In 1991 author Peter Maye’s book A Year in Provence was published and was a huge success. It spawned a plethora of books about buying ruined houses in picturesque parts of Europe and doing them up, dining well and adapting to village life.
This year there’s a new book in that genre, but one with a delightful literary angle added to the story. Letter from Provence: A Memoir is by Australian author and journalist Sheryle Bagwell and is about the purchase made by her and her husband Michael in a Provencal village called Rabasse. Shortly after moving in, Sheryle finds a bi-lingual edition of the letters of Madame de Sévigné, starts to read the letters and also learns that the Chateau de Grignan where the letter-writer’s daughter lived was very nearby.
Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, Madame de Sévigné (1626 – 1696), was a 17th century woman living in the time of Louis XIV. She adored her daughter Françoise who married the Count de Grignan and moved with him to his chateau in the south. Her mother remained mainly in Paris, writing almost daily to her daughter and telling her all the gossip and latest news.
Madame de Sévigné has been accused by critics of being overly obsessive about her daughter, and sadly Françoise’s replies have not survived, but it’s clear that she did sometimes grow annoyed by her mother’s advice and strictures. Last year, I lectured on Madame de Sévigné at the State Library of NSW, and loved learning more about her as I prepared for the lecture. Her letters were influential (Proust, Somerset Maugham, and Virginia Woolf are just some of those she influenced), and she was an acute and highly entertaining correspondent. Sheryle Bagwell’s book includes many delightful quotes from the letters.
Madame visited her daughter three times. It was a mammoth journey then, taking three weeks (today the trip is closer to three hours on the TGV). She died at Grignan at the age of 70 and her granddaughter arranged for publication of the letters.
Letter from Provence is a really nice mix – personal memoir with the problems of adjusting to French village life when you are Australian, challenges with tradesmen (à la Peter Mayle), food and local customs, and some history, but all blended with observations on Madame de Sévigné. Sheryle lost her own mother to cancer when still young, and the gap this made in her life gives her added insights into Madame’s relationship with her daughter. My own adored mother died when she was only 57 – not a day goes by that I don’t miss her, so I was able to bring my own sense of loss and what I have learned from losing a parent so early to my reading of this book.
This is a thoroughly enjoyable read which will introduce you to a great French writer in an intriguingly oblique way. My thanks to Helena, who, after hearing my lecture, was inspired to read this book and who so kindly sent me a copy.
Have you lived in a different country? What challenges did you have settling in? Tell me here in a comment.
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