The Fly-Truffler

by Gustaf Sobin

Out of the pungent soil and wind-struck orchards of Provence, this enchanting love story will make you believe, if you ever doubted it, in the power of love and the lengths people will go to keep it alive. Philippe Cabassac has fly-truffled―the art of stalking the flies that lay their eggs directly over the truffles―every winter since childhood on his family estate in Provence. Since the death of his young wife, Julieta, the truffles have come to represent something far more than a delicacy for Cabassac's palate: they trigger an evocative sequence of dream visions in which he and his lost wife enter, on winter nights, a state of intimate and prolonged communion. As Cabassac becomes increasingly involved in his dream life with Julieta, he loses his hold on his teaching obligations, on managing his estate, on his waking life altogether. Set against the fading of traditional Provencal culture and an incandescent Mediterranean landscape, The Fly- Truffler celebrates a love that, by its very ardor, outlasts a lifetime. Reading group guide included.

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, Food, France, Literature, Novels

162 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1999

Reviews

[Trin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't like this as much as I hoped I would. There was a lot I really DID like—the novel's a quiet, contemplative look at a man after the death of his wife, and there were passages (especially the one about the women who raise silkworms) that really touched me with their beauty. But like most works of magical realism, I walked away feeling like I just...wasn't getting something. This has been for a while a great frustration for me, because in theory magical realism would be just the kind of thing I'd like to read—and even write. But in practice, every time I've tried to read Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Angela Carter or Salman Rushdie, I've put the book down feeling confused and, frankly, kind of stupid. (The exception being Rushdie's The Ground Beneath Her Feet, which works for me in its own crazy rock 'n' roll, alternate universe, apocalyptic way.) I do feel like I'm somehow to blame, but eventually I'm going to just have to stop beating myself up and accept that magical realism may just not be for me.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Maybe it’s not a person we fall in love with so much as a distance, a depth, which this particular person happens to embody.”

The Fly-Truffler is a deeply sensual, profoundly telluric and even chthonic novel; it’s also a prose poem to language – specifically Provençal – to the land it springs from, and to the fast-disappearing ancient way of life of the Midi which the modern world not only encroaches on but obliterates in its possessive greed.

And yet it also embodies many contradictions in its structure, its expression, its themes. Its four parts take us from realism to hallucinatory dreams, from functionality to obsession, from gestation to stasis.

At its heart are the truffes noires de Périgord (Latin: Tuber melanosporum) which Philippe Cabassac seeks and harvests in winter from the soil in his domaine, situated somewhere close to Avignon and Aix-en-Provence. But it’s as much for their personal associations as for their consumption that Cabassac seeks them out, to the point where nothing else matters.

Cabassac is a linguistics lecturer at Avignon Université in the Vaucluse region, specialising in various Provençal dialects of Occitan, the ancient Romance language once prevalent throughout southern France. He becomes aware of a studious postgraduate half his age who starts attending his lectures and who, in time, starts living at his farmhouse, helping with his field research into linguistics.

Thus begins a chaste but dangerous student-teacher relationship a little reminiscent of that between Eliza Dolittle and Professor Higgins in Shaw’s Pygmalion; in truth Cabassac’s relation to Julieta is more akin to the original Greek myth of Pygmalion and Galatea – the latter a perfect marble statue which after divine intervention becomes flesh – as the student goes from idealised female, the eternal feminine, to lover, and then Cabassac's spouse.

But, as in the Pygmalion myth, Cabassac desires possession, a situation which Julieta’s apparent detachment never makes complete – until evidence of her pregnancy turns the tables. After Julieta’s premature death the distraught Cabassac finds the truffle ritual provides the means to having vivid dreams of Julieta, repossessing her through scent and taste and memories. Yet how long can this state of affairs last?

The Fly-Truffler is imbued with so many literary riches, sensual, sexual and symbolic, linguistic, historic and folkloric: the musky earth smells of the tuber; the aromas of passionate lovemaking; the “breath relics” of Occitan dialect words. Then there’s the sense of place, and one’s own place within it, and Cabassac realising Julieta’s needs: ‘It wasn’t a master’s degree she was after, he recognized, but an identity.’ It’s why she seeks to go aperamount, to the upland plateaux and valleys where the women used to tend the silkworm eggs, to the deserted farms and derelict watermills where her soul resides, to where she feels most at home.

I sensed a parallel with the myth of Galatea and Pygmalion at the start, but the interview with the author in the afterword suggests the story of Orpheus in the Underworld desperately seeking after his lost Eurydice might’ve been the subconscious impetus. It makes Cabassac’s descent into truffle-induced dream states more understandable, and explains how he becomes insensible to the demands of academic work and domestic maintenance. It may also explain how some passages and observations get repeated, seemingly oblivious of the fact they’re no longer newly minted, and perhaps indicative of Cabassac’s mental state.

