The Horseman On The Roof

Description

In the white heat the sky is opaque, the air leaden and the light intense. A single cavalryman wonders at the oppressive atmosphere of the unfamiliar countryside he is entering. Exile from his Italian homeland as well as an innate, stubborn pride compel him onward, into the heart of Provence and into the acute cholera epidemic which ravaged the country in the 1830s.Giono here directs a hallucinatory, lyrical narrative in which the mortal odours, the violent contractions of those who meet with the disease and the fear of a people confronted with insuperable natural forces are palpable. Death pervades the novel, but Angelo does not cease journeying, dodging blockades and quarantine imposed by troops - even seeking temporary refuge on the roofs of one town - determined to find his childhood friend, Giuseppe. Others join him on the road, and leave him. Only the young woman, Pauline de Theus, who calmly receives the intruder who one night descends from the roofs, proves a worthy travelling companion.

JEAN GIONO was born in 1895 in Manosque, Provence, and lived there most of his life. He was sent to the front in early 1915, an experience he refused to repeat in the Second World War when he was briefly arrested for declaring himself a pacifist. For eighteen years he supported his parents, Jean-Antoine and Pauline, by working as a bank clerk before his first two novels were published, thanks to the generosity of Andre Gide, to critical acclaim. He went on to write thirty novels and numerous essays and stories. Placed in 1944 on the black list of national writers, Giono was later awarded the Prix Monegasque for his collective work. He died in October 1970.

Dazzling! From the first to the last frame, Jean-Paul Rappeneau sweeps across the screen with this huge epic. A work of art. * Le Figaro * With The Horseman, Giono reveals himself as one of the most important novelists in Europe today. * Times Literary Supplement *