Book Rec of the Day 3/5/2007

MEMOIRS

Marcel Pagnol was a filmmaker and writer living in Provence long before the likes of Peter Mayle discovered it. This book is his masterpiece, an autobiography of his childhood growing up in the hills of this idyllic region. It’s like life itself: sometimes funny, sometimes melancholy, but so real you can almost smell the lavender. Rapturous reading. (And the last paragraph is one of the most heartbreakingly poignant of all time.)

MY FATHER’S GLORY AND MY MOTHER’S CASTLE, by Marcel Pagnol (1957; North Point Press, 1986)