SOURCE: de Pomerai, Odile. “An Unknown Giono: Deux Cavaliers de l'orage.” The French Review 39 (1965): 78-84.

In the following essay, de Pomerai argues that one of Giono's last published works is an allegory for war and a condemnation of violence.

The case of Jean Giono is probably unique—that of a writer who changed his “manner,” and changed it successfully, half-way through his career. As the Times Literary Supplement remarked in 1955, “from a distinctly sentimental lyricist of his native Provence, he has become a novelist of the greatest power and invention … one of the most important novelists in Europe.”

Giono's pre-1939 books fall roughly into two groups: the “peasant novels” which became with the years more and more tinged with Utopian ideals, and the “prophetic writings” which include a number of stories, essays and pamphlets, and in which the main goal is conversion of the reader to the author's...