Once in Europa
Category: Books,Literature & Fiction,Short Stories & Anthologies
Once in Europa Details
From Library Journal This second volume of the trilogy "Into Their Labours" is, like the first ( Pig Earth , LJ 9/15/80), a collection of stories set in the French Alps. Although ostensibly about love, they give us a vivid picture of a changing world in which the traditional way of life is rapidly disappearing as the peasants move to the cities to find work or are employed in the tourist industry and new factories. The title story is a particularly poignant indictment of such changes. In it a woman named Odile tells us how a factory scars her valley, destroying her family's farm, and then scars her life as her lover is killed and later her husband disabled in industrial accidents. Yet these stories are not morbid, instead containing a cautionary note about how difficult it is to regain an idyllic state once it is lost. This sensitively written collection is recommended for most libraries. Christine King, SUNY at Stony Brook Lib.Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. Read more
Reviews
These stories by John Berger illuminate life in a remote alpine village in France that is coming in contact, not always gracefully, with the outside world.