Provence [Paperback]

Lawrence Durrell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 3, 1994

Before Peter Mayle there was Lawrence Durrell, who for more than 30 years made Provence his home. In this, his last book, he distills the affection and understanding of half a lifetime, describing the rich culture and giving breath to the history that still invests the land. 39 color photos.

Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: Arcade Publishing (May 3, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1559702478
• ISBN-13: 978-1559702478
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,074,016 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Roman excursion..., June 6, 2000

By 

Dianne Foster "Di" (USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Provence (Paperback)

I read "Provence" by Lawrence Durrell before I stumbled onto more recent works by other authors. For my money, this is the book for arm chair and real travelers, and history buffs who are interested in Provence. Durrell lived there for over 30 years and his writing depicts a place he found filled with the spirits of past civilizations. His chapters cover a number of them, including the Greeks, Romans, and Medieval times.

The chapter I have remembered the longest is "The Story of Marius." Gaius Marius was one of the greatest generals Rome ever produced. He was married to Julius Caesar's aunt, and was responsible for "saving" Rome from northern invaders driven from their own homes by flood and famine. Marius' successor Sulla, tried to destroy his reputation by erasing many of his monuments, but Julius Caesar restored them when he came to power. Durrell takes you to visit a site in ancient Les Baux marked for an unknown event in Marius' life. Durrell says, "There is much else we might like to know about Marius which would bring him more fully to life in these pages, but history is never eloquent enough about her children.." (Coleen McCullogh writes great fiction about these times, see "The First Man in Rome.")

In spite of it's Roman past, Durrell finds Provence more Medieval than anything else. He says "Provence is a strange place..with withdrawn Protestant communities who live out a life of secret repudiation." He suggests a certain melancholy, a "deep introspective undertow" permeates the land.

Narbonne, Avignon, and Nimes are rich with Roman relics. Here one can see the Roman tombs with "funery stone of freedman's caps." When the noble Roman died, he freed some of his slaves to make himself eligible for the Afterworld. The cap symbolizing this freedom has come down through history in many forms including Robin Hood's peaked hat and in the various artistic renderings of Miss Liberty's head gear. The city of Marseilles is in Provence--from whence during the French Revolution came the serfs wearing the 'freedom' caps.

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Durrell's Swan Song, July 25, 2000

By 

Bruce Kendall "BEK" (Southern Pines, NC) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Provence (Paperback)

Lawrence Durrell did "go gently into that good night," and this book serves as a document to that peaceful passage. Like his novels, this book is a mixture of the poetic, the prosaic and especially the erotic motifs that preoccupied him throughout his literary career.

Like Mayles after him, Durrell had a deep afffection for the region and for the Provenceaux. Both Mayles and Durrell are great guides to take along on either a literal or imaginary excursion through the region. Mayles is the more humorous of the two and will keep you constantly entertained. Durrell will give you a clearer understanding of the Provencal history, telling you who built monuments such as the Pont du Gard and something about their effect on a visitor: "Yet there are surprises for us even here, for even a functional artefact like the Pont du Gard is so huge in conception that its magniloquence is the equal of Westminster Abbey. But we must remember that it was dedicated to water and water was a God. The best description of the Pont is by Rousseau. It took a great deal to shut a man like him up, but the emeregence of this mastadon from the featureless garrigues which house the spring that feeds it deprived him of coherent speech, so uncanny did it seem." This is an example of what distinguishes Durrell's book. He will take you to an oft-visited site and in a few strokes, with the occasional literary allusion thrown in for good measure, produce a vivid enough image that even before you travel to the site you will have a pretty good notion of what to expect.

The only part of the book I found distracting was the uneven quality of the poems that Durrell inserts throughout the narrative. Sometimes they work seamlessly, at other times they obtrude and sound more like literary exercises than spontaneous outbursts. In other words, imagine your tour guide sometimes breaking into melifluous song and other times whistling out of tune.

If you really want to know something about the history of the region, from an informed visitor (it was his home base for his last thirty years), by all means put this book on your list. If you want a more congenial look at the region and its highly colorful inhabitants, stick to Mayle.