Sanctions, then, are in no sense arnsubstitute for war. They are a warlike actrnand a cowardly and deeply immoralrnmeans for the United States to inflictrnpain on hapless civilians without sufferingrnany sort of retaliation. Perhaps onernday, in some far-off future, the wormrnmay be able to turn, and the sanctionedrncountry may be able to turn the tables.rnIt will be interesting to see how the President,rnand the permanent-war pundits,rnwould react to a little sanctioning themselves.rnMurray N. Rothbard is a professor ofrneconomics at the University of Nevada,rnLas Vegas, and vice president for academicrnaffairs at the Liidwig von MisesrnInstitute.rnThe Businessrnof Escapernby Christine HaynesrnPeter Mayle’s ProvencernPeter Mayle has dominated the nonfictionrnbest-seller lists in recent yearsrnwith his chronicles of life in the south ofrnFrance. A Year in Provence and ToujoursrnProvence (both published in the UnitedrnStates in 1991) even spawned a fourpartrntelevision series, which was producedrnby the BBC and has run regularlyrnon the Arts & Entertainment Networkrnsince its debut in the spring of 1993.rnMayle’s name has graced (and sold) picturernbooks and calendars featuring paintingsrnof Provence, and his first novel (setrnin—where else?—Provence) received arnfavorable write-up in the New York TimesrnBook Review when it appeared last fall.rnjVIayle’s recent literary fame—and fortunern—has only enhanced the alreadyrncomfortable life he was leading as a formerrnadvertising executive-turned-writer.rnIn an interview with Mayle last October,rnPubUshers Weekly described his writingrncareer as “one stroke of luck after another.”rnMayle ended a 15-vear career in advertisingrn(split between London andrnNew York) in 1975, after he sold hisrnmanuscript for an illustrated children’srnsex manual entitled Where Did I ComernFrom? to a publisher in 15 minutes. (Thernbook is still in print and has been translatedrninto 17 languages.) This successrninspired 12 relatively lean years of writingrnin Devon, England, before Mayle andrnhis third wife Jenny decided to move tornProvence, where they had vacationed forrnyears, in 1986. Both A Year in Provencernand Toujours Provence recount how theyrnrefurbished an 18th-century farmhousernnear Menerbes and adapted to new physical,rnlinguistic, and gastronomical surroundings.rnMayle follows a long line of bothrnFrench and foreign writers aboutrnProvence, and many of his observationsrnhave already been made by others. Thisrnmakes them no less true—or amusing.rnMayle makes good use of his senses, followingrnthe example of Lawrence Durrell,rnwho “experienc[ed] the country withrn[his] feet as well as [his] tongue.” Mernshows an appreciation for the grey crags,rngreen brush, blue sky, and yellow lightrnthat comprise Provence’s scenery, as wellrnas for the garlic, melons, goat cheese,rnherbs, asparagus, olive oil, thick-crustedrnbread, and robust wine that constitute itsrncuisine. Indeed, food and drink are asrnmuch of an obsession for him as theyrnare for the French themselves. Mavle’srnJrnYear in Provence begins with a New Year’srnDay lunch and ends with a Christmasrndinner of leg of lamb at a nearby auberge.rnIn between are trips to various marketsrnand houlangeries; lessons in truffle gathering,rngame hunting, olive pressing, andrnrabbit husbandry; and introductions torncherry picking and grape harvesting. AsrnM.F.K. Fisher once observed, even thernlower classes in France eat well, andrnMayle’s descriptions of a truck driver’srnlunch or a peasant’s evening meal makernan American reader wish for a day in thernlife of a French worker or farmer.rnBut Mayle’s books offer more thanrnmenus. In both his fiction and his nonfiction,rnMayle is a modern-day HenryrnJames in his attention to the habits andrncharacteristics of France’s natives. Herndoes a particularly nice job of conveyingrnwhat Durrell termed the “conversationalrnsalt” of the Midi. His accounts of thernProvencal language (“. . . it was a rich,rnsoupy patois, emanating from somewherernat the back of the throat and passingrnthrough a scrambling process in thernnasal passages before coming out asrnspeech”), greetings (“To be engulfed byrna Provengal welcome [is] as thoroughrnand searching as being frisked by airportrnsecurity guards”), and gestures (“… jerkyrnaerobics… accompany any heated conversationrnin Provence—shoulders twitching,rnarms waving, hands waggling in emphasis,rneyebrows threatening to disappearrnupwards into [one’s] cap”) borderrnon caricature, as critics of both his booksrnand the TV series have argued; but, exaggeratedrnor not, these images elucidaternthe personality of a people.rnYet such comments reveal only therncomic side of the Provengal character; asrnJacques Chabot noted in a book calledrnLa Provence de [jean] Giono (1980),rnthere is another more somber and secretrnside to this character, especially amongrnthe inhabitants of the mountains of UpperrnProvence. Mavle’s sketches exhibitrnonly a superficial understanding of bothrnthe natural elements and the human historyrnthat shape life in Provence. To bernsure, Mayle refers to the intense heatrnand bright light of summer days here,rnbut for him they mean no more thanrnthe necessity to spend afternoons byrnthe pool. In reality, such heat and lightrnaffect perhaps the most important—rnand certainly the most precarious—resourcernin Provence: water. The viewer ofrnClaude Berri’s film jean de Florettern(based on a novel by Provence’s mostrnpopular native-son, Marcel Pagnol) canrnsense the torridity produced by a summerrnwithout rain in frames of hazy sky,rnwithered stalks, and dead rabbits accompaniedrnby a sound-track of chirpingrncicadas. (As Alphonse Daudet—anotherrnnative-son—remarked, the shrill cry ofrnthe cicadas “seems the very resonance ofrnthe immense luminous vibration” of arnJuly afternoon.) Jean’s long, painful,rnand—ultimately—fatal struggle to supplyrnhis household and small farm withrnwater after his neighbors have pluggedrnthe spring on his property illustrates whyrnPagnol’s compatriots consider water tornbe “liquid gold.” Lack of water in summerrncan mean seemingly interminablerndroughts (and sometimes forest fires),rnwhile too much water in springtime canrnyield dangerous floods. This and similarrndualities (as between the burning heatrnof the sun and the frigid gusts of thern”Mistral,” a wind that sweeps from thernAlps down the Rhone Valley to wreakrnhavoc with the hats—and temperamentsrn—of all Provengaux) profoundlyrninfluence both natural and social life inrnProvence.rnJean Giono, among other Provengalrnwriters, recognized the “cycle of eternalrnreturn” inherent in these dualities. Naturernto Giono is sensual, and days as wellrnas seasons are not linear but round.rnMan’s labors follow nature and are there-rnOCTOBER 1994/47rnrnrn