And it may be instructive to remember what happened to Orpheus after returning desolate to the land of the living: the frenzied Maenads, fed up with his constant lamenting, tore him to pieces. The Fly-Truffler is an intense, melancholy work but there’s much to appreciate and admire once the reader surrenders to the hypnotic storytelling.

[richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5. Strangely precise language in places, verging on pedantic, but very effective and evocative. The premise is nicely put together, as the protagonist slips away from cares and responsibilities and into his fantasy perspective on Provence and on his love affair. We stay with his perspective even as we're allowed to observe him from a distance, which is neatly done.

[Christina Dawson · Rating 3 out of 5]

this book was ok

[Jeanne Julian · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an intriguing, strange, and sad romance--almost magic realism, almost a contemporary fairy tale. I liked how I could picture the characters and the settings. Provence, its history and landscape and lost language, almost served as a character in itself. However, by the end of this (short) novel, I have to say that the author's prose style, which started out seeming lilting [Mr. Sobin is (was) a poet--"not that there's anything wrong with that"!] became eventually cloying, ponderous, with repetition as I read. I was struck by so many cases of the unnecessary use of "very," as in "the hissing of those very cinders," and of "then," as in "for ten days running, then,...." Also, Mr. Sobin often employs fragments that build on preceding sentences without their own subject, as in "all Cabassac could hear was water. Was rushing water. Was the frothy, white, irrepressible pour...." These "techniques," if they can be so labeled, are fine for impact but that's lost with their overuse. In any case, the writing came to interfere with my appreciation of the story, although it might not strike other readers in the same way.

Does this sound picky? Let me add that I previously had read his nonfiction "Luminous Debris," which has something of the same sometimes annoying rapturous cadence as this novel, but also the same "luminous" quality. So, as you can see, what he has to say does outweigh how he says it, for me.

[Clemens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Der amerikanische Autor Gustaf Sobin nimmt diese kleine Novelle als Aufhänger, um die vom Aussterben bedrohte provencalische Kultur literarisch zu bewahren. Er erzählt die Geschichte des Lingustik-Professors Philippe Cabassac, der sich in eine seiner Studentinnen verliebt. Als Julieta nach einer Fehlgeburt stirbt, verfällt auch Cabassac mehr und mehr. Sein einziges Streben ist das, in seine Traumwelt zu entkommen, denn dort findet seine Geschichte mit Julieta eine Fortsetzung, die ihm im wahren Leben verwehrt blieb.
Die Grundlage für diese Traumwelt bilden die Trüffel, die Cabassac mit einem nicht nachlassenden Ehrgeiz sucht.
Sobin ehrzählt diese Geschichte auf schlanken 190 Seiten. Seiner Sprache und Erzählweise ist anzumerken, dass er eigentlich Lyriker ist. Die Sprache klingt, riecht und schmeckt nach der Provence. Immer wieder finden sich in den Text provencalische Wörter und Wendungen. Es wird im Verlauf der Geschichte deutlich, dass die Geschichte nicht das Wichtige und Besondere ist, sondern es ist das Erzählen der Geschichte, dass dieses Buch seinen besonderen Glanz verleiht.
Sobin ist es hier gelungen, in Worte zu gießen, was viele an der Provence schätzen und lieben.

[Sarah]

"You began bleeding, too, that very same week..."
"I felt so proud, so very proud."
"You bled more than most girls, I remember. You bled and bled..."
"I tried tasting it, too. I thought it would taste of something mysterious. Even magical," she said. "And it did. It really did."
"You kept bleeding, I remember, and I kept scrubbing. Your bedsheets, your nightshirts. Oh Magalie, it was just like yesterday. Not a single day more."

Yeah, okay.

[Nami · Rating 3 out of 5]

Books about lost loves always make me sad. This one ends in madness and that makes it all the better...

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a beautiful and sad story about grief and loneliness. There is a bit of a love story that explores why we love who we love. I enjoyed the metaphor as a means to capture the blurred lines between what was real and imagined, and the obsession as the book went on. What started off as mundane, you eventually felt like you were in a dream state.

[Jaime Robles · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautifully written book set in the Provençal region of France. A teacher falls in love with a student, and when she dies he begins to live a second life with her in his dreams. Strange and illusory but gorgeously lyrical.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful Provencal story. Lots of imagery of nearly lost traditions.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strange, but at the same time, I couldn't put it down.

