Remembrance of Things Past (My Father's Glory and My Mother's Castle - Marcel Pagnol)

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Product:	My Father's Glory and My Mother's Castle - Marcel Pagnol
Date:	15/05/01 (127 review reads)
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Please don?t turn off now thinking that I am going to hurtle headlong into an essay about Marcel Proust, because I?m not. It?s just that I think that the English title of Proust?s mammoth tome is fitting for an opinion about this book.

In my view there aren?t many aware of the writer of the books I am talking about, and I think that that is a crying shame.

Marcel Pagnol was born on 28 February 1895 in the small Provençal village of Aubagne. To many this may be a singularly uninteresting piece of trivial knowledge,
but to those who are aware of Pagnol and his later career there is a major coincidence
going on. This date and this place also happened to be where Louis Lumière showed
the first film. Later on he became one of France?s most successful filmmakers. He
was hailed by Truffaut, Rossellini and Godard, and his film ?The Baker?s Wife? was
said by Orson Welles to be the most beautiful he had ever seen. Pagnol is not well known on this side of the English Channel for his films. He is most noted for his novels ?Jean de Florette? and ?Manon des Sources? which were made into successful
films in their own right.

The books that I intend to write about is one of the staples of the ?A? Level French
Literature ?circuit?. Pagnol wrote a series of books looking back on his childhood in
the glorious sun-baked landscape of Provence. The two stories ?My Father?s Glory?
and ?My Mother?s Castle? were originally published under the title ?The Days were
Too Short? in 1960, but were published in one volume under their original title in
1991 by Picador, in order to coincide with the release of the two film adaptations of
the books by Yves Robert. When I purchased it the book cost £6.99, but that was 10
years ago. The ISBN Number of the book is 0-330-32190-0.

In the Preface that precedes the first story, Pagnol notes that the writer of a book has less of a problem than the dramatist or filmmaker,
as he will not know of the audience?s reaction to his work. Indeed, he plays down the worth of this volume:

?These are the- not very honourable, but reassuring ? considerations that have
persuaded me to publish this book. It has few pretensions, anyhow. It is merely a
testimony of a bygone age and a little song of filial piety which in our day, perhaps,
may pass for great novelty.?
(Marcel Pagnol, ?My Father?s Glory?, Picador 1991, p110)

The one thing that we note from the beginning of both the books is that, even though it is written by a middle-aged man looking back, it is written from a child?s
perspective, which I feel is something that adds to its charm. It really is a little gem of a book. The moment we turn to the very first page we become immersed in the world
of a small boy growing up in the South of France around Marseilles. He wistfully
describes his parents. Joseph, his father was a schoolmaster, while Augustine, the
mother that he idolised, was a beautiful housewife of whom the young Marcel felt he
was part. In a child-like way he remarks that Augustine was nineteen when he was
born, and she remained nineteen all her life.

As Marcel grows up he is very often sat at the back of his father?s classroom. This is
unremarkable until the day when Joseph finds out that Marcel has spent his time learning to read. He is very proud of his little boy, but Augustine, naïve as ever is worried that at such a tender age Marcel?s head will explode because it cannot withstand all this brain activity.

The story progresses to later in Marcel?s childhood, when the family is planning a
holiday to Provence, to spend the summer in a farmhouse. They are to spend their time there with Aunt Rose and her husband, Uncle Jules, who is a clerk with pretensions, with whom Joseph always maintains a ?healthy? competitive spirit.


At their holiday retreat, Jules and Joseph decide to go hu
nting. Jules is an expert, but
Joseph doesn?t want to be outdone, even if his gun is somewhat antiquated, and is
referred to by Jules as a ?blunderbuss? or ?watering can?. One of the story?s supremely comic moments occurs while they are doing shooting practice onto the door of the outside toilet:

?He tore off the layers of newspapers and I saw, deeply embedded in the wood, a score of small lead pellets. ?Pretty hard wood this,? he remarked. ?They didn?t go through! If we?d used bullets?? It was a good thing they hadn?t, for through the battered door we heard a small and shaky voice asking: ?May I come out now?? It was the ?housemaid?.? (Ibid., p122)

The two men go out hunting and leave Marcel at the house. Marcel follows them, and is so ashamed when he sees a rabbit run through his father?s legs. Joseph proves to be a terrible huntsman, but he is in luck when he shoots a brace of ?bartavelles? or rock
partridges with one shot. Marcel is hit by the falling birds and is the first to proclaim the triumph:

?And raising my small, bloody fists, from which four golden wings were dangling, I
brandished my father?s glory in the sky against the setting sun.?
(Ibid., p159)

But it doesn?t end there. Joseph is so proud of his success in bagging a brace of
?bartavelles? that he allows himself to be photographed with his catch. He has previously considered this to be the height of egotism, and he now decide to send a
copy of the photograph to his parents, but purely to show them how much Marcel has
grown, of course. Marcel add his own comment:

?I had caught my dear superman red-handed in the act of being human: I felt that I loved him even more for it.?
(Ibid., p174)

So how can such a wonderful story go on? The next book, ?My Mother?s Castle?, deals with the family?s regular travels to the house in Provence. Joseph has been promoted, and has got Mondays off. The family decides to spen
d regular weekends at the house and, with the aid of Bouzigue, one of Joseph?s ex-pupils, they gain access to a short cut along the canal. Augustine is very wary of one house, and eventually they are caught near this establishment using a spare key. This may seem a trifling matter, but in the France of the 1910s this could lead to Joseph losing his job, and the family its livelihood. However Bouzigue and his chums save the day, but Augustine is still petrified of the chateau. As Marcel grows older, and after his mother has died at a tragically young age, he buys the offending chateau to set up the office of his film company:

?At last I saw the boundary wall: beyond the broken glass along its crest, the sunny
month of June was dancing on the blue hills; but at the foot of the wall, quite close to
the canal, was the dreadful black door, the door that had refused to swing open on the
holidays, the door that had humbled my father?.

"In an upsurge of blind rage I picked up a big stone in both my hands and, first raising
it high in the sky, I hurled it at the rotten planks, which came crashing down on the past. It seemed to me that I was breathing more freely, that the evil spell was broken.?
(Ibid., p 341)

So what is it about this book that make sme love it so much? I simply feel that it is charming. It is child-like, not childish, and is evocative of bygone times and the beauty of the countryside of the South of France. I read it again and again, and would encourage anyone to read it. If you can get hold of the films, catch them as well. They are subtitled, but are gloriously charming, and you forget that they are subtitled.

It would be silly of people to say that because it is French it is rubbish. Give it a go. Allow yourself to be amazed. It is truly a wonderful account of a bygone age, where people and family life is of the utmost importance. Written from the perspective of a young child, it is so wond
erfully whimsical that you can?t fail but be entranced by it.


Perhaps as a result of the dangerous and harsh realities of today we can feel safer by cocooning ourselves in the world of a small child, in a bygone era where everything seems idyllic.

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