I love this book. It was the first Mantel book I read, when I ordered it from the library as a teenager, and I still haven't got over it. I've read it a few times and still every time I read it it hits me again. It's hard to pinpoint why, but I love the sort of perspective it's written from, sort of zooming in and out. I love the way Mantel writes, it's as simple as it could be to paint the images she wants, and still it's very elegant. I love the slightly detatched, humourous tone of most of it, almost but not quiite hiding the depth: like Lucile, young and bored and her obsession with Mary Tudor and dying young is sort of funny... but at the same time it's incredibly emotionally affecting, you can't help but grieve for her and her early death, not of ennui at all.
In fact, they all seem like such normal people and I think that's part of the appeal of the French Revolution: that it was normal people who made such huge changes, who created something amazing and terrible, and died for it. Well, Camille doesn't seem normal but he is weird in a recognisable way too!
I enjoyed the Saint Just reference, I wish the book had more Saint Just and more Couthon. Or I suppose that would be a different story with a different focus, but I'd like to read Mantel's version of that anyway.
I always wonder why there isn't much of Danton as an older child at school - if I remember correctly there are some amazing stories about him out there
Haha, I rather like him to be honest! I read translations from? Extracts of? some of his works and his ideas are fascinating. I think he partially gets a bad rep because of all the propaganda at the time painting all the revolutionaries as evil blood-thirsty monsters, and we're even worse in the UK, we have such a negative view of the French Revolution (in general, I mean, not you specifically!). I've read - and I don't know if it's true - that a lot of it comes from propaganda at the time in the UK because they didn't want us going the same way as France, and it's just never been reexamined, apart from by minor figures like Mark Steel's book on the French Revolution (funny and readable) Apparently Henry VIII executed more people than died in the Terror, for example, though I have never checked any of this myself, so citation needed for all of it (except the Mark Steel rec.)
Yes, you're always better at saying things than me Simon haha, that's exactly it. And the ordinariness makes it more terrible!
Monsters and men, all of them, I suppose... my fear of Saint Just is simply a matter of perspective. In this novel, we are Camille. And Saint Just is a scary creature when you are Camille.
That is very true! Which is why the Couthon/Saint Just book would have had to be a separate one. Actually, I'd love three, of the same events, from different perspectives: a Marat one as well! Mantel is so good at really writing from characters' perspectives (see everyone complaining abut More) that I think that would be absolutely fascinating. If only!
My dad told me that someone (possibly Desmoulins?) described Saint Just as “carrying his head like the sacred host” which a) is a great visual image and b) is such a sick burn, as my 12 year old would say.
I think there is a certain type of teenage girl (and I number myself among them, though I have now recovered) at least here in the UK, that is transfixed by the story of Mary Q of S. All those rubbish husbands and then your own cousin (so much for the sisterhood) locks you away for years and then chops your head off. So much *drama*. And add to that a six foot redheaded. What's not to love? I can well imagine her appeal to Lucile.
Slight tangent: when I lived in London, I used to go quite often to look at a letter that was on display in the old British Library that Mary had written to Elizabeth's councillor, asking for his help, and in which she starts by apologising for her handwriting (as French was really her first language) "Excus my ivel vreitin thes furst tym".
Absolutely! I had my own obsessions with long-dead historical figures who died young and tragically as a teenage girl too. It makes Lucile seem so ordinary and relatable. And yet... I wonder if she thought of Mary when she was being led off to be executed? I can't read that part without grieving for what will come for her, very soon, as she's unwittingly reflecting her own close future. But... the actuality of dying young is not the same of the fantasy of it, (though by all accounts she was very brave iirc!), and it breaks my heart a little that so soon it won't be only an idle, bored, romantic fantasy. It's foreshadowing, I suppose, but it's such sad foreshadowing. Mantel creates grief so subtly.
