Tides of St Michael Author:Roger Vercel This novel opens on a night of wild storm. Two passengers are dropped from a motor bus into the tempest, and swirled bby the wind through narrow streets, above which looms the famous fortress-shrine of Mont St. Michel, the most daring vreation of the medieval imagination. They are a man and wife, he a highly educated tehnician, she a beautiful... more » and pampered daughter of a millionaire manufacturer. The depression has ruined them utterly, and Andre is happy enough to accept a post and uniformed guide to the historic cathedral!
And so these two darlings of fortune fine themselves suddenly lodged in discomfort, and dependent on the tips of stupid tourists! Laura, the complete Parisienne, can never reconcile herself to a life like this, but for Andre, the estraordinary spell of St. Michel soom begins to permeate his being. For him, and for the reader, the theatrical existence on this rock, around which the tides race across the sand tiwh dangerous speed twice a day, unrolls like a first-rate travel movie. He hunts and he fishes with the natives. He is all but caught in a fatal mist which hides the Mount while the on rushing waves chase him and his companions like a pack of houds. And within the walls is the daily human comedy of tourisme.
The tens of thousands of Americans who have been to Mont St. Micel, or read Henry Adams description of its virile magnificence , wall upon wall, vault upon vault, up to the flaming archangel in the sky will delight in this novel because of its background. But its drama could have been played anywhere. Indeed, the story is so simply told, with such a subtle interweaving of drama and scenery, moral conflict, social adjustment, and adventure that the after-tast of the reading is even better than the story itself.« less