The Horseman on the Roof - Softcover

Giono, Jean

Softcover

ISBN 10: 086547060X ISBN 13: 9780865470606

Publisher: North Point Press, 1982

Synopsis

Perhaps no other of his novels better reveals Giono's perfect balance between lyricism and narrative, description and characterization, the epic and the particular, than The Horseman on the Roof. This novel, which Giono began writing in 1934 and which was published in 1951, expanded and solidified his reputation as one of Europe's most important writers.

This is a novel of adventure, a roman courtois, that tells the story of Angelo, a nobleman who has been forced to leave Italy because of a duel, and is returning to his homeland by way of Provence. But that region is in the grip of a cholera epidemic, travelers are being imprisoned behind barricades, and exposure to the disease is almost certain.

Angelo's escapades, adventures, and heroic self-sacrifice in this hot, hallucinatory landscape, among corpses, criminals and rioting townspeople, share this epic tale.

About this title

Review:

Angelo is an young Italian nobleman and soldier whose hot-headedness has forced him into a desperate exile in France. While making his way slowly back to Italy, he witnesses the intense ravages of a cholera epidemic in Provence, and his natural romanticism, heroism, and thirst for adventure take over and change the course of his travels. Jean Giono, known as a 20th-century master of French letters, also wrote the lyrical The Man Who Planted Trees.

About the Author:

Jean Giono was born in Manosque, a small Provencal town in southeastern France. He wrote more than fifty novels, poetry collections, and plays, and in addition translated the works of Smollett and Melville into French. He died in 1970.

About this edition

• Publisher: North Point Press
• Publication date: 1982
• ISBN 10: 086547060X
• ISBN 13: 9780865470606
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 426