Letters from My Windmill

Book summary

Settled in an abandoned windmill in Provence, the narrator sends his Parisian readers stories of the country and its people. Among them are Monsieur Seguin's goat, the priest of Cucugnan, Corsican lighthouse keepers and an old couple forgotten in their village. The pieces move between farce, legend and brief scenes where a life fits into a few pages. The collection explores rural Provence, its vanishing trades and the nostalgia of a man watching from a distance. Daudet writes a plain, musical prose in which humour often lets melancholy through.