My obsession was Anne Boleyn. I remember checking out the 3 books in my elementary school library that mentioned her about a million times. My favorite was one about ghost stories. This all makes Lucile so interesting to me.
Simon, I know I let you know that I had a difficult time reading this book the first time I tried and stopped. But now, after having started the wolf crawl as well I am adoring it. I find reading aloud helps as there are a lot of characters to follow, and the cast of characters certainly aids in this.
This week’s chapters will be the last I read until I return from my travel in Eastern Europe on June 1. But I look forward to taking up the reading then, as well as the wolf crawl chapters.
I think slow reading is the way to go and I thank you.
I remember being so interested in Anne Boleyn's life and death when I was in my teens and early twenties because of the drama of it all, so I can sympathize with Lucile. When you've had an apparently ordinary upbringing, the thought of all the historical drama captures the imagination. I'm sure Lucile never thought she would end up living (and dying) in such times as the ones she ended up in.
I'm so glad when she was reworking APoGS for publication, Mantel added in so much about the lives of the women. It's fascinating to see things through their perspective. I'll forever be sad that we didn't get Mantel's Marat novel, or her final book that was in conversation with Jane Austen.
I loved the single POV of the Cromwell trilogy, but now I’m really enjoying the contrasting macro/micro viewpoints. One moment we’re reading about socio-economic policies, the turnover of various politicians, the American revolution etc, and then before long we’re in the Duplessis hothouse of hormones with lingering looks and pounding hearts and bare, white throats being exposed. It’s very cinematic - as if we’re zooming in and out. Also I have loved experiencing Mantel’s brilliant humour again - Camille is the perfect character for her dry wit. The idea that his clients are always hanged seemed very sad and tragic until he added “Even in property and matrimonial cases” which made me roar.
Thank you for recommending Mike Duncan’s Revolutions podcast Simon! I listened to the first 3 episodes you recommended right after finishing the week’s reading and it added a lot of valuable context to the book, and it’s also very interesting on its own.
Mike Duncan’s excellent Revolutions podcast was my walking companion in the early days of the pandemic lockdown. The amount of detail (and the research he did to be able to capture events and characters so well) is amazing.
The Rest is History podcast has a much less detailed but just as engrossing series on the French Revolution. It is in 3 parts so far and I think the hosts (Dominick Sanbrook and Tom Holland) plan to continue the series later this year or early next. Warning: Tom Holland likes to imitate accents, not always well, and occasionally sings (hmmm) but don’t let that scare you off. It really is good. I think the earliest episodes aired in the Fall of 2024
I also recommend the audiobook to help with the pronunciation of names - Jonathan Keeble does a pretty solid job with them. And his reading is generally admirable. Very strong characterisation game, especially with the more dyspeptic characters.
Oh, and I want to recommend the French Two-Part Series La Revolution Francaise: it was created by France and some other countries for the 200 year anniversary, and it's the best depiction I've found in TV or film, well worth watching. It's on YouTube here (part 1, with subtitles): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPiiAHSi_48&t=4928s&ab_channel=AntoineSaint-Just
Sorry if you have recommended this somewhere Simon and I missed it!
Françoise-Julie certainly makes an entrance. It's a shame we won't be seeing more of her (will we?). Her rage in the bedroom when she is "aghast" at finding herself subject to the same rules as other women. All the other women seem to have to play by the rules - or perhaps 'play the game' - but there's no doubting what Françoise wants and how she will go about getting it.
Rather like the Wolf Crawl, we're seeing how women are subdued and - sometimes - traded. Annette seems to be trapped in a loveless marriage, with daughters who aren't exactly on her side - yet we still don't quite sympathise with her. Françoise,on the other hand...
The Bastille diversion is really telling. People often say 'perception is reality' (not something I fully agree with, to be honest), and here the perception seems rooted in reality, but with elaboration.
The descriptions of Paris were bringing Hogarth - and maybe 'The Rake's Progress' would have been a possible subtitle for this section. Clearly neither Danton nor Desmoulins is a fan of the ten commandments.
