Description
Our respect for the law is tempered-sometimes-by our admiration for those who successfully break it. Outlaws, bandits, escaping prisoners – we can’t help being on their side, at any rate on paper at a safe distance in a novel.
In Emeric Pressburger’s story our judgment can easily be suspended, but although entertained and excited we are not left with the feeling that we have been tricked into condoning crime. Questions of religion, of conscience, of love, of loyalty, even of justice, with things the law can take no account of – these are at the back of a story where comedy mingles with tragedy in the high Pyrenees.
Who was in the right we may never be able to decide. Only one thing is sure: this is a highly original novel, with the elements of a thriller, the romance of banditry in the mountains, the comedy of authority set at defiance, the undercurrent of ancient wrongs and of more recent political rancour. -Daniel George
A beautifully told, supremely human story, hovering between humour and tragedy by the author and producer of The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, The Red Shoes and other memorable films.
To the French authorities, Manuel Artiguez is just one of thousands of exiled Spaniards living in Pau. But across the wild Pyrenees, in Spain, he is known as an audacious and dangerous bandit with a 100,000-peseta price on his head, who for the past twenty years has been harassing the Spanish authorities and official institutions. To Captain Viñolas, chief of the Pamplona police, his capture has become an obsession.
With the arrival in Pau of a small Spanish boy and of Father Francisco, a devout young priest on his way to a pilgrimage to Lourdes, this twenty-year drama comes to a thrilling and moving climax, in the course of which both priest and outlaw come to a new understanding of some of the simple values of life.
Hardcover, 192 pages. In excellent pre-loved condition with the exception of spotting to the exterior sides of book.