La gloire de mon père, Souvenirs d'enfance

Souvenirs d'enfance #1

by Marcel Pagnol, Livre de poche (Editor)

Unas vacaciones memorables en la Provenza, un día de caza y sucesos extraordinarios marcan el paso de la niñez a la adolescencia de Marcel. Los cuadros y escenas de La Gloria de mi Padre componen el primero de cuatro volúmenes de los Recuerdos de la Infancia del cineasta y escritor francés Marcel Pagnol (1895-1974). Pagnol fue un cuentista, un inventor de historias, un fabricante de sueños.

Genres: France, Classics, Fiction, French Literature, Roman, Novels, Literature

380 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1957

About the author

Marcel Pagnol was a French novelist, playwright, and filmmaker. In 1946, he became the first filmmaker elected to the Académie Française.

Reviews

[Orsodimondo · Rating 3 out of 5]

MARCEL DI TARASCONA


Dal romanzo di Pagnol, “Jean de Florette”, il remake del film a suo tempo diretto dallo stesso Pagnol, questa volta da Claude Berri nel 1986, adattato dal regista insieme a Gérard Brach, con Yves Montand, Gérard Depardieu, Daniel Auteuil.

Il dato autobiografico è apparente, Pagnol è narratore (e regista) abituato a colorire più che colorare.
Il titolo è fuorviante (e purtroppo solo al titolo si deve se questo libro è capitato tra le mie mani): la figura del padre è presente come quella della madre, del fratellino, dello zio e di altri personaggi, non certo più dominante o centrale di altri.

Perché, al centro, senza intenzione di cedere campo, c’è il piccolo Marcel, otto anni, lo stesso autore da piccolo più altri bambini della letteratura: visto e animato ahimé attraverso gli occhi e le parole di un sessantenne che appesantisce il racconto, rende falso artefatto costruito improbabile fastidioso quello che dovrebbe essere fresco ingenuo spontaneo infantile. Il punto di vista del bambino è deformato e reso strabico dallo sguardo di Pagnol adulto e anziano.


”Manon delle sorgenti” (1986) è il seguito di “Jean de Florette”, romanzo di Pagnol, anche questa volta diretto da Berri, che firma l’adattamento insieme a Gérard Brach. Con Yves Montand, Daniel Auteuil, la allora ventitreenne Emmanuelle Béart, ben prima di massacrarsi la bocca con interventi ritenuti estetici (a memoria direi dieci anni prima).

Per fortuna, altro elemento fondamentale della storia, è il paesaggio, l’ambientazione: siamo in una Provenza arcadica che riconosco e amo e godo, con i suoi profumi, la sua luce, le sue rocce, le infinite gradazioni di verde, i colori del vino…


”Manon des Sources” diretto da Pagnol nel 1952.

Il sole di Provenza, il sole del Mezzogiorno finisce per trasformare ogni cosa, e per far parere ogni cosa più grande del naturale. Vedrete le collinette provenzali, non molto più alte delle cime di Montmartre, che vi appariranno come montagne, e le casette quadrate di Nîmes, soprammobili deliziosissimi, vi sembreranno grandi come Notre- Dame.
Parole di Alphonse Daudet, autore molto amato da Pagnol.

Con quel sole, sotto quella luce, a chi può importare della verità?


”Topaze”, con Fernandel, film che Marcel Pagnol scrisse e diresse due volte, una prima volta nel 1936, e questa nel 1951.

[Kalliope · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recently I discovered what one can do with Google Maps. I used to use it just for looking up places and find my whereabouts. The satellite mode and the homunculus are also fun. But what I love doing now is customise My Maps and keep track of places I have been or want to go. For each recent trip I am now keeping track of the restaurants or shops or less well known places that I visited. I know that no matter how vivid my experience was, with time I will forget the names of the bars, the hotels, the monuments....

Even for the town I live in now, I am keeping My Tapas & Restaurants Google Map, flagging those that have been recommended to me by various people or magazines, so that in improvised outings or in the evenings after the theatre, I can pull out My Map and try out one of those suggested restaurants.

