French Review reveiws A Literary Guide to Providence
French Review
On the front cover of this compact guide, a bright sunflower field in St-Remy transports us to the sunny and beautiful southeast of France. Vitaglione tempts us with luscious descriptions of culinary fares and captures distinctive mores and traditions, the style of Provençal dress, the character and idiosyncrasies of the people, their deserved or stereotyped fame. Moreover, he offers a fascinating writer's view of Provence. Once an independent kingdom, Provence has enthralled and inspired centuries of artists from the troubadours to contemporary artists. Van Cogh, Cezanne, Cauguin, Mistral, Daudet, Pagnol, Giono, Flaubert, Sand, Zola, Camus, Cocteau, Simone de Beauvoir, Katherine Mansfield, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Virginia Woolf, Willa Cather, Robert Louis Stevenson, Edith Wharton, Samuel Beckett, Nietzsche, Chekhov, to name but a few, fell under its spell.
Marseille native Daniel Vitaglione has canvassed the passionate responses to Provence by these famous visitors and Provençal or French writers from the Avigon of Frederic Mistral to Colette's Saint-Tropez. Vitaglione¿s itinerary presents some surprises: the birthplace of Nostradamus whose propheties (1555) still puzzle modern scholars and the ruins of libertine Marquis de Sade's childhood castle where the boy, escaping the supervision of his uncle, a Petrarch scholar of dubious morals, played in the mysterious underground galleries. A Literary Guide to Provence encompasses a thousand years of history and literature entwined with fifteen detailed maps, thirty-five black-and-white photographs, and forty-one color images, portraits of writers, their birthplaces or local abodes.
Each of the five chapters provides us with a town-by-town tour of literary historical sites based on three distinct geographic areas: in the North, the Alps; in the West and South, the alluvial plain of the Rhone River; all along the coast, the mild Mediterranean Sea with famous harbor towns. Marseille is a world onto itself; fashionable St. Tropez attracts the jet set, Nice and its Promenade des Anglais reminds us of glorious times past, Cannes remains world famous for its annual International Film Festival. A detour finds us in an abandoned monastery outside of Saint-Tropez where Guy de Maupassant dialogued with an elderly couple who had been in hiding since their youthful elopement, thus giving us a sense of the historical import and a touch of mystery. Each chapter is followed by practical information for the prospective traveler. Included are rubrics about best time to visit, current tourist information, what to see, where to stay, what to eat, telephone numbers, addresses and faxes, e-mail's and Web sites. For transportation, Vitaglione provides detailed information regarding airports, trains, car travel, roads and toll roads, maps, parking, and bicycles, along with cultural information about festivals - and celebrations in various towns with approximate dates.
He adds some background on the region's local patois and a detailed history of the literary renaissance movement led by Maillane's favorite son and Nobel Prize in literature winner, Frederic Mistral (1830-1914). Mistral organized a renaissance movement, the Felibrige. to restore Provençal according to its traditions and national characteristics, and encouraged others to follow in his footsteps.
Many talented poets rallied to his cause-Daudet, Mathieu, Roumanille, Au-banel, Giera, and several women such as Reine Garde, Rose-Anais Roumanille, Marie d'Arbaud, Hortense Rolland, Antoinette Riviere from Beaucaire, and La-zarine Negre from Manosque. Today Provençal is still spoken in remote villages among the older population.
A table of contents in the front of the book allows travelers to refer at a glance to the city, village, town or landmark they wish to visit. An index of names in the back helps readers find quick references if they wish to revisit artists and critics who came to love and live in this garden spot of France. This ideal companion for armchair tourists offers much intellectual stimulation and pleasure combined with precious practical information. In short, it should become a vade mecum for any traveler and entice touring readers to discover la belle Provence.
French Review
