What do you think?
Rate this book
Notes from the Languedoc
It is easy to get to the Languedoc. Follow the Rhone south through France, then once you hit the Mediterranean coast, turn right. The mystery is that for generations, people have been getting to the sea and turning left to Provence. This lack of attention means that the Languedoc is France's last undiscovered Mediterranean secret.
Now Rupert Wright introduces you to the region's winemakers, oyster farmers, canal people and celebrated inhabitants, living and dead, including Montpellier's dynamic Mayor, Georges Freche, and local matador Juan Bautista. You will learn about the Languedoc's troubled and fascinating history, visit bullfights and boar hunts, and hear about the writers and artists that have lived and travelled in this intriguing land.
Now Rupert Wright introduces you to the region's winemakers, oyster farmers, canal people and celebrated inhabitants, living and dead, including Montpellier's dynamic Mayor, Georges Freche, and local matador Juan Bautista. You will learn about the Languedoc's troubled and fascinating history, visit bullfights and boar hunts, and hear about the writers and artists that have lived and travelled in this intriguing land.
- GenresTravelFranceNonfiction
276 pages, Paperback
First published July 7, 2005
1 person is currently reading
14 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
December 11, 2017
Yawn. Boring book.
Didn’t really get a feel for the place or the people. Learnt very little about the history of the area apart from a few artists who had frequented the area but they don’t seem to have “represented” the area especially. I didn’t really see how this added anything to learning about the place.
Really amazed anyone can write this sort of book. I got the sense that the author was over privileged and just wanted to boast to his golf buddies he’d written a book.
Didn’t really get a feel for the place or the people. Learnt very little about the history of the area apart from a few artists who had frequented the area but they don’t seem to have “represented” the area especially. I didn’t really see how this added anything to learning about the place.
Really amazed anyone can write this sort of book. I got the sense that the author was over privileged and just wanted to boast to his golf buddies he’d written a book.
April 8, 2018
I like this book a lot. Possibly the fact that I live within 300kms made it feel like I was expanding my knowledge of the neighbourhood. Places to go. Wines to drink. I enjoy happy expat memoirs, being a happy expat myself. It's a little dated now - which lends a slightly nostalgic note.
November 20, 2018
I found myself neither entertained nor bored reading this book. Sort of a blah flat read.
July 7, 2016
‘Soon you won’t be able to move for books called Lunch in the Languedoc or Me, An Olive Tree and a Glass of Wine,’ writes Rupert Wright. Nevertheless his own book in the genre is well worth selecting from the pile in the bookshop. It takes the form of eleven letters from the south of France, written to his grandmother in Sussex and to his son in an English public school. The letter mode makes short easy-reading episodes of his three years in the Languedoc and creates an intimate rapport between reader and author. He says himself that the book lacks narrative drive and is instead, an engaging discursive ramble.
The Languedoc is ‘a land of castles and heretics, vineyards and scented hillsides, boar hunts and bullfights, canals and oyster beds, flamingos and sandy beaches.’ This is an accurate summary of what he covers in the book, along with wine, writers, artists and dogs. The people, he remarks, are ‘noisy, nosy, loyal, friendly to strangers unless you come from Paris’.
Wright sticks to a straightforward style. ‘Devotion to drinking,’ he says, ‘should not mean abandoning the principles of writing a good, clear sentence.’ There is an occasional evocative sentence. The Cathar castle of Peyrepeteuse looks ‘almost as if it fell from the sky, landing as if by chance on the vertiginous cliffs.’ The colour of paint on the shutters is a green ‘like the underside of the leaves of an olive tree.’ When he does allow himself a flash of voluptuous writing it is immediately subject to the bathetic sense of humour that runs through the book: ‘the hills were covered in wild flowers, cistus, lavender, fennel, rosemary and thyme. The smell was so strong that you could almost marinade a leg of lamb by exposing it to the air... Even at night the ground radiates heat.’