For my recent journey to Provence, we were going to visit so many places, small and bigger towns, museums, Roman ruins, restaurants, that to keep track of the busy agenda, and what were we doing each day, I created My Provence Map. So, there I marked Van Gogh’s hospital and yellow café, or Picasso’s mural of Peace, or Cézanne’s studio, or the prehistoric caves, or Matisse Rosary Chapel, the illuminated quarry in Les Baux, and the town where the gypsies celebrate their annual festival.

When opening this novel and reading the first pages, I immediately realized the importance of the places where the story takes place, literally. La gloire de mon père is the first volume of a tetralogy in which Marcel Pagnol remembers his childhood and youth. Those memories are entrenched in the Aubagne region as much as in his mind and in the pages he has written, and so I proceeded to signal them in My Provence: Cassis, St Loup, La Ciotat, and The Garlaban mountain, which tops this review, and with which Pagnol begins his tale – even though I would not visit them, with the exception of the Sainte-Victoire mountain. In the pages they became as real as the places on which I was walking, so they also belonged to My Provence.





This was not the first time I read the book. As I had tackled it in my youth, during a summer, since Summers were for reading French. During the recent reading then I began to mix Pagnol’s childhood memories with my own, and realise that various epochs intermingled – Pagnol’s youth happened much before mine, but mine was happening during his adulthood close to the time he wrote the tetralogy.

I use to think of this series as early samples of what we now call YA literature, and have given them to the girl of a friend of mine not long ago. But in this second reading I no longer conceive of them as particularly fit for youth. No, they are for adults with a nostalgic past.

For this is a glorious read. The sweetness and the humour are balanced and condensed as if in a flask one could bottle the fragrance of fresh lavender plunged into the brightness of a joyful sky. For the recollection of past memories, and filial love, retains the ingeniousness of childhood with the clarity of a clairvoyant adult.

My reading continues with the following volumes.

[Tea Jovanović · Rating 5 out of 5]

Prvi od dva autobiografska romana, koji odlično opisuju jedno vreme, jednu porodicu... roman o odrastanju... i opet, sjajno ekranizovan...

[Gabrielle (Reading Rampage) · Rating 5 out of 5]

2022

Ça fait bien longtemps que je n’avais pas relu les livres de Pagnol, ce qui me paraît presque étrange, étant donné que ce sont mes livres préférés. Point. Le printemps est lent à s’installer cette année, et je repense beaucoup au voyage à Marseille fait il y a quelques années, à cette époque de l’année, justement, et à sa magnifique lumière et aux bruits enjouées de la ville. Il fait encore un peu froid pour prendre un pastis sur le balcon en relisant « La gloire de mon père », alors je suis restée à l’intérieur avec un café, mais cela n’enlève rien à ce livre si bien écrit, si drôle et si touchant, qui ne manque jamais de me rappeler non seulement la ville cosmopolite et majestueuse décrite par Marcel, mais aussi ma découverte que chaque livre est un petit univers entre deux couvertures, et un trésor à chérir.


2015

Cette série de livres sont probablement ceux que je chéri le plus. J’étais une petite fille solitaire et bouquineuse, et la première fois que j’ai lu les souvernirs d’enfance de Marcel Pagnol (je devais avoir environ 6 ans), c’est comme si une fenêtre avait été ouverte dans ma tête et j’ai réalisé que les livres sont bien plus que de jolies histoires. On peut faire d’un langage quelque chose magique, évoquer des sentiments incroyables et faire voyager les sens dans des endroits lointains que l’on n’aurait jamais imaginés. Ces livres sont de menus trésors de par leur propre mérites, mais ils m’ont aussi ouvert l’esprit et transformé mon amour des livres en grande passion, et ont bien mérités leur position à la tête de ma liste de recommandations absolues.

