Reading...
Sep. 26th, 2009 08:06 amLast night I finished a sweet little book, French Dirt: The Story of a Garden in the South of France, by Richard Goodman (of whom I'd never heard). It's about a year he spent in a tiny French village learning about gardening and Provençal life in an out of the way place full of interesting characters and history.
The book is a real departure from my usual reading fare of forensics and detectives and murder and mayhem, and the interlude was fascinating.
More than gardening, more than living in France, more than simply traveling abroad, Goodman introduces the reader to people and places with subtle nuances that dangle like prisms in the French countryside. The author respects the 211 inhabitants of St. Sebastien de Caisson with a sweet and sometimes poignant reverence.
Unless one is a lover of gardens and gardening, the book could be considered boring. Goodman spends paragraph after paragraph describing the clay French soil, the intense summer sun and the austere life in the small village. But his love of the people and experiences raises the level of interest...especially since his original plan had nothing to do with gardening.
This morning has been spent wishing such an opportunity would present itself to me. I think I'd take it. :D
The book is a real departure from my usual reading fare of forensics and detectives and murder and mayhem, and the interlude was fascinating.
More than gardening, more than living in France, more than simply traveling abroad, Goodman introduces the reader to people and places with subtle nuances that dangle like prisms in the French countryside. The author respects the 211 inhabitants of St. Sebastien de Caisson with a sweet and sometimes poignant reverence.
Unless one is a lover of gardens and gardening, the book could be considered boring. Goodman spends paragraph after paragraph describing the clay French soil, the intense summer sun and the austere life in the small village. But his love of the people and experiences raises the level of interest...especially since his original plan had nothing to do with gardening.
This morning has been spent wishing such an opportunity would present itself to me. I think I'd take it. :D