This section contains 525 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) |
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SOURCE: "All That Sunshine," in The Times Literary Supplement, No. 4595, April 26, 1991, p. 21.
Thorpe is an educator, Whitbread Prize-winning poet, playwright, and short story writer who was born in Paris. Below, he offers a negative review of Toujours Provence.
These anecdotes [in Toujours Provence] from Peter Mayle's bucolic exile purport to continue where A Year in Provence left off. A former advertising copywriter, Mayle has a sure eye for the marketable product. Title is all-important: Caesar's Vast Ghost might do for Lawrence Durrell, but not for the sales pitch. Brits salivate at the thought of doing up a property. Add hedonism, sunlight, all those elements denied on a rain-swept northern island, and you have a runaway bestseller on your hands. A Year in Provence implies the sabbatical, not exile. Toujours Provence says here is more of the same, and it will always be there anyway. The first book won...
This section contains 525 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) |
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