November 08, 2006
Provence the Right Way 3
Provence A-Z. By Peter Mayle.For the third and final installment in this look at Peter Mayle's "Provence A-Z"
by sampling his look at that blessing and curse of Provence -- the summer tourist -- in the entry entitled "Gibier d'Ete":I remember the first time I heard the phrase. I was sitting outside the village cafe one morning in July, watching the heat shimmer up from the cobblestones, when a group of people came down the street. They were tourists. Their bright new clothes were crisp, their skins were going through that pink period before the tan sets in, their sunglasses were fashionably imprenetrable.At the risk of going all Roy Peter Clark on you, I want to point out there there's plenty to enjoy and learn from in Mayle's writing.
The waiter put my coffee on the table and looked up to inspect them. "Voila," he said with a nod, "le gibier d'ete."
Tourists are given many labels, not all of them complimentary, but this was the first time I had heard them compared to wild game, and it set me thinking. There are definite similarities: tourists tend to move around in small flocks, their migration patterns are seasonal, they can be startled into flight if treated inhospitably, and they cluster in particular spots for hourishment. But I can't think of any other species that even comes close to them in terms of numbers.
In 2003, the most recent year for which detailed statistics are available, the three departements of Provence received very nearly 16 million tourists. Of these, 2.6 million went to Haute-Provence, 4.4 million to the Vaucluse, and 8.8 million to the Bouches-du-Rhone. And although there were some early arrivals at Easter and some stragglers at Christmas, the vast majority came during the summer.
For some, this will make horrifying reading. There is a strong element of snobbery attached to travel, and we all have acquaintances who would feel insulted if they were to be described as tourists. They see themselves as mobile citizens of the world -- civilized, sophisticated, considerate, enlightened, a blessing upon their chosen destinations. It is the hoi polloi who are tourists. They are the ones who clog up the roads, strip the shelves of the boulangerie bare, monopolize the restaurants, litter the countryside, and generally turn peace into chaos....
And yet this can be avoided, either by doing all your errands in the cool of the morning before ten o'clock or by heading for the hills. From most towns or villages, a twenty-minute drive will take you to open, beautiful countryside. Here, you will find no sign of the unattractive monuments to mass tourism: no condominiums, no theme parks, no three-hundred-room hotels -- and very few people. Vast areas of Provence, even in July and August, stay empty. Silence, which has become an endangered commodity in the modern world, is still available. There is room to breathe and the air is clear. And the summer millions seem far, far away.
His conversational tone is filled with details: the number of tourists, the size of hotels, how far one has to drive to find peace. Punctuation does not scare him. He uses the comma where it is called for. He even uses the colon where it belongs after "monuments to mass tourism". The punctuation imposes a pace that the reader can follow and is as clear as a highway map. He also throws in a few thoughts about the nature of tourism and the role snobbery plays in it.
Best of all, when Mayle organized his Provence guidebook, he thought creatively about his headings. This essay could have been fitted with the title of "tourists." But Mayle had the anecdote to lead it off, so "Gibier d'Ete" it is. And leaving it in the original French adds a Gallic flavor that the book demands. After all, if we had the means to experience Provence directly, we'd be there, sipping pastis outside a bistro and gazing at the mountains. Instead, we have Peter Mayle, and in the absence of the real thing, he will do. He will do fine.
PREVIOUS POSTS IN THIS SERIES: Part 1 and Part 2
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