France: An Adventure History

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The tribes had a network of listening posts and traces of ancient life can still be found on low hilltops near rivers in the topography of the land. Over the course of her first year, she is welcomed into the rhythms and routines that characterise life at the edge of the world. I’m far from being a Francophile, but if a book is written well enough you can be converted to almost anything…at least for the duration of the read. As such the author’s chapters each read like a sort of cocktail mixing the present and the past, with the past providing a piquancy that penetrates a smooth, blanketing present. His essays are mostly history mixed with part memoir, part travelogue, and a decent amount of humor.

The chapters on Napoleon III, the Resistance during the Second World War and the final chapter were especially absorbing. Legendarily a giant elm growing at the spot where joined the corners of four counties and under whose shade the noble counts were said to parley, Robb locates the remnants of a not-unlikely candidate in a spot -- now entirely obscure -- that in his telling sat on a once-upon-a-Hundred Years' War highway along the eastern boundary of English-controlled France and very close to the geographical center of the Frexagon. Stories from the Sea : Legends, adventures and tragedies of Ireland's coast, by Jo Kerrigan ( hardback) Rp 370. Robb’s reminiscing his own adventures allows the reader some connection to the ancient histories he’s discussing. This might (unfortunately) be my legal training; I always look for the point, I skip the meandering.The author is an avid bicyclist, and in each of 18 or so chapters he tells a story of what occurred a century or a millennium ago in the region or villages he pedals through. I enjoyed the chapters on both World Wars as well as the rather sad story of the Narcisse Pelletier (White Savage) and his experience of being stranded with a native tribe of Australian Aborigines. So, anyone looking for a survey of French history will be disappointed, but someone wishing to know how Caesar would approach the northern Gaul warriors or Michel Frédérick lost the Tour de France will find exquisite essays. After all, this is a book that is supposed to be read and enjoyed, not an academic thesis to be substantiated and cited - or am I just too unsophisticated?

Even with the helpful maps and a massive list of notes and references (which constitute nearly one-third of the hefty book), readers might appreciate the stories more if they have a ready understanding of French history, geography, and language. His 2007 book The Discovery of France won both the Duff Cooper and Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prizes. Overall the book covered certain aspects very well, but suffers from huge gaps in history and the writing was overly complex but is still worthwhile reading. It is accepted by you that Daunt Books has no control over additional charges in relation to customs clearance.But its a quick read, with a large percentage of the book made up of pictures, an index, a travel guide and reference text. Graham Robb and his wife cycle all over modern France, finding traces of past history, adventures had by people who may now be more myth than reality to us. I learned new facts that I had not known -- such as it was women who led the French Revolution and learned about architecture, trees, and round-abouts and bicycle routes! It was challenging in terms of premise: France and the French are often seen from abroad as a cohesive (Parisian) monolith, and I will never see it that way again.