A book full of lyrical prose, a blurry romantic look at France, and a large heaping serving of sex. I liked it!
The writing in this book is especially beautiful – written in the third person (usually) from the point of view of an (ostensibly) older man staying in a small town in France ruminating about the romantic life of a younger man discovering love with a local woman. As you can see, there is a lot going on here, and sometimes the reader is at a loss to figure out who is saying what, and what is imagined and what is truly observed.
The writing about France is especially well done – you can get the feel of visiting these places and have the sense of time passing languidly in the heat of the summer sun.
There’s plenty of sex in this book – unapologetic and handled in a way that isn’t lurid or gratuitous. It is not something that you could cut out – it is critical to the story – but it must have been pretty shocking when people first read it back in the late 60’s.
I enjoyed reading this book – I think the story (and how it ended) will stay with me for a long time. I’d like to read books like this that use a country (or a city) as a main character like this one did.
Next I’m reading See You in the Piazza by Frances Mayes.
