The Man Who Planted Trees (L'homme qui plantait des arbres)

[sandbender]

A comment by Robin Wood in another thread put me in mind of this short story. I read it in the original French many years ago and many years later watched the short Canadian animation of the same.

Here are some links for anyone with half an hour to spare.

An English translation

The Original French version

The wikipedia entry about the book

And the Animation...

[video=youtube;v_7yEPNUXsU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_7yEPNUXsU[/video]

Enjoy.

 

[swotty]

Brilliant, thanks for that I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, What a wonderful man.

 

[Nice65]

I'd probably never have remembered that book had you not mentioned it. Thanks, the loft needs a sort out, it'll be up there somewhere.

 

[Macaroon]

This is, for me, one of the best European short stories of the modern era; something in the way he writes just takes you away into the world he's writing of, and in my view that's what makes great writing.

There are important lessons here too, but he never even comes close to preaching and it works all the better for that.............................atb mac

 

[Stringmaker]

I didn't know that story; great little tale, thanks for the post.

 

[mousey]

WOW,

and here's me being happy with my self for planting 20 tress and a number of shrubs in my garden to add a bit of life rather than a concrete/ patio/ chuckied wilderness.

That guy was completly bonkers - and wonderfully so

 

[Mesquite]

I'd read the story before but it was really enjoyable to revisit it again

 

[Dave]

What a great fable.
You can try so hard and get nowhere in this life, yet just by doing something as simple, as walking around with an iron rod, and planting seeds, he led a very worthy life indeed.

 

[feralpig]

What a marvellous story. By some coincidence, I collected 100 acorns last night, to plant a hedge. I think after reading that, I'll just go and collect them all.

 

[Zingmo]

This story, or rather the animation, was largely responsible for my brother jacking in his job and city life and retraining as a forester.

Z