Interviews
On Thursday, June 3rd, barnesandnoble.com welcomed Peter Mayle to discuss ENCORE PROVENCE.
Moderator: Welcome, Peter Mayle! Thank you for joining us online this evening to chat about your new book, ENCORE PROVENCE. How are you doing tonight?
Peter Mayle: I am doing as well as can be as expected on a book tour. They are strange things -- you frequently lose track of where you are. It is nice, a great privilege for a writer, and I am very happy about it.
Mary Abend from Sparta, NJ: I really enjoyed your book A YEAR IN PROVENCE. Do you think fans of that book will also enjoy your new one?
Peter Mayle: I hope so! It is the same subject and same writer. I have found a lot of new things to write about and I have been very careful not to repeat myself. It is new and like the others it smells faintly of garlic. Anybody who liked the first couple will like this one.
Nancy Malone from Haverford, PA: Why do you think the French love to drive so fast?
Peter Mayle: They are probably late for lunch. No, I think they are Latin by character, and their temperament is one of impatience, and they like to go fast. What else can I say? They don't want to hang around while on the road; it is a great contrast with the sedate and disciplined way of driving in America. The speed of those little French cars is quite impressive.
Nelson from Hanover, NH: Have you gotten much feedback from the native Provençals? Has it generally been positive?
Peter Mayle: By and large, from the local French folks and from the French people generally, I have been treated very kindly. The folks who own the bars and restaurants I write about are quite fond of me, and I think in a general way the people in Provence are maybe surprised but also happy that a foreigner has taken to their region with such enthusiasm. I think they are generally pleased -- but there are some exceptions -- but on the whole they have treated me very kindly and are happy with how I have described their piece of the world.
Bart McAllister from New York City: Was it your dream while working in advertising that one day you would leave all of it and go to Provence and write for a living? How did that all work out?
Peter Mayle: By accident! I had a good time in advertising and enjoyed it very much. But there came a moment when I wanted to write something more lasting, and I was always attracted to the idea of being a writer because of the independence that it offers and the choices it gives you in life. So wanting to write was an ambition that I had had for many years, and then that combined with the discovery of Provence 20 years ago. And it was one of those instant attractions, and I thought, What a wonderful place. And I thought, How marvelous it would be to accomplish such things: One to live there, and two to earn my living as a writer. So over a period of about ten years, after I'd left advertising, I did my best writing books; then I got to the stage that both me and my wife felt that if we didn't move now, we never would. So we took a deep breath and jumped, and I had the intention when I first got there of writing a novel. But we got so intrigued with daily life that I ended up writing about that instead, and that is how the first book came about. And much to everyone's surprise, including my publisher and me, other people wanted to read about the way we had been living. What started as a very small book just seemed to be attractive to people over the world. It was a 3,000 copy first printing in England, and it has now sold more than four million copies, and I still find that quite astonishing.
Rose from RoseW@hotmail.com: What to Peter Mayle is the ideal vacation?
Peter Mayle: I take a continuous vacation. There is no country in the world as pleasant and interesting as France. I guess my ideal vacation is staying home in France. That is where I have chosen to live. I have traveled a fair amount in my life, and I have made a deliberate choice to live there. I am happy to stay there and enjoy life on a daily basis. And it is very pleasant not to have travel ambitions. I would rather be at home in Provence most of the time.
Jan Crider from Fort Wayne, IN: I would like to let you know that I love your stories and hope that you keep writing them for a long time. Some day I would love to go to Provence and see all the things that you have talked about in your books. Thank you!
Peter Mayle: Thank you too! I enjoy writing very much. It is a subject that I have a tremendous affection for. The older you get, the better you become as a writer, so I can see myself -- with a bit of luck -- continuing to write for years to come. Also I realize the longer I live out there the less I know about the place -- there are still many more stories to tell.
BarkingFish from Amagansett: Is this online interview a harbinger of your upcoming Internet presence? Perhaps a virtual Provence is on the horizon?
Peter Mayle: I doubt it somehow because I don't understand anything about modern technology, and the whole idea of being on the Internet is really weird for me. I am very old-fashioned in terms of technology and I am only mastering the basics of a laptop computer.
Niki from Niki_palek@yahoo.com: What to you is the biggest misconception about southern France that is commonly held?
Peter Mayle: Well, France for starters, I think most people think that the French are slightly difficult, and I think that impression comes from the experience that many first-time visitors have when they go to Paris and they get a snotty waiter, but the rest of France is not like Paris. The French people in the country are very friendly people, so I think any conception of the French as a race as being difficult or aloof is not the case. If you go halfway to being pleasant to them, they will be pleasant to you. The South of France? If you say the South of the France, you think about the coast and the Cannes Film Festival and all that sort of glamour, which I guess certainly does exist, but where we are, which is well back from the coast, it is a totally different life. Much more normal, and an agricultural society. That is the side of France I had never heard about when I first went out there, but a society of France that I love and have written about.
Joana Harblin from Chesterfield: Fess up. Do you
really like all of the French stuff? You know -- the rudeness to Americans, the disgusting foie gras, the loads of cholesterol in all of the food? Don't you find it all to be a tad bit pretentious?
