Giono, Gracq, Graves, Hamsun

Since my last post I read three issues of Eclectic Reading.

I read both volumes of I, Claudius by Robert Graves. The first volume was more entertaining than the second, and I read it primarily comparing it to the trashy BBC series from the 1970's. I also read Knut Hamsun's Growth of the Soil, a Norwegian pastoral, complete with long-suffering men and women committing infanticide. I enjoy pastorals, but this was fairly ordinary. I then read the first three volumes of Giono's novels. There were occasional passages where Giono captured the exact feeling of being along in nature, the rythm, the peace. Then I tore through Julien Gracq, and it was quickly done since I had read his main novel already, Rivage des Syrtes. I confess I found him a little ordinary to be included in this distinguished series, La Pleiade, named after a constellation.