« La gloire de mon père » et « Le Château de ma mère » sont magnifiques à tous les âges. Quand je les relis, j’y trouve différentes significations et des nouvelles petites histoires cachées dans un texte que je connais presque par cœur. J’y voyais des histoires de promenades dans les collines, de cigales et d’expéditions de chasse… Maintenant que je suis plus vieille, je vois les liens entre Marcel et ses parents et sa famille d’une autre façon, et ces romans en ont acquis un nouveau lustre de beauté et de significations.

En faire le résumé en disant « un homme se souvient de ses jeunes années et décrit son expérience de grandir dans la Provence du début du XXème siècle » de rend aucune justice à ce livre lumineux. Ces histoires nous rappellent ce que c’est de voir le monde avec des yeux d’enfant, que les choses simples peuvent être remplies de joie et qu’il faut dire aux gens qui nous sont chers qu’on les aime tous les jours.

J’ai lu ces livres de nombreuses fois, j’ai cherché une traduction anglaise pour que mon mari (qui ne parle pas très bien français) puisse les lire et comprendre ce qu’ils signifient pour moi. Je l’ai même emmené avec moi à Marseille, puis en pèlerinage au cimetière de La Treille, ou Pagnol repose, parce que je voulais voir de me propres yeux la ville et les paysages dont j’ai lu les descriptions toute ma vie. C’est à ce point que j’aime ces livres et les recommande à tous.

---

2022

It has been a long time since I have paid Pagnol’s books a visit, which is almost odd, as they still are my favorite books. Ever. Spring is really dragging its heels this year, and I keep thinking about my trip to Marseille a few years ago, right around this time of the year, and about it’s beautiful light and cheerful city noises. It’s still a bit too cold to have a pastis on the balcony while reading “My Father’s Glory” so I stayed inside with a coffee, but the book remains superbly-written, funny and moving, and it still took me back not just to Marcel’s gorgeous and boisterous city, but also to my discovery that books were little worlds between two covers and that they were priceless treasures.


2015

This series of books are probably my most cherished books. I was a solitary, very bookish child, but the first time I read Marcel Pagnol’s childhood memoirs (I think I was about 6), they cracked my mind open and made me realize that books were so much more than just pretty stories. You can make language do wonderful things, evoke incredible feelings and make your senses travel in very faraway places you would have never imagined. Those books are little treasures in and of themselves, but as they also opened my mind and turned my love for books into a burning passion, they have earned a spot at the top of my “you absolutely should read this” list.

“My father’s glory” and “My mother’s castle” are wonderful at any age. As I re-read them, I find different meanings and different stories to a text I almost know by heart. I used to see stories of playing in the hills, catching cicadas, and going on hunting trips… Now that I am older, I see Marcel’s relationship with his parents and family in a whole new way, and the novels have acquired a new level of beauty and meaning .

The synopsis of “a man recalls his younger years and describes growing up and coming of age in turn-of-the-century Provence” doesn’t do this luminous book any justice. These stories will remind you what it was like to see the world through a child’s eyes, that there is so much joy to be found in the simple things and that you should tell the people you care for that you love them every day.

I have read those books in French (many time), then in English, to vet the translation (which isn’t bad, but as a friend once said “These books are worth learning to read French for”; chew on that!), as I wanted my non-French-speaking boyfriend to read them and understand what they meant to me. I also dragged him to Marseille, and to the tiny cemetery of La Treille where Pagnol is buried, because I wanted to see with my own eyes the city and landscapes I had been reading about my whole life. That is how much I love these books and how strongly I recommended them to everyone.

[Steve]

Marcel Pagnol (1895-1974)


In 1957 the playwright, cinéaste and film producer Marcel Pagnol published what he called in the Avant-propos his first piece of prose (aside from quelques modestes essais), La gloire de mon père (The Glory of My Father), which opened a tetralogy of memoirs from his childhood and youth - Souvenirs d'enfance - to a well justified popularity. Though Pagnol had been elected to the Académie française in 1946, this charming text is the opposite of the stuffy and studiously serious memoir one might expect from an Académicien.