Peter Mayle: It is anything but pretentious. It is the way they live. I don't know if it is true to say that the French are rude to Americans; they are rude to people in the same ratio as New Yorkers being rude to people. It is often that they are in a hurry or distracted. The French down south are polite and agreeable people. As for the cholesterol, all you have to do is look at the statistics and you will see that the rate of cardiac problems connected to food in the diet is infinitely lower in France than in America. While it may seem that eating foie gras and other things might seem alien to many people who live on an America diet, it hasn't done the French very wrong, and it hasn't done me very wrong. But to go back to that thing about pretentious, it isn't really pretentious, that is just how they are. It is curious to see how fascinated the French are about what they put in their stomachs, and I feel that on a normal basis, you don't find much pretentiousness. I have been to much more pretentious restaurants in New York than I have in France.
Pac87@aol.com from xx: Are you a fan of travel writers? What contemporary authors in your genre do you enjoy reading?
Peter Mayle: I like some of them. There are many contemporary writers apart from Bill Bryson, who I think is a very, very good writer. Bruce Chatwin, I like him.
Steve from New York City: What initially drew you to Provence? And what brought you back again?
Peter Mayle: My wife and I were on vacation off the coast, like all good English people do, and we hit a patch of bad weather and instead of staying we decided to drive around. We drove up to Provence, and it was one of those wonderful shocks to the system, where the village that we stumbled across was a perfect medieval village, and it had a tremendous effect on both of us, so that was the initial impression. Subsequently we came back to the same area, and the more we looked at it, the more we liked it. We were also attracted to the climate, which was very Mediterranean. We liked the food and the wine was not bad either and we liked the people, so after five or six years of taking vacations down there, we decided to live there. But I remember that first evening, and it was a case of love at first sight.
Martha Clemin from Short Hills, NJ: Hello, Peter Mayle. I loved ENCORE IN PROVENCE -- I read it in two nights. I particularly enjoyed the section where you question the all-powerful [former
New York Times] restaurant critic Ruth Reichl's low opinion of Provence. What is your relation like with Ms. Reichl?
Peter Mayle: Nonexistent. I have never met the lady. The only reason I came to write that piece was that several people in America sent the piece from the Times to me and asked what happened? Then I read the piece and thought it was unfair and deserved to be replied to. It gave a very misleading picture of what is available down there. Maybe she just had a lousy vacation, but it wasn't a fair piece at all. I thought since it came from the Times it needed to be replied to, so I did and that is it. An honest disagreement.
Molly from Philadelphia: Ira Einhorn certainly seems to be enjoying the pleasures of France. Too bad he was convicted of murdering his girlfriend in the USA. Why is the French government harboring this criminal? He should be returned to Philadelphia ASAP. Is France above international decency?
Peter Mayle: I think there are many aspects to these situations where we don't know the full details; normally I thought France always falls into international decency, but I don't know enough about the case to reply in any useful way. That is it. If I knew more about it, I could give a better example.
Moderator: Are there any books you have been saving to read this summer?
Peter Mayle: I am hoping to buy them in America. I like reading biographies very much. I just finished TRUMAN CAPOTE by George Plimpton. I haven't had a chance to see what is available at the moment, but the one guy I always wait for new books from is Patrick O'Brian. But nothing specific. I like all sorts of stuff. I love Tom Wolfe; I wish he could write one per year.
Joe Benyak from Philadelphia: Do you still live in Provence?
Peter Mayle: We do now. We have been living in America for four years and we are at the moment doing the split between America and Provence. We just bought a new house there, and we will be well settled by the end of the year.
JGCrider@AOL from Fort Wayne, IN: How long does it take you to write your books?
Peter Mayle: It splits into two -- six months of research, then another six months of writing. It just happens to work at that way, so about a year...
David from Marlboro, MA: Did you enjoy writing about the art scene in CHASING CÉZANNE? Also, do you have any future plans to continue writing fiction?
Peter Mayle: I enjoyed writing it very much. It was such an interesting experience for me to find out about a business that combines money with taste. The small amount I did find out while researching the book, I found very interesting. I will be thinking about a fiction book in the near future. If you have a great idea, let me know, but it is very pleasant for me because you aren't constrained by the facts, like when you write nonfiction. I just find it very stimulating to switch from one to the other.
Valerie Doucette from Ontario: What advice would you give to a young writer?
Peter Mayle: Write every day. Because the best practice of being a writer is writing, whether it is a journal, short story, or something more ambitious. Establish the discipline of writing, when somebody is not breathing down your neck, a self-imposed discipline that is an essential habit for any aspiring writer. It is not good waiting for inspiration to strike. I find that I have to have a regular working day when I sit down, and if I am lucky I get 1,000 words that I don't want to throw up about, but the best thing to do is to try. Also, read a lot because reading good writers is an inspiration yourself. So in short, the only answer to that is to read more and write regularly, and hope for the best.
Jamie from Bryn Mawr, PA: Have you read any books lately that you would recommend to fans of your writing?
Peter Mayle: Bill Bryson, whom I mentioned previously, anything by E. B. White, who I think is a wonderful writer. Graham Greene, Patrick O'Brian, and that is about it.
Moderator: Thank you, Peter Mayle! Best of luck with your new book, ENCORE PROVENCE! Before you leave, do you have any parting comments?
Peter Mayle: This has been my first time online, and it would be nice to see a face, but it has been a very pleasant experience. Thank you very much.