An Inspirational Story
I agree with most of the above comments on this book. It certainly opened my eyes to the exhaustive process of wine making and French Beaurocracy! I certainly shall not quibble about the price of a good wine again!!!
Patricia is a complete inspiration and a very good writer.
I am so pleased to see (from her website) that she appears to be going from strength to strength.
She describes the people in this book so well that when there is a death, you feel it, and the news that one in particular died made me cry.
I shall certainly be buying her next book.
An admirable woman's story ...
I first came across this lady in the Channel 4 series "A French Affair" in 1994, it being the story of 4 families who relocated to the Dordogne, and was struck dumb with admiration even back then. Just the sheer damned hard work she put in to pull through from horrendous problems to success was quite mind-boggling! I was delighted to spot her book, a few years later, and marvelled anew at her courage and persistance.
To the reviewers who didn't like all the technical stuff about wine - possibly the title should have warned them off! To the ones who said it was yet another book about Brits going to France and living the dream - well, once again, the subject matter is pretty obvious, and if you don't like that kind of thing, then don't read it!! I love all those books, and this is a particularly interesting example, because it goes beyond funny stories about French builders and "fabulous meals wot I have ate".
I think that she writes rather movingly about her marriage. I too felt that she probably could have said a lot more, but was too dignified to wash her dirty linen in public, or to rubbish her husband - who, after all, was only forced to abandon his dream through chronic ill-health. The loss of two very close friends - one horrifically young - is also very touchingly portrayed, so I don't understand at all the accusations of sterility and lack of feeling. The only thing I found slightly irritating was the writing of everything in the present tense, but this did not ulitmately spoil my enjoyment of the book.
I haven't tried the wine, but even it's awful I don't see that that can detract from the quality of the book!!!
Where there's grape there's groans
What a turgid, boring, heartless awful book. Not a single emotion, not a single well written sentence, not a tear shed for a marriage ending nor a dear friend dying young. Just endless anecdotes about pipes in a disjointed poorly remembered and dare I say cynical attempt to cash in further on a little fame. What should have been a compelling moving book about a huge struggle and clearly impressive achievement instead was episodic and dull. I hated every sentence (and I don't like the wine much either).
Enjoyed it, but lacked depth
I live in France and I bought this book to see how this person's experience differed from my own. I enjoyed the book and agree that the woman is an inspiration to all in taking on a challenge and excelling at something new, but I did find several things about the book spoiled my overall enjoyment.
I found that there were too many descriptions of moving wine around vats with confusing connecting pipes! I found the descriptions of the complexities of wine making overall interesting - I had not realised it was so complicated - but there was a lot of repetition of these descriptions.
I found that there was a lack of depth in how she dealt with the emotional side of the breakdown of her marriage. Perhaps it was too difficult to write about, or she felt a certain moral obligation to her husband to be discreet. I actually feel that at the start of her second book she is more open about her feelings regarding the separation. At one point I actually realised that she had not mentioned the husband for pages and pages and then there is one short paragraph to say that they were getting divorced.
The final issue I have is in the number of people who are casually mentioned in the book with no real description or introduction. Perhaps it's me - but at times I was confused as to who was who!
I would recommend the book to see a personal account of the complexities and hard work involved in wine making, and to observe a picture of French life that is quite enviable.
Irritating. It didn't grow on me
It's like most awful 'round-robin' letter at Christmas that you could ever have the misfortune to receive. She's sickeningly polite about everyone she meets along the way and quotes masses of awful 'poetry' - no doubt with the notion that it's humorous. It isn't. The concept is interesting - the story of a woman in at the deep end trying to run a business in foreign country. However there is far too little back story to set the scene, she tells very little about her husband (who got her into this) or how the business is financed - except that friends send large cheques. On the one hand we're told about the trials and disasters encountered but on the other we're told she excels. The worst book I've read in a long time.
