|
Translated from the French by Norman Glass
Long regarded as one of France’s most distinguished writers,
Jean Giono (1895—1970) produced one of his finest novels
in To the Slaughterhouse.
The book describes the effect of the First World War on a
small community in Provence in chilling detail. In some of
the most fiercely realistic and horrifying scenes of war ever
recreated in literature, Giono evokes the harsh, primitive
conditions in the trenches, as well as the loneliness and
anxiety experienced by those left at home. The gradual disintegration
of normal life and morals in areas far from the fighting grimly
parallels the wholesale destruction of men, land and animals
at the front.
‘One of the most terrible and moving novels of war
to have been written in our time.’ — Listener
‘Few books about the First World War have achieved a
sharper intensity.’ — Sunday Telegraph
‘Giono’s curious blend of mysticism and realism
becomes more and more potent.’ — James Fenton, New
Statesman
‘A rhapsody of the triumphant earth, sensuous as the
opening to The Rainbow , and as stark and exact from
the retina as yesterday.’ — Guardian
JEAN GIONO was born in the small Provençal town of Manosque where he also lived and died. Giono’s fictional Provence is an almost mythological place of harsh beauty and unforgiving people, a world away from the pastis, plane trees and boules evoked by his great friend Marcel Pagnol. Giono wrote more than thirty novels as well as many volumes of short stories, plays, poetry and essays as well as film scripts. Imprisoned at the beginning of the Second World War for his pacifist views, he was wrongly imprisoned again for collaboration at the war’s end. The author of the much-acclaimed The Man Who Planted Trees, he is now firmly established as among the most distinguished of French writers. |
