Customer Reviews

Encore Provence: New Adventures in the South of France

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

I loved his first book, but this one seems less fresh or maybe it is me, the reader, that brings a less fresh response. Still I found enjoyment in many descriptions of local characters or delightful meals. Other passages dragged a little, dwelling on insider stories that I couldn't always follow.

The first Provence book captivated. This one merely reports.

"Encore" is the third of Mayle's Provence books, and he's definitely running out of material. This book is much more a collection of essays than "Toujours," and indeed Mayle might be better off publishing similar future work this way. I can envision the chapters of this book appearing as articles in The New Yorker, but I found a whole book a little tedious. Some chapters are fascinating still--I particularly liked "How to Be a Nose," about a school for the blind that trains students to work in the perfume industry, or the chapter on olive oil, "Discovering Oil." Much less interesting is the chapter on the NY restaurant critic, which turns into a guidebook on special shops to buy gourmet items. Mayle is also quite defensive about the criticism he's received that his books have turned the region into a tourist destination, and his final chapter maintains all is as before "A Year in Provence." Maybe true, for a wealthy British writer before real estate prices soared!

I read this on my trip to Provance. I loved his first two books, but this time, I felt as though he was just trying to fill a third book. Still he is a great story telleer and some of them were really great!...I also read while there,and would reccommend, Running in Place: Scenes from the South of France by Nicholas Delbanco.

Another success in non-fiction, "Encore Provence" is agile and amusing (aren't all of Mayle's works?). The author takes a bit of an off-the-path route in Encore, opting to focus more on tourist attractions and eating establishments, rather than chronicling his actual experiences with Provençal life. The book ventures beyond the confines of Provence and into the surrounding areas. Suffice it to say, it is more of a lavish tourist guide and less of a novel.

Granted, it makes very agreeable reading. In my humble opinion, however, "Encore" doesn't reach the brilliant apex of Mayle's previous two masterpieces: "A Year in Provence", and "Toujour Provence", both of which I found equally enjoying. Regrettably, "Encore" definitely lacks the pinnace of its predecessors.

Nonetheless, it's redeeming qualities are still evident in it's many entertaining anecdotes, and it's indisputably informative pages when it came to "touristy" points of interest (to those who long to know the *real* Provence).

Once again reading Peter Mayle is the next best thing to actually being there. Most of the book covers brand new territory in the South of France including the perfect corkscrew, an olfactory lesson, and the joys of olive oil, while also revisiting many of his favorite topics including the wonder of truffles and of course the wine and food.In fact my only slight beef with the book is his need to revisit some topics already covered in previous books, but it's so slight it hardly detracts from the overall joy the book manages to evoke.

There is, as several readers have indicated, some falling-off in <Encore> when compared with Mayle's ealier effort, <A Year in Provence>. Sequels normally do suffer in comparison to orignals, no matter the genre. The characters, with the possible exception of the freeloading Marius, lack the color of those in the earlier work. The artisans, shopkeepers and workmen are much more generic in this edition, serving more as background characters than humorous and dimensional figures that provided much of the charm of <A Year>.

Minor quibbles aside, however, Mayle is still an excellent travelling companion. His works lend themselves especially well to audio tape. His vignettes and anecdotes are invariably interesting and he is ever the amusing raconteur. David Case also does an excellent job filling in for Mayle. It is as if he himself has experienced the events Mayle describes. He has obviously spent a great deal of time in France, as his French pronunciation is impeccable and his delivery of a French accent is priceless. He has a great knack for pulling the listener into the scene being described.

If you are planning a long car trip this summer, whether to Yellowstone or through Provence, I'd suggest you bring Mayle and Case along. They provide the sort of blithe, light fare that serve to alleviate road-boredom. They definitely helped this listener during a recent five-hour journey through the hell of the Maryland-Virginia beltway. It definitely beats Gopnick's PARIS TO THE MOON, in the same genre.
BEK

Mayle covers Provence again with a third book. This is, I think, the weakest of the three, if only because Mayle is starting to run out of anecdotes. There are some priceless ones in here, most notably the one about the handsome young butcher who increases the meat on the table for every married man in town, but this is more of a travelogue and a description rather than a first-person recounting. It's the weaker for that.

Mayle also complains about the ever-increasing tourist traffic in August while never bothering to consider whether he bears any responsibility for this. He does face down his accusers over the issue of whether he has helped "spoil" Provence and comes up with some good counter-arguments. He also verbally eviscerates a writer for the New York Times who writes an article claiming that Mayle's Provence exists only in his imagination. That chapter has a darker tone than most of his other writings, though it's not surprising that someone with Mayle's gift for the clever phrase is so capable of sharply-worded sarcasm.

On the production side, David Case's almost-too-perfect accent, verging onto the snobbish to this American's ears, is toned down to a more conversational tone, which suits Mayle well. My version of the cassettes were produced by Random House, which has none of the handy enhancements provided with the previous books by Books-On-Tape. I am thinking particularly of the friendly reminder that one has reached the end of a tape or the side thereof, which Books-On-Tape is very good about. Here only an abrupt silence is provided to give one a clue to flip over or change.

I am a big fan of Peter Mayle's writings on this brilliant region of Southern France. As a backpacker a couple of years ago, I travelled through France extensively, and have a special fondness for Provence.

In Mayle's two previous books, A Year in Provence and Toujours Provence, he captured the essence of the characters and geography of the region beautifully. The reader was captivated by the author's ability to make the smallest occurrence an interesting event. I personally felt that Mayle did an excellent job of describing the cast of characters and their insights into French rural life.

Encore Provence does not have the same level of character development and I feel that this is a weakness in the book. I found that in some cases, well known characters from the previous books are either mentioned in passing or totally re-introduced to the reader. This lack of consistency is annoying.

One other gripe with the book is Mayle's constant reference to America (No offence to American readers intended). Obviously, this has been done to give a reference point to American readers and is also related to the fact that the author had just returned from the USA, but the cynic in me feels this was also done to boost American sales of the book.

Overall though, Encore Provence, is well written and contains enough of the amusing stories and observations that fans and Francophiles alike will enjoy.

Not as good as the first book, "A Year in Provence." The charm that covered every page of the original is spread much too thinly in this one. The stories about local people and their unique culture are rare in "Encore." Nonetheless, it's a handy and amusing travel guide for someone planning a visit to the region.