With loving detail and somewhat exaggerated effect Pagnol recreates life and family in the Provence early in the 20th century - Aubagne, Saint-Loup, Marseille - a life I still saw traces of when I lived in Aix-en-Provence and Marseille in the 80's. I can best give you a sense of this amused, slightly hyperbolic style with a tout petit example in which he describes his little brother, Paul:

...on le voyait tout à coup s'avancer, titubant, les bras écartés, la figure violette. Il était en train de mourir suffoqué.

Ma mère affolée frappait dans son dos, enfonçait un doigt dans sa gorge, ou le secouait en le tenant par les talons, comme fit jadis la mère d'Achille.

Alors dans un râle affreux, il expulsait une grosse olive noire, un noyau de pêche, ou une longue lanière de lard.

Après quoi, il reprenait ses jeux solitaires, accroupi comme un gros crapaud.(*)

A trip to a junk shop becomes an elaborate adventure and generator of reader's chuckles, which effects are soon totally eclipsed by those of a féerique removal to a summer vacation villa in the Provençal countryside full of ancient olive, almond and apricot trees, wild herbs and the buzz of countless cicadas. Indeed, the tone of much of the book is that of an accomplished raconteur entertaining friends gathered around a few bottles of wine with tales of people and places all present know well and love, deliberately told in a manner to widen the eyes of the children at hand. I recommend that you pour a glass and edge into the circle of listeners yourself.


(*) ...one saw him suddenly advance, staggering, arms outstretched, face violet. He was in the process of choking to death. My panic-stricken mother pounded on his back, stuck a finger down his throat or shook him upside down by his heels as once did Achilles' mother. Then with a horrible groan he expelled a large black olive, a peach pit or a long lanyard of lard. After which he resumed his solitary games squatting like a great toad.





Mont Ventoux

[Kay · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read this in French. Pagnol's descriptions of Provence were calming and lovely, and it makes me wish I could just pack up and go on a hunting trip to Provence. Plot-wise, the novel presents an interesting view on growing up and the changing perceptions of parents that results with age. However, I didn't feel very connected with young Marcel, though I could generally relate to his experiences.

I may read it again in English, and perhaps my rating will change. Until then, 2.5 stars.

[Angela]

Je viens de finir ce livre et je l’adore. Tout le monde doit lire ce roman. J’aime plus particulièrement le passage avec la bonne derrière la porte lorsque l’oncle Jules et Joseph essayent le fusil : « Est-ce que je peux sortir, maintenant ? » C’était très marrant. Mon copain m’a acheté « La Château de me Mère » pour noël donc je vais le commencer tout de suite.

[Joselito Honestly and Brilliantly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes you only have to observe a family during one of the many occasions that they're complete and interacting with each other to know what their past was, what they are today and what they will be in the future. Autobiographical works start with childhood and this is no exception. What makes it unique, however, is that instead of the common natural progression in the narration from birth onwards Marcel Pagnol simply placed here, as the centerpiece, an amusing family legend--something his father did during one hunting trip which had been the talk of the town for a long time.

My first Pagnol which put me on alert for more volumes with his name during my bargain hunts for books.

[عبدالله اليعقوبي · Rating 3 out of 5]

Je l'ai lu et j'ai regardé aussi le film,
un roman marrant , pour le gosse c'est la gloire de son père et pour moi c'étais la gloire de réussir l'examen du français du première année baccalauréat .
L'épreuve contenait un extrait de ce roman.

[Ines · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ce livre, est un rayon de soleil qui rentre dans votre coeur et qui n'en ressort jamais.

"Ce que j’écoutais, ce que je guettais, c’était les mots : car j’avais la passion des mots ; en secret, sur un petit carnet, j’en faisais une collection, comme d’autres font pour les timbres.
J’adorais grenade, fumée, bourru, vermoulu et surtout manivelle : et je me les répétais souvent, quand j’étais seul, pour le plaisir de les entendre.
Or, dans les discours de l’oncle, il y en avait de tout nouveaux, et qui étaient délicieux : damasquiné, florilège, filigrane, ou grandioses : archiépiscopal, plénipotentiaire.
Lorsque sur le fleuve de son discours, je voyais passer ces vaisseaux à trois ponts, je levais la main et je demandais des explications, qu’il ne me refusait jamais. C’est là que j’ai compris pour la première fois que les mots qui ont un son noble contiennent toujours de belles images."

