancient stone circles, the neolithic menhirs, dolmens and cairns scattered here and there, as if tossed to us by a past civilization with a message yet undeciphered, the rocky and sea glass strewn beaches, the charming islands of Île aux Moines and Île d'Arz and Belle-Île-en-Mer--a mere point on the horizon shrouded in fog and mystery from our viewpoint on the Côte Sauvage (wild coast) where we, too, walked the customs paths which dropped precipitously to the foamy sea below. I didn't want to finish your book because I didn't want the visions and the dream of living there to end! How lucky you are to have lived in Brittany in another time when life was so much simpler. The Breton people intrigue me and draw me in. I wish I could have met and known Jeanne Montrelay. I felt her spirit and her love for the land and her small circle of life. Your words will ensure that Jeanne will live on forever, in your heart and in the hearts of all who met her through your words. Thank you so much for this amazing story. I will never forget it and will read it many times. The people and places are timeless. It's as if time stopped, even while I was devouring every word, looking forward to the next chapter and yet dreading its inevitable end which brought me to tears. Thank you so much for sharing this treasure with us. Mille fois merci! Vive la Bretagne et les Bretons! Kenavo. Au revoir.

Cheryl Shaw
Guilford, Connecticut