Two Towns in Provence: Map of Another Town and a Considerable Town

I recently finished MFK Fisher's Two Towns in Provence. The book was written in the early 1970's and shares Fisher's experience in Aix and Marseilles France during several visits in the 1930's, 1950's and the 1970's. My guess is little has changed in those towns since then. Fisher is a beautiful writer. Even though this book is mainly a travel memoir, it paints a wonderful picture of life in those Southern French towns from the point of view of a lone American woman with her two little girls.She begins in Aix, the city of fountains. Her descriptions captivated me. I could almost hear the trickle of water throughout the town. I could imagine the narrow cobble-stone streets with French men and women scurrying along, carrying a loaf of fresh bread under their arms. The shops and restaurants came alive with Fisher's details. When she was there in the 1950's while her children were quite small, France was still reeling from the the war. Everyone Fisher described, whether a waiter, an innkeeper, a shopkeeper, a homeless man on the street suffered during that time. They all had different stories. Aix is a city I'd love to visit and her descriptions made me even more anxious to do so.Marseilles, on the other hand, is not a city high on my list to visit. Fisher seems to have had a love/hate relationship with that city. She points out the beautiful spots as well as the ugly places. Being a large port, Marseilles attracts the lowest of low. She does not brush lightly on those people and their effects on the city. But, her love for Marseilles rings out loud and clear.To me the book was long for a travel memoir. What could she possibly say in over four-hundred pages. I expected it to be over in a couple of hundred. But, she kept going and so did I. It's not a fast read but it is a beautiful read. It reminded me of a journey by ship. Slow and methodical.Here are a few of the beautiful excerpts I particularly liked:"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious...the source of all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists...this knowledge, this feeling is the center of true."We are subtly catatonic, each in our own way, perhaps a little drunk on white wine and regret...""At night it glows, as do many great modern fountains, with white and colored lights which turn it into a kind of glorified wedding cake, audible if inedible.""The sunlight poured in through the beautiful windows, and stripped Madam's face like a scalpel, seeing viciously into the essence of her, the skin within the skin."As I read Fisher's accounts, I wondered about her life. Why were there no men with her? She had two little girls but no fathers. She travelled with her sister at times and talked about her. Later, I read about her life. Her oldest daughter Anne's father was never acknowledged. By the time she was born, Mary had been married and divorced and widowed. After divorcing her first husband, she married Dillwyn Parrish. That was a good marriage until he developed Buerger's disease--a very painful circulatory illness that caused him enormous pain. He shot himself. Later, Mary met Donald Friede with whom she fell in love and married. That's when her second daughter, Kennedy, was born. But, that marriage, too, didn't last.In other words, Mary was a single mom who travelled to France, lived there for long periods with her children, and wrote beautiful books. Men came and went in her life, but she was an example of an independent, successful woman.In Two Towns in Provence, you'll learn about the people, the art, the churches, the doctors, the festivals, the shops, the food, and so much more. Fisher gives us a rare glimpse into French culture and does it with an amazingly beautiful style.

When one passes through a new town or city for a few days, most human interactions will take place with service people: taxi drivers, waiters, hotel clerks, store clerks, perhaps a doctor. When one spends months or years in a place, it is normal for closer relationships to develop.Mrs. Fisher, a highly gifted and sensitive writer, seems not to have developed close friendships in either Aix or Marseille, despite her many months spent at different times in those places. And so her evocations, so richly detailed in so many ways, lack an important dimension of roundness. She refers to herself as a "ghost" at several points, and so I do experience her in large measure.But the prose is lovely, and one reads these pages with pleasure. I actually preferred the grittier Marseille portion; I found the Aix chapters a bit too laden with personal sorrow, despite her evident and well-expressed affection for that beautiful small city. Enjoyable, despite the latent melancholy.

The book is a gift

I have been greatly been disappointed in this book. I am a total Francophile and soak up just about any book on life in southern France, be it travelogue, novel, cultural study, etc. I have been reading Map of Another Town over the past few months and it's been a struggle. MFK Fisher goes into painfully boring and unnecessary detail on the most insignificant things, like having to go back and forth between offices and buildings while seeking the appropriate vaccinations for a trip to Africa, and what she thinks of every little thing related to the process. She'll devote pages and pages to experiences that have nothing to do with life in Aix-en-Provence and its environs -- it's a map of her own head, where she spends too much time. She finds herself rather fascinating, but I found her self-centered.I thought it would be interesting to read about life there in the 1950s and 1960s, but again, the book is less a cultural study than autobiographical ramblings (if you can find it, Village in the Vaucluse, a Laurence Wylie cultural study first written in 1957 and updated in 1967 and 1974, is fascinating and was one of my college texts for a French culture course -- 5 stars plus.). I probably will not even bother with A Considerable Town and will finish Map of Another Town only because I feel like I should.If you are considering this book because life in southern France fascinates you, I would instead recommend any of the Peter Mayle books (not jumping on the bandwagon here; I've read his books from the beginning and own all of them, and his writing style is absolutely delightful and endearing, even when he's being a snob), Yvone Lenard, etc. In fact, Peter Mayle's books so charmingly describe Provence that they serve as a guidebook to the best the region has to offer, so you can visualize and plan your own trip. With his writing style, it feels like you're along for the trip, whereas with MFK Fisher, you wonder when you're going to get there.

I love reading about food, the more detail the better, this has less of food descriptions than some of her other books and some of the chapters seem a little interrupted/disjointed, but it is still a very enjoyable read that takes you back to time/place.

I really enjoyed reading MFK Fisher's description of her and her daughter's time spent living in Aux and Marseilles. It was nearly as good as being there in person, since I doubt I will ever go there. I would love to see the fountains in Aux after reading about the town.

I've read this before in hard copy. Buying it as an e-book and intending to read my favorite bits again was unwieldy and unsatisfying. So far I am happy with reading NEW e-books on my HTC phone, but re-reading old fav's, not so much

This is a book written out of great love. It's a book of memory, and one of my favorites. MFK Fisher is one of the wisest, most humorous writers I know of.

This book is a lovely descriptive account of the author's life in Marseille and Aix en Provence with her children, during the years after WW2. Although the author is generally know for her food writing, this book will appeal to anyone who loves France, and gives a wonderful picture of those years, when the country was recovering from the hardships and trying to get back to a normal way of life.Difficult to put down!

Great