the book
Has anyone read the book? Is it any good?
shareYes, and yes. If you've seen the film, you already know the story outline though... Giono is a brilliant author, but I don't know how it has been translated to english.
shareIt has been translated into Chinese however. The ending is a little different from the movie though. He and Pauline leave each other and he goes off to participate in the Revolution.
shareI'm chinese, so I'm very pleased to see the chinese version of the book.
It's really great.
Have you seen the movie? Personally, I preferred the film "Happy Ending" version instead.
P.S Where are you from?
I'm from China Hong Kong.
I watched this movie several times.
I thought the movie version ending was rather romantic and hopeful. Juliet Binoche and Martinez has a silent chemistry together. Especially in the last 30min of the film.
It's been nearly 6yrs since I've seen this flick. A long time indeed.
The reason why the film ending differs from the book ending is that the book is one book of a four volume cycle which deal with Angelo Pardi and Pauline de Theus and some material from the other books was used in this film.
shareDoes Pauline appear in the other books of the cycle?
shareThe four volumes of the cycle are Angelo, The Horseman on the Roof, Le Bonheur Fou, (The Straw Man in America), and The Death of a Character. Pauline plays a small part in the first book. The last book takes place in her old age and her grand-son named Angelo is the other major character. It is kind of confusing because the last book in the cycle was the first one published and the first book in the cycle was the first one written but the third one published and was translated into German five years before it was published in French.
An article summarizing the cycle which appeared in The French Review in January 1962 is available on-line if you can find a library that subscribes to JSTOR and allows its patrons access to that service.
So...is Angelo and Pauline a couple in the last book of the series? Just curious.
shareAt the end of Le Bonheur Feu the marquise de Theuse dies and Pauline leaves to find Angelo in Italy. In Le Mort d'une Personnage Pauline is seveny-five years old and she lives with her (and Angelo's) illegitimate son and her grandson, Angelo Pardi. There were two other novels that Giono never published that took place in the period between the end of Le Bonheur Feu and the time of Le Mort d'une Personnage, one of them; Pauline was scheduled for publication in 1962 but for whatever reason was not published. In that book, Pauline arrives in Italy, learns from Angelo's mother that he has returned to France and then both Pauline and Angelo's mother go to France to find him. The other book I can not find anything about.
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