Yet again, I'm surprised how funny this is. The dinner table with the fruit bowl and the salt cellar is like so many table top explanations we've sat through.
It’s usually the off-side rule being explained with fruit and salt-shakers, in my experience. If your government is *that* complicated it’s no surprise that an overhaul was needed! - I noted that as a result of the explanation no one got their desserts, literally deprived of their (let them eat) cake 😉
The whole Camille/Annette/Lucile triangle reminded me very much of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, especially when Camille is describing his plans to Danton in the cafe, so I imagine the reference was very intentional.
I thought I‘d already said that I wasn‘t too keen on Marat, @Simon, but now you‘ve gone and sent me off on a *really* ridiculous tangent re: the Prussian-ness of what’s now the Swiss canton of Neuchâtel, where he was born. I‘ve had very good crêpes with my friend Rike (who should be around here, too!) there and remember our kids really enjoying the playground by the harbour, but wasn‘t aware until now that it was a Protestant principality before it became a canton, despite being so close to Catholic Jura. But the choice of Frederick II of Prussia as their their prince, by the Neuchâtel estates no less, is really mad even to someone with fairly decent working knowledge of Holy Roman Empire/Swiss territorial history. What were they thinking? How did that make sense?
What now makes more sense that during the Kaiserreich, Neuchâtel was quite the place to send your well-born daughters for some time in a „Mädchenpensionat“, to acquire manners, finish and French, because of course to many Prussian worthies, a finishing school in a Catholic area would not have done at all. I‘m reading up on the conflict between Bismarck and the Catholic Church for another slow read, and it‘s all falling into place. As I said, the most ridiculous tangent.
Well this is what F&T is all about! You don't need to like the character. You don't even have to like the book. If there is a tangent to explore, then it is goddamn worth it.
The choice of the Neuchâtel estates was probably at least partly to do with wanting a Protestant prince, but probably more importantly, wanting an absentee prince who wouldn't interfere too much. They'd had enough of meddling rulers by this time. A generation or 2 earlier they had already expressed a preference for an absentee, hands-off prince(ss).
Thank you for all the work you put into these notes, Simon. Today I was especially intrigued to learn not only that Lucile Duplessis kept a diary and that some of it survives, but that she wrote so fluently and in such radical terms about women’s position in French society—at her age and at that time! This is before Mary Wollstonecraft wrote The Vindication of the Rights of Woman, and is altogether fascinating! I have checked and the London Library has a copy, though it’s on loan at the moment. I go in about once a month, and I could take it out later in the year—but I suspect you are looking for a copy of your own?
Thanks Susan! Is it an English translation? I was more curious as to how easy it is to find. I was surprised that it does not appear to be available online (in French), it seems such a fascinating document. The extracts I can find are tantalisingly good. But you should definitely take out the LL copy.
It looks to be the French edition: the publication details refer to Paris : Éditions des Cendres. I can’t see a translation. It is odd that such an important document (given the scarcity of witness of this kind) isn’t more readily available. I thought the Hathi Trust might have it online, but no such luck. I will reserve the London Library copy when I’m there tomorrow: it will certainly improve my French if I try hard!
We're only on week 2 & I can feel myself getting pulled in deeper already...
I found plenty more to notice here on the themes I was appreciating last week: names & social status again as Danton becomes d'Anton, and lots to ponder on Paris vs the provinces ("It was like Troyes, and very unlike it"). I liked the way the constant change of the big city is repeatedly emphasised, in contrast to the book's first paragraph where Desmoulin's father reflects on his life in Guise: "The town smells of summer; not very pleasant, that is, but the same as last year, the same as the years to follow." And on the subject of change, Danton's observation that "even an old institution can take on a new form" struck me as something Cromwell might have said, with his gift for wrapping dramatic breaks with tradition in ancient legal precedents...