Wright is a raconteur, a teller of after-dinner anecdotes. ‘We are in the middle of a heatwave ... One longs to lie in an ice bucket ... Not the best time, you might think, to take up cycling.’ He is in fine fettle when writing from his direct experiences. He takes us with him as he fumbles through his novice voyage in a decrepit boat, or as he gets competitive with a pack of octogenarian cyclists. Some of his researched letters, on the Cathars for instance, are gripping reading, but his account of posh vineyard owning French families becomes rather tedious. The whiffs of privilege coming off the page are mostly mitigated by his humour. He attributes the French Revolution to ‘the aristocracy’s failure to play cricket with their staff’ and thereby improve class interaction. Advised by a local man not to scale the icy rocks up to Montsegur Castle, he remarks that the Frenchman did not ‘understand that the English are the heirs of George Leigh Mallory and Francis Whymper, who invented climbing in the Alps armed with only a bar of Kendal mint cake and a tweed jacket.’
Wright is his own main character and emerges as a rather old-fashioned blend of machismo, lechery and epicurean, but his capacity to poke fun at himself means that we enjoy spending the length of the book in his company. Notes from the Languedoc will make pleasant reading for the beach, the train or your winter armchair.
The Languedoc is ‘a land of castles and heretics, vineyards and scented hillsides, boar hunts and bullfights, canals and oyster beds, flamingos and sandy beaches.’ This is an accurate summary of what he covers in the book, along with wine, writers, artists and dogs. The people, he remarks, are ‘noisy, nosy, loyal, friendly to strangers unless you come from Paris’.
Wright sticks to a straightforward style. ‘Devotion to drinking,’ he says, ‘should not mean abandoning the principles of writing a good, clear sentence.’ There is an occasional evocative sentence. The Cathar castle of Peyrepeteuse looks ‘almost as if it fell from the sky, landing as if by chance on the vertiginous cliffs.’ The colour of paint on the shutters is a green ‘like the underside of the leaves of an olive tree.’ When he does allow himself a flash of voluptuous writing it is immediately subject to the bathetic sense of humour that runs through the book: ‘the hills were covered in wild flowers, cistus, lavender, fennel, rosemary and thyme. The smell was so strong that you could almost marinade a leg of lamb by exposing it to the air... Even at night the ground radiates heat.’
Wright is a raconteur, a teller of after-dinner anecdotes. ‘We are in the middle of a heatwave ... One longs to lie in an ice bucket ... Not the best time, you might think, to take up cycling.’ He is in fine fettle when writing from his direct experiences. He takes us with him as he fumbles through his novice voyage in a decrepit boat, or as he gets competitive with a pack of octogenarian cyclists. Some of his researched letters, on the Cathars for instance, are gripping reading, but his account of posh vineyard owning French families becomes rather tedious. The whiffs of privilege coming off the page are mostly mitigated by his humour. He attributes the French Revolution to ‘the aristocracy’s failure to play cricket with their staff’ and thereby improve class interaction. Advised by a local man not to scale the icy rocks up to Montsegur Castle, he remarks that the Frenchman did not ‘understand that the English are the heirs of George Leigh Mallory and Francis Whymper, who invented climbing in the Alps armed with only a bar of Kendal mint cake and a tweed jacket.’
Wright is his own main character and emerges as a rather old-fashioned blend of machismo, lechery and epicurean, but his capacity to poke fun at himself means that we enjoy spending the length of the book in his company. Notes from the Languedoc will make pleasant reading for the beach, the train or your winter armchair.
August 11, 2013
Wright's journo-who-moves-to-France tale is a fairly well trodden path these days - the ex-patriot memoir being pretty much a sub genre of non-fiction publishing; but this is a nice enough jaunt through a bit of South Western France. I know this particular bit of the South West reasonably well so it perhaps had added interest. It's an easy glide through vineyards, olives groves, the Canal du Midi, Cathar castles, bullfighting, cycling, impressionist painters, writers who visited (Durrell, Blixen, Hemingway, Liebling) and small town french provincial life.
December 28, 2009
This book was OK, but Wright is not a particularly good or evocative writer and I didn't learn very much. But then I have been living in the Languedoc for 12 years :) Surprisingly I found the most interesting part was about the Abbaye de Fontfroide, which I have visited many times, yet Wright still managed to tell me several things I didn't know. At least he doesn't bang on about quaint peasants or house renovations.
August 10, 2013
A light read in the genre of slightly smug English who have relocated to France. This one is a little better in that there are a few interesting morsels of information about the region. It is light hearted and whitty in places, but won't be going to the top of the re-read or recommend pile.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews