I read this prior to The Horseman on the Roof. Probably not a good idea even though the author indicates that Angelo is a prequel of sorts. The events found in this novel/study kept throwing me as I read Horseman eventhough I was well aware that it is a character study of the Angelo in Horseman. Perhaps if I had read Horseman first my preference would be reversed. In any event...

This novel/study is a love story! Compact, austere, wrenching! What I did not get from Horseman, I got from this book..lyrical, lovely Giono! For example: "We must take care not to grow passionately fond of anything that is not worth the trouble." Angelo continually muses over how his heart has been stolen by a lovely perfume-fragrance which comes to symbolize a life worth living. What lady wears such a fragrance? Will Angelo ever meet her? The answers to these questions lie in both Angelo and The Horseman on the Roof.

I saw a movie of "Le hussard Sur le Toit" and read the book. It was also spectacularly interesting. Story going, the back ground of story, and each motions that I can remind from reading each phrases is worth to read. You would love it! I bet!

Out of several versions of illustration on this book, I love the Frediric Back by far the best. His illustration adds so much more warmth and at the same time sentiment to this great story.

This book, and Giono's Joy of Man's Desiring, are the two of the most beautiful, wise, transformative works of fiction that I know -- even in translation. The translations are excellent, but Giono's writing, and his vision, are among the wisest and most eloquent in any language -- it is these books that gave me the impetus to be a writer. If you care for nature, and the prospect of humankind living in genuine participation and reciprocity with earthly nature, these are your books. An essential tonic for our collective ecological insanity...

This is a wonderful read. It makes a great bedtime story and it is also beautiful (the wood carvings) and inspiring. This is good for people tired of reading what is wrong with the environment. The Man Who Planted Trees is kind of like a sophisticated Lorax book. Anyway, buy this book and enjoy it!

"The Man Who Planted Trees" is a wonderful short story about the fictional life of a man who singlehandedly restores a valley to life by becoming the Johnny Appleseed of Trees. More importantly, its about a man who, having suffered the loss of his wwife and only child, chooses to live a simple life in anonymous service with little but his own resources and his love for trees. The short-term effect is almost unnoticeable; long-term its staggering.

The wood engravings that accompany the text stand out and mirror the book's theme of asutere simplicity quite beautifully. Its a wonderful book for children, nature enthusiasts, gardeners and those looking for hope that follwoing one's heart and living out of love, rather than fear, can ultimately make a difference.

I became acquainted with this compelling and moving story through an animation festival. Although the crowd of college students had been rowdy this film was the last shown and people all left the theater hushed. The story is not only about a man who plants trees, it is about how each of us can make a difference in the world by every small action of love. If we do not attach a need for recognition or money to our endeavors, they feed the spirit and health of the world. I have read this book over & over and seen the animated film 4 or 5 times, and I see and learn something different every time. What do you see?

I loved the film version of Horseman on the Roof but the book definitely leaves something to be desired. If I didn't have such a soft spot in my heart for Giono, I would have only given it three stars.

The Horseman on the Roof is the story of Angelo Pardi, a young Italian who is making his way across the French countryside to his home in Italy during the cholera epidemic. Unfortunately, the book lacks a cohesive storyline and Angelo simply meanders from one village to another, encountering first one cholera victim, then another.

While The Horseman on the Roof isn't strong on plot and certainly won't keep you up at night turning pages, it does contain gorgeous descriptions of Provence. Giono's descriptive writing is the equivalent of a full-course gourmet meal and anyone interested in the south of France, especially during this period in history, will find the book fascinating reading.

There really isn't a story here, so perhaps the book doesn't deserve the four stars I gave it, but Giono's prose, however, is so lush and beautiful I couldn't justify giving it any number fewer.

If you love gorgeous prose, France or are interested in the cholera epidemic, by all means, read this book. Others will no doubt find the film more engrossing as I did.

I picked this book up, not having any idea of what to expect. It sucked me in from the very first page with its very strange mood. The beginning describes a summer in the south of France in the mid-19th century in a way that makes you feel strangely ill at ease. Into this the main character comes riding, when suddenly a cholera epidemic breaks out around him. Society comes completely apart and the rest of the book is about his battle for survival in the resulting chaos.