"Le lecteur - je veux dire le vrai lecteur- est presque toujours un ami.
Il est allé choisir le livre, il l'a emporté sous son bras, il l'a invité chez lui.
Il va le lire en silence, installé dans le coin qu'il aime, entouré de son décor familier.
Il va le lire seul, et ne supportera pas qu'une autre personne vienne lire par-dessus son épaule. Il est sans doute en robe de chambre ou en pyjama, sa pipe à la main : sa bonne foi est entière.

Cela ne veut pas dire qu'il aimera le livre : il va peut-être, à la trentième page, hausser les épaules, il va peut-être dire avec humeur : " Je me demande pourquoi on imprime de pareilles sottises!"

[Stephen Durrant · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pagnol’s “La gloire de mon pere” is delicious from beginning to end. It is a story of the loss of innocence, but one with a gentle, human touch that will keep a smile on your face. After discovering his own idealized father’s feet of clay appear, young Marcel, the narrator, loves him all the more (216). And, after finishing the book, there is the fun of the 1990 Yves Robert movie, which is, except for a segment toward the end, a faithful reproduction of the book. Now, a word about the French for those of you, like me, who still struggle with this language: the major difficulty with reading this in French is the richness of the vocabulary, especially the vocabulary for the material world. Pagnol’s beloved Aubagne is described in rich detail, so that many of the names of plants and animals will send you scurrying to a dictionary . . . necessarily a very large dictionary! In another chapter, Uncle Jules and Marcel’s father Joseph prepare their hunting expedition, so be prepared for a barrage of vocabulary about guns, shells, and various articles of the hunter’s garb and other chapters concern similar activities and technical details. But the story sweeps one along, and a restless foreign language reader like me can just say to himself, I won’t worry too much about what this particular bird or plant or object really is, because often once you know the English equivalent, you still might be as baffled as you were by the French word anyway. At any rate, I see much, much more Pagnol in my readerly future!

[Bea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chaleureux !
Et je ne savais pas qu'il y aurait tant d'humour dans ce livre.
Et quelle jolie surprise quand j'ai appris ce que signifie le titre. C'est tellement le Sud...

[Euletha · Rating 5 out of 5]

after i saw the movie, i knew i had to get the book! breathtaking views of french land, mountains and countryside.

there's something to be said about a young boy's admiration for his father. through a little boys eyes, no matter what a father does, even the smallest things he does can be regarded as worthy of a golden prize. innocent, clever, funny, and touching - you begin to understand reasons why his family (his father, in particular) is so special. gives you food for thought as to what makes us, individually and as families, so unique.

[Ana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Acho que este foi o livro que li este ano de que mais gostei. Transporta-nos para o ambiente (início do séc. XX, em França) fazendo-nos sentir que estamos ali, e combina um tipo de humor muito particular com a ternura das memórias de infância. Um excerto:
"Comme les enfants viennent trop tard pour faire l'éducation des parents, il faut respecter leurs incurables manies, et ne jamais les chagriner."

[Mariangel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lo que más me ha gustado fue la descripción de las colinas y de su miedo a perderse cuando Marcel sigue en secreto a su padre y a su tío en su primera salida de caza, y la alegría cuando les encuentra precisamente en el momento en que su padre consigue sus primeras piezas, que son dos aves muy difíciles de cazar.

[Rosalie Tnrx · Rating 4 out of 5]

Écouté sur Audible, la version lue par Marcel Pagnol en personne, je vous recommande !

