Jean Giono: Le Hussard sur le toit (1951)

Much like Camus's La Peste, Giono's Le Hussard sur le toit is an allegory of the Second World war seen as a plague. Giono detested war, having experienced it in World War I, when he was wounded. By extension, he intended it as an allegory of evil in general. As he was seen by some as a collaborator and his house was once attacked by angry residents, this novel can also be viewed as Giono's way of retaliating, of striking back at his attackers.

Only relatively recently has a fascinating story been revealed, one that was held back from the general public by the Giono family, meaning that Pierre Citron's mastery biography of his friend has a gaping hole in it: there is no mention of Blanche Meyer, with whom Giono had a relationship for a number of years, and who – it is generally thought – changed Giono's writing style. Here is not the place to talk about the weird way Giono's biography of Hermann Melville hurtles into fiction halfway through and invents a tale of Melville being in love with a certain Adeline White (as in Blanche). But it is time to say a word about Pauline de Théus.

There isn't much point in telling the long story of the French-speaking renegade hussar Angelo from Piedmont's adventures through a plague-ridden Provence, or the various characters he meets, that he is thought to be a poisoner of fountains in Manosque and takes to the rooftops, etc. But his relationship with Pauline (another incarnation of Blanche) is really crucial to the novel. He first meets her when coming down from a loft to investigate what he thinks is an empty house, but finds Pauline there, who amazingly welcomes him and gives him a drink of tea. We don't meet her again until some time later.

And when we do meet her she joins Angelo on his journey as they're both going to Gap. It will be a long and hazardous trail but in the course of it they come to love each other, although this love is unspoken and platonic: Pauline is heading north of Gap to join her husband, a rich man much older than her whom she came to love when he was being nursed by Pauline's father, a poor country doctor, for a buckshot wound. Dr A. Le Page, in her thesis 'Space of Passion: The Love Letters of Jean Giono to Blanche Mayer', has a chapter mainly concerning Le Hussard sur le toit 'as an expression of the myth of amour courtois' and seeing Pauline and Angelo 'as models of the chivalric ideal'. The full thesis is freely available online.

There are many things that could be said about Le Hussard sur le toit: it is enough to say that it is a major, essential work by a major author.

My Jean Giono posts:
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Sylvie Giono: Jean Giono à Manosque
Jean Giono: L' Homme qui plantait des arbres
Jean Giono: Le Hussard sur le toit
Jean Giono: Colline | Hill of Destiny
Jean Giono: Un de Baumugnes | Lovers Are Never Losers
Jean Giono in Manosque
Jean Giono: Notes sur l'affaire Dominici
Jean Giono's grave, Manosque, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence
Pierre Citron: Jean Giono 1895–1970
Jean Giono: Regain | Second Harvest
Jean Giono: Que ma joie demeure
Jean Giono: Pour saluer Melville
Jean Giono et al, Le Contadour