Pastoral

HARVEST -- Jean Giono -- Viking ($2.50).

Jean Giono, 44, is a burly, self-educated French-Italian hillbilly, whom critics have called "one of the giants of modern French letters." He lives in a remote mountain village of the Basses-Alpes, writes unusual novels about hamhanded, muscularly poetic peasants against bright-colored, heroic landscapes. He eschews the literary world, refuses to visit Paris,* and has become almost a legendary figure in France. Two years ago U. S. readers were introduced to Giono with The Song of the World, agreed that Giono packs a powerful pastoral punch.

Slighter than The Song of the World, and written before it, Harvest, a simpler, more sentimental story, has been more popular in France. Its plot withers under synopsis like a mushroom in the sun: a huge, passionate peasant becomes the last inhabitant of an abandoned mountain village, marries a stray waif, and together they begin to cultivate and repeople the abandoned land. Sample Giono description: "And today there had been rain. Like a bird it arrived, settled, and went away. The shadow of its wings had been seen passing over the hills of Nevieres. It came back and hovered around Aubignane, then flew off towards the plains. After that the sun came out and, like a mouth, breathed warmth."

* A couple of years ago Giono took a look at French industrial centres, returned to his village to write escapist novels more savagely than ever.

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