A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle

How often do you get the question:  Read any good books lately???  Your mind spins. Your face blanches. Have I read any GOOD books?  Repeating the question buys you time. The qualifier takes your spinning head and begs you to reconsider ignorance vs bliss.

You quickly excuse yourself to rush home to count table napkins.  Meanwhile, you’re thinking one of two things.  Number one:  Were the books I read any good? Or Number two:  Did I forget to read…let’s see, hummmm, have I read anything for the past thirty-six years? Does the Anthology of Little Known Mathematical Equations count?  Or, the video version of The Joy of Sex?

I’ve got a book that will solve your dilemma and make you say with pride and a gleaming smile, I read! A book!  It’s good!  Immediately, in the minds of your insufferably judgmental friends, you will no longer be thought of as just a leaf raker, a calloused thumbed TV lounger, or a swiller of screw-top wine.  You’re an intelluelle, an inter-something…..you're a really smart guy!

So, what’s the book?  A Year In Provence, by Peter Mayle and yep it’s been around since 1989, but some things don’t change.  The entire misunderstandable country of France and the funny way they talk. The quirky ways of the French through the eyes of an outsider.  The dry, rib-wracking, understated Brit humor.  The fun and foibles of visiting a foreign culture versus living there without benefit of room service.

You can’t mention France without starting the food conversation, especially in comparison to English fare.  To paraphrase the French opinion: It is well known the English kill their veal twice.  Once when they slaughter the animal and again when they cook it.

What is it about French food that captures and enchants us? Mayle and his missus soon learn during an evening with the neighbors.

“We had entire breasts, entire legs, covered in a dark savory gravy and surrounded by mushrooms.

We sat back, thankful that we had been able to finish, and watched with something close to panic, as plates were wiped clean yet again and a huge steaming casserole was placed on the table.”  He goes on to describe the rest of the almost never-ending, yet entirely sumptuous meal.  “That night we ate for England.”

But, this book is more than a description of the French table and the country’s undying passion for food. Mayle takes us through the settling-in, and from season to season, beginning with the hazards of buying a car in a country that prides itself on its inefficient bureaucracy.

And how about house repairs and overcoming the natural suspicions of the natives.  How about truffle hunting?

“During the season, from November until March they can be tracked down by nose…the supreme truffle detector is the pig, who is born with a fondness for the taste and whose sense of smell in this case is superior to the dog’s.  But there is a snag:  the pig is not content to wag his tail and point…He wants to eat it.  In fact he is desperate to eat it…and you cannot reason with a pig on the brink of gastronomic ecstasy.”

Or how about a discussion of house insurance?

“One reason, apart from idleness, why we had neglected the matter of insurance was that we detested insurance companies, with their weasel words and evasions and extenuating circumstances, and their conditional clauses set in miniscule, illegible type.  But Bernard was right…we resigned ourselves to spending the afternoon with a gray man in a suit who would tell us to put a lock on the refrigerator.”

Yes, the joy of this book is not only the unabridged humor that echoes off nearly every page, but the sense of being there, of living and breathing in Provence for an entire year, month by month, season by season, through high expectations and convoluted results.

Yes, you will say with certainty, I have not read a better book in a long, long time.

So, your former friend asks, have you been to Provence?  Oh, screw you!  I told you I read the book!!!!