The Violins of Saint-Jacques

By Patrick Leigh Fermor

Book Overview

"Mr. Fermor's elegant rococo fantasy about a volcanic eruption on an imaginary Caribbean island is just close enough to reality to raise a genuine shiver--possibly even a genuine tear. In truth, it is... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0719555299
• ISBN13: 9780719555299
• Release Date: January 2004
• Publisher: Hodder Pb
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 0.26 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.8" x 0.4" x 5.9"

Customer Reviews

Small and perfectly formed

This gorgeous book, so dense in description and evocation of another land in another time, is nearly perfect. It describes the richness and mystical turbulence of creole life in bygone colonial days under French rule. Years later, a narrator listens to the tales of a woman who, while young, spent six explosive years on the island of Saint-Jacques. She is wistful and intense and full of memory for detail. Gorgeous

Perfect "Book Vacation"

Patrick Leigh Fermor is better known for his Travel Non-Fiction works, all of which are wonderful, but this book is one of the few I know that I would describe as perfect. It is the kind of fiction that magically transports you to another place and time. The delicacy and evocative power of Fermor's narrative voice is perfect for a story that occupies (like Dunsany's Elfland)the gray and luminous region between the world we know and folk tale... Rarely are flashback stories emotionally satisfying, but this device makes the loss of St Jacques all the more poignant. The character of the Governess is one of my favorite "book-people". If you can find a copy of this little book, snap it up!