The Solitude of Compassion
The Solitude of Compassion () is a 1932 short story collection by the French writer Jean Giono. The stories focus on rural life in Provence. The book was published in English in 2002, translated by Edward Ford. Reception. "Kirkus Reviews" wrote in 2002: "Although most of the pieces here, first published in France in 1932, are set in the hamlets and countryside of Provence, they bring us into a world that is dark, spiteful, and lugubrious: a world of hard-hearted peasants bent on squeezing the life out of their neighbors much as they squeeze oil from  their olives. ... Like Faulkner, Giono takes us into an unpleasant world shot through with strange and unexpected beauty." Adaptations. The story "Jofroi de Maussan" was the basis for the 1934 film "Jofroi" directed by Marcel Pagnol. Between 1987 and 1990, France 2 made a series of six Giono adaptations under the title "L'ami Giono", of which three were based on stories from "The Solitude of Compassion": "Jofroi de la Maussan" (1987), "Solitude de la pitié" (1988) and "Ivan Ivanovitch Kossiakoff" (1990).