[Chookychook · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lovely evocative book full of wonderful traditional images. Truffles, love, reading and nature -the novel is a treat for the senses.

[Fiona · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book I discovered when reading a book of essays by Shirley Hazzard. I can't describe the beauty of this book. A forgotten treasure.

[Christina Green · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was ok.

[Mariah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was so tempted to give this book 5 stars! I loved every page of it, up until about the last 5. (But take that with a grain of salt...I have a real issue with book endings.)

This book is one of those rare finds that needs to be read twice. It needs to be read once for content, and then it needs to be read again for language. Sobin's use of language is, like a rare and pungent truffle, something that must be appreciated and savored. This book, for me, has the most stunning and illustrative metaphors I've ever read.

Actually, the whole experience of this novel was that of dreaming. Things that might normally distract me from a book's story (overly purple prose, repetitive scenes, unlikely events), seemed to work in the same way that your dreams make sense-- even when you find yourself naked, riding a pony and trying to take the SATs at the same time.

This book is a true gem, and one that I'll definitely revisit.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

The part of this book that always stayed with me was this quote: "Maybe it's not a person we fall in love with so much as a distance". I just found now the name of the book that I read a long time ago, and this is the passage that explains that quote:

Hadn't Julieta always kept some small part of herself in reserve, Cabassac reflected, in a space to which he had no access whatsoever? He'd often thought that this reserve, this space, was what had drawn him so irresistibly to Julieta from the beginning. In the very first week they'd met, he'd jotted down in a leather-bound ledger book: "Maybe it's not a person we fall in love with so much as a distance, a depth which that particular person happens to embody. Perhaps it's some inconsolable quality in that person, some unappeasable dimension, that attracts one all the more forcibly."

[Preet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Language is alive, sensual and languid in Sobin's expert hands; the story as soft and creamy as a delicate Camembert. Each page is a tribute to the lush romance of the Provence region, and celebrates France's fecundity of nature. I never thought reading about silkworms could be so dreamy, or that someday I'd know the practice of something as precise as how locals in Provence discover truffles in their gardens and woods.

Read this especially at night, for that is when the magic is unstoppable.

[Natania · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful and haunting novel, marred by ticks of the excessively self-conscious writer. A lot of "those very" and "no more or less than," precious forms of speech/writing that, used over and over, annoy the reader like mosquitos--and this is a shame, because the story itself is beautiful, deeply evocative like some ancient poetic myth.

[Natasja · Rating 2 out of 5]

Een erg origineel verhaal, over liefde en verlies, en over het obsessief vasthouden en vastklampen aan wat er verloren gegaan is. Toch was het een oppervlakkige leeservaring, de pijn en wanhoop van Cabassac is er, wordt gedocumenteerd, maar ik voelde het niet.
Het ritueel van het bereiden van de truffels was wel beklijvend, evenals de reden ervoor.

[JL Reads · Rating 2 out of 5]

I‘m not sure what drew me to this book or how I even found it but I could never get into it. Maybe it‘s lost in translation or just the writing style. The reviews on the back had me very hopeful, but the story of Philippe and Julieta was not the love story I was hoping for. I‘m not sure I‘d really say they had a love story at all. Book 5 in 2021

[Michalyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had a great pemise but something seemed missing in the execution. The main character's downward spiral seemed to lack the necessary tension to make it truly tragic. An elegantly-written book but not a very satisfying read for some reason.

[Gwilym · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful, poetically concise, novel about Provence, student-teacher romance that runs awry before too long. Includes wonderful descriptions of food and wine. Perfectly readable in a single sitting.

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

my friend recommended this book to me and said she re-reads it constantly. the author is more notably a poet and while it was beautifully written i just found myself not really caring if i finished it or not.

[Lioba · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful language. A little book about a love so great that everything else becomes small. Also about a dying language in a dying culture. Could have been a sad book but it's not. It made me think and lust for truffles. ;-)

[Jon Munster · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only problem I had with this book is that Sobin is a poet, and there were times where the prose was written too much like poetry. The repetition tended to get a little old towards the end of the book.

[David Roberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

If ypu like books written from the point of view of a protagonist slowly slipping into insanity, you'll love this one. Lyric writing, almost poetry, about life in rural southern France and truffles to boot.

[Alicia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A love story with a very different sort of twist to it! Tragic of course but what is a love story if not tragic? Perhaps Gustaf has it figured out.....it's all in the mind, actors playing their roles.

[Jessica Haider · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really lyrical...you can tell that Mr. Sobin is a poet. I particularly enjoyed the descriptions of the scent and taste of the truffles.

[Sophiene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this in dutch. Beautiful language!!!