review
If you tour the Provence and the French Drôme a lot, you will, figuratively, always encounter French writers who have described their region and are highly appreciated by the French for it. The writer Jean Giono is such a regional author in the best sense of the word. As a non-Frenchman and as an eco-man, I especially appreciate him for that one little poetic booklet ‘The man who planted trees’.
A quote
The shepherd, who did not smoke, took out a bag and poured a lot of acorns on the table. He began to examine them very carefully one by one, separating the good from the bad. I smoked my pipe. I suggested helping him. He told me to do it alone. And indeed, when I saw with how much care he did that job, I didn’t push any further. That was all our conversation.
When he had a bunch of pretty big acorns on the right side, he counted them out into groups of ten. While doing so, he put aside the smaller ones or those that were slightly split, for he studied them very closely. When he had a hundred perfect acorns in front of him, he stopped and we went to sleep.
The company of that man brought peace. The next morning I asked him for permission to rest with him for another whole day. He took that very naturally. Or rather he gave me the impression that nothing could disturb him. I didn’t absolutely need that rest, but I was intrigued and wanted to know more about it. He released his flock and led it to the pasture. Before he left, he dipped the bag in which he had put the carefully selected and counted acorns in a bucket of water. That man spoke little. This is common with those who live alone, but you felt that he was confident in himself and confident in his self-confidence.
L’homme qui plantait des arbres is the story of Elzéard Bouffier, who, after the loss of his family, retreats to a remote and desolate part of the Provençe with some sheep and a dog. There he devotes himself to his life’s work: planting thousands of acorns. As the years progress, the land comes back to life. People return full of zest for life, expectation and joy.
About this ‘ecological’ story and its writer
Jean Giono was a French poet and writer born on March 30, 1895 in Manosque. He found his inspiration mainly in his native Provence. There he lived and worked, there he found the landscapes and characters that furnished and populated his books. Important themes are the imperishable primal forces of nature and the pursuit of a harmonious country life, far from the degeneration of the big city. Associated with this is a logical consequence of pacifism, reinforced by Giono’s own experiences as a soldier in World War I.
His short story The man who planted trees shows these main themes in a nutshell. Its genesis has entertaining sides. Giono wrote it on February 24 and 25, 1953, on behalf of the American Readers Digest, in which a series of stories was published during those years under the collective title “The Most Unforgettable Character I’ve Met”. After the editors had received their contribution, they went on a quest in Provence to check the reality of the facts. Of course that did not work. Although Bouffier is a common name in Provence and the described area between Durance and Vaucluse does exist, the story is based on fiction. Indignantly, Readers Digest therefore rejected its placement. Giono received a letter from the editorial office calling him a fraud!
This story came to the attention of the editors of Vogue; he had more experience with literary work and published it in March 1954 under the somewhat remarkable title “The man who planted hope and grew happiness”. Giono himself had submitted his story untitled, because it would fall under the aforementioned collective title. The title the story now bears was given to it by Giono’s daughter Aline, who provided his collected work after his death. The story is based on a childhood memory of the author, who tells elsewhere how he went for a walk with his father in his youth and how he always had a bag of acorns with him to plant an oak here and there in strategic places in the wide country. decorate the landscape for later.
Giono wrote two versions of the story. In the first version, the shepherd retires in old age to the retirement home, where he moves into a simple room with a view of the forests he has planted. He enjoys the sight of it: the man has done it exclusively and solely for himself, without mentioning social side effects. The second version is less “anarchic” and more moralistic.
The story was translated into many languages and Giono donated the right of publication in many countries to conservation and ecological movements. It appeared for the first time in Ernst van Altena’s Dutch translation in 1988 with woodcuts by Michael McCurdy.
Other Novels by Giono
- Colline ?? Grasset ?? 1929
- Un de Baumugnes ?? Grasset ?? 1929
- Naissance de l’Odyssée ?? Editions Kra – 1930
- Le Grand Troupeau ?? Gallimard – 1931
- Jean le Bleu ?? Grasset ?? 1932
- Solitude de la pitié ?? Gallimard 1932
- Le Chant du monde ?? Gallimard ?? 1934
- L’eau vive ?? Gallimard ?? 1943 (Rondeur des Jours et l’Oiseau bagué -1973)
- Fragments d’un paradis ?? Déchalotte ?? 1948
- Mort d’un character ?? Grasset ?? 1949
- Les Âmes fortes ?? Gallimard ?? 1949
- Les Grands Chemins ?? Gallimard ?? 1951
- Le Hussard sur le toit ?? Gallimard ?? 1951
- Le Moulin de Pologne ?? 1952
- L’homme qui plantait des arbres ?? Reader’s Digest ?? 1953
- Le Bonheur fou ?? Gallimard ?? 1957