Many, many people were thrilled by the exploits of one Elzear Bouffier, a shepherd in the mountainous country of Provence in France, whose life task was in wandering the bare spaces of those high areas, planting acorns and other seeds, but chiefly acorns, and whose work was crowned by the flourishing of a society which had been more or less moribund. Depleted villages came to life, streams flowed as a result of the local climate changes brought about by the woods which grew and, after a life of such good works the old shepherd died content in the hospice of Banon.
Jean Giono told the story in The Man Who Planted Trees. And it reads utterly convincingly. But when editors sent investigators to the area for more detail, Giono had to admit that it was, of course a fable. It is a lovely fable and may, anyway, have stimulated many a forestry project. Jean Giono (1895-1970) was one of France's leading writers, according to Andre Malraux. Henry Miller said of him: "Giono gives us the world we live in, a world of dream, passion and reality." There is plenty of passion and reality in another Giono book published in English in London this year by Harvill Press, a neat, dignified paperback with woodcut illustrations.
It is Second Harvest, a translation of Giono's 1930 Regain which might also be translated as Renewal. For the basic theme again is of a village inhabited by only five people, later only one man the hero or main figure Panturle, which comes to life again. Life is not merely hard, it is basic, cruel, savage almost. Panturle lives on animals he traps and some potatoes. "Water and potatoes were at one and the same time soup, stew and bread for him." Eventually, when he finds a woman to live with him, his great achievement is to raise wheat and so have bread. One of his fellow-villagers, who soon vanishes "hunted in her own way. She went for sparrows. She boiled some old oats, some rue leaves and thorn-apple and then strewed the mixture in front of her door. The sparrows ate then and died on the spot. Before cooking she removed the gizzards, cut them open with old scissors and emptied the grain onto a paper to use again." Panturle helped out by giving her pieces of hare, thrushes and sometimes whole small rabbits.
There are also lovely lyrical touches "the wild purr of the juniper bushes" and the stream is almost a character on its own. A bit rough and bloody at times for children, perhaps. But life was hard in rural France, as we read in books by sociologists and historians. Now back to trees. Don't forget An Gum's edition An Fear a Chuireadh Crainn. Y.