coastal village
Bonneville
A fictional fishing village on the Normandy coast, the setting of La Joie de vivre. The village clings to crumbling chalk cliffs above a violent sea, slowly being destroyed by the waves. Here Pauline Quenu — cheerful, self-sacrificing, the great giver of the cycle — comes as a child and stays as an adult, watching Lazare Chanteau founder under his pessimism and hypochondria while she tends his family and slowly gives away her own inheritance. The ocean is the novel's dominant presence: vast, beautiful, pitiless, indifferent to human suffering.
Village de pêcheurs fictif sur la côte normande, décor de La Joie de vivre. Pauline Quenu y vient comme enfant et y reste adulte, tandis que la mer dévore lentement les falaises. L'océan domine le roman — vaste, beau, impassible.