Jean-Loup Trassard

L'Homme des haies - Jean-Loup Trassard
I suppose the literal translation of this book is man of the hedges. It is a monologue of a retired farmer in the Mayenne: A department south of Normandy. Vincent Loiseau still lives on the farm with his heir and his wife who now manage the farm. The hedges are now the most important thing in the life of Vincent, he can no longer do much of the heavy work on the farm and so what is left is looking after the hedgerows as best he can. He has a rediscovered passion for the countryside now he has the time to reflect on his life and the natural world contained in and around the hedges.

When I made my first cycling trip to France I could not help but notice the different aspect of the French farms. At that time back in the 1960's, many of the hedgerows of the farms in the South of England had gone to make way for huge fields for growing wheat. In France many of the small farms still survived with different sized plots of land, bordered by hedges and containing a variety of animals and small areas for cultivation. Vincent's story is of an earlier era still, he was active in the 1930's and through the years of the German Occupation. He used horses to plough and can remember a time when there was no electricity on the farms in his area. The work was harder and certainly more labour intensive, but Vincent looks back on his life with some satisfaction. He has no regrets and cannot think he would have done anything else, but take over the work on the farm where he was born.

Vincent tells us of his daily routine from warming his clothes in his bed to getting up when it has warmed up a little to go back to working on the hedgerows when the weather and season allows him. He has not much to say about his son (one presumes it is his son who has taken over the farm as he only refers to him as "him"). Vincent is now in his late sixties and farming methods have changed, mechanisation has taken over and the son has tractors and other equipment. Vincent tells of the time when he had to sell his beloved horses and reminisces about his relationship with the animals and how important they were to the life on the farm. Much has changed and Vincent thinks that today on his farm the connection with nature has been lost: 'Him' is in too much of a hurry to do things differently. Vincent tells us of his wife Suzanne whom he loved and who died when he was in his fifties. He has adapted to life on his own, but still misses his wife.

It is Vincent's speaking voice throughout the book and he uses a variety of patois words and phrases (their is a small dictionary of terms to help the reader), but one soon gets used to his speaking voice and the way he phrases things. In his last sentence and the last sentence of the book he says that "I believes I have told everything, perhaps more than I should have and in any case I have told more than I have said to anybody". The book serves as a polite document of the life of a small farmer in the North of France at a time when agricultural methods were changing. Vincent's reminisces if they don't hark back to a golden age; certainly paint a rosy picture of farming life and its more intimate connection with nature and the small world of the farm and neighbouring villages.

The author Jean-Loup Trassard is a photographer and author and this book won him the "prix de L'Academie française Maurice Genevoix in 2013. I was soon caught up in the world that is described by Vincent in this book. In many ways it connects with the life that must have existed in the countryside around the village in which I live. I think Trassard has created an authentic voice and one that takes the reader into a world that for many of us is just about recognisable. 4 stars.… (meer)