Jean Giono: Le Moulin de Pologne (The Malediction)

The latest addition to my website is Jean Giono‘s Jean Giono: Le Moulin de Pologne (The Malediction). This is not the joyous Giono novel of his early years but, as the English title tells us, a novel about a curse. The Coste family lived in the Moulin de Pologne (Poland Mill), an estate rather than simply a mill. Mr Coste had lost his wife and two sons suddenly and unexpectedly and is determined his surviving daughters will marry men without any family history of disease or disaster. The matchmaker finds two brothers who meet his needs but the curse is still there and it strikes his daughters and their families and subsequent generations, till we get to the last survivor, Julie, a contemporary of the narrator. She seems somewhat unstable so everyone is surprised when she marries the rather gruff new owner of the Moulin de Pologne. They have a son and everything seems to be going well for the family but the curse of the Costes is still there. It is not a bad book but definitely grim and not, in my view, as good as his early work.

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