• Ennemonde
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Archipelago Books

Ennemonde

Ennemonde

by Jean Giono, translated from the French by Bill Johnston

$16.00
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Available as E-Book French Literature
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Ennemonde Girard: Obese. Toothless. Brilliant. Loving mother and murderous wife: a character like none other in literature. In telling us Ennemonde’s astounding story of undetected crimes, Jean Giono immerses us in the perverse and often lurid lifeways of the people of the High Country, where vengeance is an art form, hearts are superfluous, and only boldness and cunning such as Ennemonde’s can win the day. A gleeful sardonic grin of a novel.

Additional Book Information

Series: Archipelago Books
ISBN: 9781953861122
Pages: 150
Publication Date:

Praise

Giono offers a steady flow of rich imagery and biographical tidbits about the denizens of a mountainous region of southwestern France in this sensual pastoral... The characters often feel like a manifestation of the rugged land they inhabit: the farm girl Ennemonde, for instance, born near the turn of the 20th century, possesses “a fruitlike beauty.”... Giono achieves an engaging and worldly narration, which grounds the reader in this juicy web of anecdotes.
—Publishers Weekly

Ennemonde is a novel of nature, a novel that might tells us something about the gap between humanity and its environs . . . The sky is black, the trees – beeches, chestnuts, sessile oaks – are infinite, the rocks reverberate, and the peasants are murderous . . . We are in the realm of a naturalized Nietzsche here: what is valuable is what sustains and enhances life . . . Giono troubles us, asks us to pay attention, and finally . . . Giono shows us what one can see if one looks.
—Duncan Stuart, Exit Only

In his novels, Giono's sensuous eye for detail, his fine insight into human behavior and the scope and resonance of his language transform every landscape, every encounter between his characters into an intimate, almost physical experience. The narrative has the compression of a short story... and leaves one feeling marked by an unusual sensibility, at once violent and tender.
—Lydia Davis, The New York Times

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