[Mathilde · Rating 4 out of 5]

Je m’attendais a rien mais c’était vraiment super 🥹


4,5
Prompt: à book that matches the current season

[Frumenty · Rating 4 out of 5]

La gloire de mon père / Marcel Pagnol (Souvenirs d'enfance 1)
Le chateau de ma mère / Marcel Pagnol (Souvenirs d'enfance 2)

These two little books are a memoir of the author's childhood, in an age and a society that were perhaps swept away forever by the Great War. Much of what takes place in the books is confined to a period of little more than a year that apparently marked Pagnol's tastes and character for life. There is an idyllic quality about the books, and much that is humorous, to both of which factors I suppose they owe their immense popularity. Pagnol has made it quite explicit that the books were intended for children, but like all the best children's books they can be read with pleasure by adults too.

The location is Marseille and its wild mountainous hinterland. The young Marcel's father is both product and representative of French republican schooling, a teacher with a sacred mission to warn French children of the three great enemies of the people: clergy, monarchy and alcohol. The books are peopled with simple folk to whom a humble schoolteacher is a learned man. Pagnol's little family is a microcosm of French society, with his father Joseph advocating for the ideals of the Revolution and his uncle Jules the pious and more worldly Roman Catholic. The wives must be ever vigilant in steering their husbands away from the shoals of ideological conflict. The two men are united in their love of family and of hunting, and the passion for hunting and trapping is the mainspring of the books' interest but also, I think, what dates them; the wholesale slaughter of small animals must make the modern reader wonder, while nobody in the books ever gives the matter a thought.

The climactic event of La gloire de mon père is the transformation of Joseph from tyro shooter to legendary hunter who has brought down two rare and highly prized «bartavelles», in two successive shots and on the first day of his first season. Le chateau de ma mère continues the same glorious summer with Marcel's encounter with a new friend, Lili, the son of a carter and a great repository of local knowledge. The boys' days of running wild together in the scrubby hills have the charm of many a children's book of daytime adventure rounded out with evenings of hot meals, maternal love and warm beds. Sadly it must end and the city families must return to Marseille to begin a new school year. The latter half of Le chateau de ma mère is a tale of cramming at school while longing to return to this Eden in the rocky hills, and of a potentially disastrous misadventure on the way back. Two short final chapters wind up the narrative in such a summary fashion that is difficult to imagine how Pagnol managed to add another two volumes of memoirs to the series; and I have decided that the two I have read are quite satisfactory as they are so I will read no more for now. I have other books to read in French.

As a memoir of youth these do not compare well with Simone de Beauvoir's Mémoire d'une jeune fille rangée. They lack the gravitas and the spirit of rigorous enquiry of that book. They are written to amuse children, in particular, and they are an affectionate tribute to his parents, but that is all. But as children's books they are very good. Three stars or four? I think four.

[Ronny De Schepper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Toen ik in de jaren zestig op vakantie ging in Monieux, in het huis dat nu bewoond wordt door Stef Hertmans, vond ik daar een boekje van Marcel Pagnol, "Le temps des secrets" als ik me goed herinner (ik moet hem eens vragen of hij ook de inboedel heeft overgenomen en of "Le temps des secrets" er dan nog bij was). En het wàs inderdaad een "temps des secrets" want ik was in die tijd tot over mijn oren verliefd op een meisje uit Marseille dat daar ook jaarlijks haar vakantie kwam doorbrengen. En juist nu ik (met veel plezier) "La gloire de mon père" aan het lezen ben van diezelfde auteur, die eveneens uit de Provence afkomstig is, heeft iemand met dezelfde naam mijn vriendschapsverzoek op FB bevestigd. Of het echt over datzelfde meisje gaat, valt natuurlijk nog af te wachten...

[Joana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gostei bastante, o primeiro livro não adaptado, que li em francês. Comecei a medo, com medo de ter tanto vocabulário que não conhecia que não ia retirar prazer da leitura mas isso não aconteceu. O facto de o narrador ser o próprio autor, mas como se fosse ainda criança, facilita, dado que a linguagem utilizada é mais simples. E é também este pormenor que dá graça ao livro, pois conduz-nos numa viagem quase encantada pela sua infância, até aproximadamente aos 8 anos. Encantada porque aos olhos de uma criança tudo é fascinante, tudo é uma descoberta.