I read the book without breaks, simply because I found it impossible to put down. By the time I had finished it it was 0500 at night and I was exhausted. (What this other reviewer was thinking, who felt it wouldn't deprive you of sleep I can't imagine.) The imagery and the story is harsh and horrible, and yet deeply invigorating and rewarding because while the author is depicting a society coming apart under the pressure of the plague he is also describing how individuals can resist that pressure.

I thought this a work of great subtlety (you'll have to read it many times to catch all of it), fantastic atmosphere, and unusual drive. Rarely have I found a book to be this gripping and at the same time so well-written.

If you get the impression I am struggling to express how good I think it was you've understood.

I recently saw this as a foreign film in French. Wonderfully acted and the scenery of the French countryside is so lovely. I am adding this to my wish list because the movie was intriguing and very romantic. I could not find the movie.

Originally published in 1935, JOY is written in a style that combines obliqueness in its quotidien narrative with the author's introduction of sequences of seasons and events that are vivid to the point of hallucination, or even poetic surreality. JOY starts on a Winter night, ending in an apocalyptic summer thunderstorm.

The story is well-crafted, though this is partly veiled by the indirectness of its style, perhaps an element of the aloofness and privateness that non-French observers have noted about French culture. The momentous fates of key characters are hinted at within the first 100 pages of the novel, important "clues" that may be overlooked if the reader is the sort who dabbles in this book over a long period of time. I think JOY will give greater satisfaction if read in less than 10 sittings, the easier to hold on to the irregular thread that re-surfaces as two fatal and separating cords at the book's close.

There was a great deal of puzzlement for me in JOY, mainly in the use of that term. Giono seems to locate joy in timeless rural life and its rhythms. Yet these folks on the Gremone plateau, especially Jourdan who wonders about its possibility early on, appear to be such fragile vessels in which it can flourish. And uncomprehending. Consider this exchange between the older Marthe and the younger Zulma:

Marthe: Doesn't [your head] bother you?

Zulma: What?

M: My child, why don't you talk like other people?

I don't know, said Zulma, How do you talk, the rest of you?

M: Oh, my child, we talk as life makes us talk

Z: I never know what you others mean.

M: We mean that life is sad.

Z: I don't understand, Madame

M: Sad, do you know what that is?

Z: No

M: Content, when you are content, do you know what that is?

Z: No (etc., etc.)

And there are other patience-trying (for me) passages throughout the novel.

For all of the rural wisdom that Giono seems to want us to recognize, and which we understand is passing with modernity, it is not enough to take root unless it does so by a distancing self-consciousness. We see this today in the U.S. with various attempts to "get back to the land."

And then there's Bobi, who first appears almost like a Christ-figure: he stands on a crest framing a single nocturnal star between his legs. But halfway through the book he appears less a "revelation" to the community of the plateau. He ends up merely among them in their lives, and near the end, a source of anxious sexuality and vexing alienation from the despondent Aurore.

Joy was until the 20th century linked to spiritual insight, a grappling with the ways of God, but this left our literature as the modernist enterprise gained ascendence (and not transcendence!). The loss of this deep joy is poignantly evident at the book's close: alone in the humid rain, a man cries out for his mother and is answered with finality by a bolt of lightning.

I'll tell you right now, this book is absolutely breath-taking. Take my word for it. Awesome book, not really. This raised my awareness about the depths of one man's journey to find himself. I couldn't put it down. I felt that this should be read by all men in grade school. not really. I am lying.

Jean Giono french novelist from Provence;father a cobbler. His work falls into two main sections;the pre-war novels (the best) and the post-war romances.This novel is from the former period and is rightly considered his masterpiece.It is a mysterious,ambiguous,lyrical account of the lives of simple folk, a story that must be told.In Bobi, the con-man saviour, Giono found a perfect surrogate for himself and his pastoral project.This book is alive with an epic sense of people living under the spell of and living in accordance with, the laws of nature. Bobi arrives in a small country community and through his prophetic homolies, distilations of the genuinely important aspects of daily life around them, brings forth their spiritual awakening .Seasons, and the changes wrought are exquisitly rendered in prose of great beauty.The act of eating with friends is described as an almost religious ritual, of communal empathy and staggering enlightenment. This is a book that will bind you in its own magic circle of seasonal change and renewal. Highly recommended.

Caution! The text and art in this book are identical to the title, HARVEST, published in 1939 by The Viking Press, and by North Point Press in 1983. I'm pleased to see that The Harvill Press has republished the text, though it would have been helpful if a note had been included on the Amazon display page identifying this title as a republication of HARVEST.