I liked the way that our lead characters are gradually finding their voices: Danton discovers that "God had given him a voice, powerful, cultured, resonant, in compensation for his battered face; it made a frisson at the backs of women's necks." Desmoulin is unable to shake off his stutter, but can produce similar effects with the written word: "Camille writes beautifully, she thought, beautifully. There were phrases that made her hold her breath. Sentences that seemed to fly from the page. Whole paragraphs that held and then scattered the light: each word strung on a thread, each word a diamond."
I hadn't noticed the contrast in the static countryside and ever-changing city. That's a great observation. I loved the idea of Danton's voice causing a frisson to the back of the neck. I suspect that, as with the Cromwell trilogy, we're going to be hearing a lot of references to people's necks!
The scene with Danton and his sister in the convent is very moving. I love to see his human side. Arguably he is the biggest enigma of the three. He says he’ll rely on her to pray for his soul. One of the salient themes in this tale is that some people have a conscience and some don’t, the mystery of that, and that once’s conscience can assert itself unexpectedly.
Very much enjoying the book and I think Camille is my favourite character so far. The way he was causing chaos at the dinner party by constantly asking questions and expanding upon the problem made for a very funny scene.
I laughed like a drain at Camille saying to Danton, 'But you told me to cultivate the mother in order to get to the daughter.' And Danton: 'Yes, but not like that!'
My tangent to note is that I serendipitously decided, about a week ago, that it was finally time to start reading THE DAWN OF EVERYTHING, which has been sitting on my TBR shelf for at least 2 years. Imagine my surprise to discover that it doesn’t actually start aeons back in human history the way I expected, but rather plunges first into the philosophical debates of eighteenth-century Europe (cue foreboding rumblings from the direction of France). So along with chunks of APoGS, I’m bobbing about in a sea of historical, philosophical, legal, and economic minutiae absorbed from TDoE and the Revolutions podcast. *And* I just discovered that Episode 49 of the Empire podcast (which has already enriched the slow reads of W&P and The Siege of Krishnapur) is a deep dive into TDoE! Taken together, this all feels like tumbling down a rabbit hole of epic proportions, but it’s a very welcome digression from doomscrolling current events.
Dare I add that the last novel I finished just before starting APoGS was WATERSHIP DOWN? I couldn’t believe I had overlooked it until now, what an amazing book! Helps me to imagine what the warren I’ve landed in looks like….
I love the idea of being buttressed by occasional tables; only Hilary Mantel could bring such an image to mind. I’m enjoying this read of the novel SO much more than my first attempt and I’m sure it’s because we have a week to let scenes, characters and ideas settle our minds before reading the next instalment.
(What a shame we’ll never get to read ‘Marat, The Novel’)
I love this book. It was the first Mantel book I read, when I ordered it from the library as a teenager, and I still haven't got over it. I've read it a few times and still every time I read it it hits me again. It's hard to pinpoint why, but I love the sort of perspective it's written from, sort of zooming in and out. I love the way Mantel writes, it's as simple as it could be to paint the images she wants, and still it's very elegant. I love the slightly detatched, humourous tone of most of it, almost but not quiite hiding the depth: like Lucile, young and bored and her obsession with Mary Tudor and dying young is sort of funny... but at the same time it's incredibly emotionally affecting, you can't help but grieve for her and her early death, not of ennui at all.
In fact, they all seem like such normal people and I think that's part of the appeal of the French Revolution: that it was normal people who made such huge changes, who created something amazing and terrible, and died for it. Well, Camille doesn't seem normal but he is weird in a recognisable way too!
I enjoyed the Saint Just reference, I wish the book had more Saint Just and more Couthon. Or I suppose that would be a different story with a different focus, but I'd like to read Mantel's version of that anyway.
I always wonder why there isn't much of Danton as an older child at school - if I remember correctly there are some amazing stories about him out there
Hey! I feel like we kept ENOUGH of Saint Just later, but that might just be me. He gives me Stephen Gardiner vibes.