[Marlowe · Rating 1 out of 5]

Absolute trash garbage.

[Vince Will Iam · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel a strong sense of connection with this title. I remember watching the 1990 movie version as a six-year-old boy and being moved to tears (I heartily recommend the soundtrack by Vladimir Cosma as well).

The book is beautifully written but it did not meet my expectations which had obviously been too high owing to that emotional bias maybe. I'd give 5 stars though if I were to rate Pagnol's description of the exhilarating Provençal setting of his childhood -- its fauna and flora and its gorgeous rock formations taking shape under the author's pen.

[Czarny Pies · Rating 4 out of 5]

La gloire de mon de pere vous fait du bien. Dans ce livre Marcel raconte les evenements et les personnages d'une tres belle enfance. Il est ne dans une famille ou tout le monde s'aimaient Donc, tous les souvenirs sont sans exception bons. En plus la carriere du pere allait suffisament bien que la famille n'avait jamais des ennuis financiers. Ce qui faisait surtout le bonheur de tous, c'est qu'il avait les moyens d'acheter une maison d'ete dans les collines magiques de Provence. Dans les films de Pagnol le mal etait omnipresent mais tres absent dans ce livre qui vous permet surtout de jouir de la beaute de la vie.

Un seul bemol. Si vous n'avez pas ete completement emballe par le film, ce livre risque de vous etre un peu trop sucre.

[Emily Kestrel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This memoir, by the man who created the story "Jean de Florette," tells of his childhood in 1920s Provence. It is vividly written and really brings the time and region to life. Also, parts of it are really funny, as he shows how a young child interprets the world of adults. The one thing I didn't like were some passages where he and his brother amuse themselves in the garden by torturing insects, and where his father goes hunting for a very rare bird. (I'm not against hunting per se, but I am opposed to killing rare or endangered animals.) Granted, it was a different time and place, but I am a modern reader, and those parts bothered me.

[Yann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pendant trois années, ils dévoraient la science comme une nourriture précieuse dont leurs aïeux avaient été privés: c'est pourquoi, pendant les récréations, M. le Directeur faisait le tour des salles de classe pour en chasser quelques trop bons élèves, et les condamner à jouer au ballon.
A la fin de ces études, il fallait affronter le brevet supérieur, dont les résultats prouvaient que la promotion était parvenue à maturité.
Alors, par une sorte de déhiscence, la bonne graine était projetée aux quatre coins du département, pour y lutter contre l'ignorance, glorifier la République, et garder le chapeau sur la tête au passage des processions.

[Hanane · Rating 1 out of 5]

je n'ai jamais aimé les autobiographie, et La Gloire de mon père ne fut pas une exception!
Je regrette vivement l'avoir lu, je sais meme pas pourquoi on écrit une autobiographie ! Peut etre que la simple personne que je suis avait des choses plus intéressantes à dire.
Et puis ce n'était meme pas une autobiographie, Marcel Pagnol n'a parlé que des insectes, des animaux et bien évidemment de son père!
Bref, je n'ai pas du tout aimé le livre.

[Nati Korn · Rating 5 out of 5]

ראיתי לפני שנים את הסרטים שהיו נחמדים. הספר, כמו שקורה בד"כ (אך לא תמיד) יפה אף יותר.
זה היה בונבון אמיתי. בונבון כמו שרק סופר צרפתי יכול לרקוח.
כמו כל בונבון הוא היה קטן מידי.
נבלע בנגיסה אחת.

טוב ... מזל שהיה לי שכל לרכוש את החלק השני עם הראשון ..

אז ... שארשה לעצמי עוד פינוק?

[Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely book describes Provence landscape effortlessly.

[FunttiDiva · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ma chronique ici.

[Anna Shaw · Rating 4 out of 5]

Première fois que la voix dans ma tête quand je lis a un accent provençal ! J’adore !!!