Jean Giono: Un roi sans divertissement [A King Without Distraction]

The latest addition to my website is Jean Giono‘s Un roi sans divertissement [A King Without Distraction]. The title comes from a quote by Pascal and is the last sentence of the book. This was Giono’s first book published after World War II, when he had been imprisoned for both pacifism (at the beginning) and possible collaboration (after liberation). It is a change in style for him – less lyrical, darker, more humour and. mockery and set well in the past (1843-1848). It is still set in a remote village in the South of France and tells of the hunt for a mysterious man who is murdering some of the locals, followed by a wolf hunt and concluding with the man leading the man-hunt and wolf-hunt, Langlois, trying to settle down with his new wife. While still a fine book, I did not enjoy it as much as his earlier ones. It has been translated into eight languages but not English.

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