The Vintner's Luck
A French winemaker's annual encounters with an angel over 55 years.
Elizabeth Knox, a New Zealand author, wrote the romantic fantasy novel The Vintner's Luck, which came out in 1998. It earned the Deutz Medal for Fiction and the first Tasmania Pacific Region Prize. A film adaptation was released in 2009.
Quick Facts
- Author
- Elizabeth Knox
- Country
- New Zealand
- Language
- English
- Genre
- Fantasy, romance
- Set in
- Burgundy, France in the 19th century
- Publisher
- Victoria University Press (NZ)
- Published
- 1998
- Pages
- 241
Facts from the source article.
Plot
The novel follows Sobran Jodeau, a peasant winemaker in Burgundy, and his relationship with the angel Xas over 55 years. In 1808, an 18-year-old Jodeau, drunk and unhappy in love, finds what he thinks is a statue on a ridge of his family's vineyard; it is Xas, a beautiful young man with white wings and skin, smelling of snow. Jodeau believes Xas is his guardian angel, and Xas promises to toast his marriage the following year. Xas visits Jodeau once a year on the same day, each chapter titled with a year and a stage of wine-making. Jodeau marries Céleste, has a daughter, serves in the Napoleonic Wars with his friend Baptiste Kalmann, inherits the vineyards, and becomes prosperous. Their discussions cover Jodeau's life, village events, and Xas's hints about the afterlife and his role in a treaty between God and Lucifer. Jodeau falls in love with Xas but is conflicted upon learning Xas is a fallen angel. Aurora de Valday, a widowed niece, learns of the relationship. Xas is wounded by Lucifer and given to Jodeau. The final meeting occurs in 1863, with an epilogue set in 1997 from Xas's perspective.
Background and publication
Knox began writing The Vintner's Luck after a fever dream during pneumonia, in which an angel told her the story of his friendship with a French winemaker. She wrote the first 100 pages upon waking. Though her earlier novels were critically well-received, they lacked commercial success; Knox felt this book would be a bestseller. She had never been to Burgundy nor had wine-making experience, so she researched wine-making in New Zealand and Burgundy, as well as historical methods. She found minor details, such as the use of steam engines to pump out mines, hardest to research, but prioritized creativity over research, especially given the angelic subject. She invented the novel's internal theology, describing herself as a very Christian atheist. The fictional Clos Jodeau is set on a hill near real-life Aluze, Burgundy, near the river Saône. The novel was first published in New Zealand by Victoria University Press in 1998, then in the US by Farrar, Straus and Giroux and in the UK by Chatto & Windus in 1999, with a Vintage Books edition in 2000. A limited tenth-anniversary hardback and a VUP Classic edition followed. It has been translated into German, Dutch, Norwegian, Spanish, French, Hebrew, Italian, and Korean. Knox chose the title despite knowing vigneron would be more accurate, feeling The Vigneron's Luck would be a mouthful.
Reception
The book brought Knox significant critical praise and boosted her reputation both in New Zealand and internationally. Sales were strong in New Zealand, Australia, and Britain, where it spent three weeks on The Guardian's bestseller list. In New Zealand, more than 60,000 copies were sold, and in 2018, The Spinoff's readers chose it as the top New Zealand novel from the past fifty years. American critics were divided, agreeing the work had moments of brilliance but differing on its overall coherence. Many admired Knox's writing style but had reservations about her human characters. Richard Bernstein of The New York Times commended the opening's "spare stylish precision" and noted her considerable talent, yet felt the story lost momentum. In the LA Times, Richard Eder described a "disconcerting hollowness" in the novel, though he praised her portrayal of Xas as an unhuman, always alien presence.
Adaptation
A film adaptation was announced in 2003, to be directed and co-written by New Zealand director Niki Caro. Caro, then promoting Whale Rider, visited Knox with flowers and suggested purchasing the option; Knox felt confident Caro would do the novel justice. The adaptation, released in 2009 under the same title, was almost universally panned at the 34th Annual Toronto International Film Festival. Knox was disappointed, feeling Caro removed what the book was about—the romantic relationship between Sobran and Xas. Knox's sister Sara, who is gay, was also upset. After this experience, Knox pulled out of a potential film contract for her Dreamhunter Duet series. David Larsen, writing for the Academy of New Zealand Literature in 2016, noted the screenplay opened with Sobran on his deathbed, framing the story as a flashback and distorting it into a linear quest for a great wine. He criticized Caro's handling of the sexual relationships, particularly that between Xas and Sobran, and noted that in the film Xas asks Sobran to cut off his wings rather than having them forcibly removed by Lucifer, which he suggested had homophobic subtext.
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