2008-05-21 not quite what it seems

I must admit I was seduced by the wonderful cover photo of Mont-Saint-Michel, and the title which suggests a romantic travel book, where the local peculiarities are grounded in the authors knowledge of local history - something like a H.V.Morton's Traveller in Italy for today (and for France).

What you actually get is a social history of the provincial French peasantry from 1780 to 1880. I now find out that the American edition has a sub-title very like this, but not a sign of it on my copy, or on Amazon-UK. However, it is well written and so not as dull as that sounds, in fact it is good to read, and interesting in a rather vague way - paints pictures rather then pushing a thesis.

The only way it is 'heavy' is the 400 good-size pages, 100 of which are notes & index, etc. It seems rather to have fallen between two purposes; clearly designed to be academic, as shown by the exhaustive referencing; yet aimed at the general reader who might have been better served if the many years of extensive traveling were brought to the fore, to ground the knowledge in the country we find today. And a fiercer editor might help - not that it is long winded, but I feel the same picture of France could have been painted in half the words. Starting with 50 pages on how dismal life was in rural France 100 years ago does not make for the easiest start to the book.

But I am not sorry I persevered, it is a good book, now that I have got used to the sort of book it is.