I'll only echo your celebration of Mantel's style in this book, which feels to me so full of life, the ordinariness and terribleness of it all.
Haha, I rather like him to be honest! I read translations from? Extracts of? some of his works and his ideas are fascinating. I think he partially gets a bad rep because of all the propaganda at the time painting all the revolutionaries as evil blood-thirsty monsters, and we're even worse in the UK, we have such a negative view of the French Revolution (in general, I mean, not you specifically!). I've read - and I don't know if it's true - that a lot of it comes from propaganda at the time in the UK because they didn't want us going the same way as France, and it's just never been reexamined, apart from by minor figures like Mark Steel's book on the French Revolution (funny and readable) Apparently Henry VIII executed more people than died in the Terror, for example, though I have never checked any of this myself, so citation needed for all of it (except the Mark Steel rec.)
Yes, you're always better at saying things than me Simon haha, that's exactly it. And the ordinariness makes it more terrible!
Monsters and men, all of them, I suppose... my fear of Saint Just is simply a matter of perspective. In this novel, we are Camille. And Saint Just is a scary creature when you are Camille.
That is very true! Which is why the Couthon/Saint Just book would have had to be a separate one. Actually, I'd love three, of the same events, from different perspectives: a Marat one as well! Mantel is so good at really writing from characters' perspectives (see everyone complaining abut More) that I think that would be absolutely fascinating. If only!
Imagine those Marat and More books!
My dad told me that someone (possibly Desmoulins?) described Saint Just as “carrying his head like the sacred host” which a) is a great visual image and b) is such a sick burn, as my 12 year old would say.
I think there is a certain type of teenage girl (and I number myself among them, though I have now recovered) at least here in the UK, that is transfixed by the story of Mary Q of S. All those rubbish husbands and then your own cousin (so much for the sisterhood) locks you away for years and then chops your head off. So much *drama*. And add to that a six foot redheaded. What's not to love? I can well imagine her appeal to Lucile.
Slight tangent: when I lived in London, I used to go quite often to look at a letter that was on display in the old British Library that Mary had written to Elizabeth's councillor, asking for his help, and in which she starts by apologising for her handwriting (as French was really her first language) "Excus my ivel vreitin thes furst tym".
Absolutely! I had my own obsessions with long-dead historical figures who died young and tragically as a teenage girl too. It makes Lucile seem so ordinary and relatable. And yet... I wonder if she thought of Mary when she was being led off to be executed? I can't read that part without grieving for what will come for her, very soon, as she's unwittingly reflecting her own close future. But... the actuality of dying young is not the same of the fantasy of it, (though by all accounts she was very brave iirc!), and it breaks my heart a little that so soon it won't be only an idle, bored, romantic fantasy. It's foreshadowing, I suppose, but it's such sad foreshadowing. Mantel creates grief so subtly.
My obsession was Anne Boleyn. I remember checking out the 3 books in my elementary school library that mentioned her about a million times. My favorite was one about ghost stories. This all makes Lucile so interesting to me.
Simon, I know I let you know that I had a difficult time reading this book the first time I tried and stopped. But now, after having started the wolf crawl as well I am adoring it. I find reading aloud helps as there are a lot of characters to follow, and the cast of characters certainly aids in this.
This week’s chapters will be the last I read until I return from my travel in Eastern Europe on June 1. But I look forward to taking up the reading then, as well as the wolf crawl chapters.
I think slow reading is the way to go and I thank you.
Wonderful! Enjoy your travels, Cindy!
I remember being so interested in Anne Boleyn's life and death when I was in my teens and early twenties because of the drama of it all, so I can sympathize with Lucile. When you've had an apparently ordinary upbringing, the thought of all the historical drama captures the imagination. I'm sure Lucile never thought she would end up living (and dying) in such times as the ones she ended up in.
I'm so glad when she was reworking APoGS for publication, Mantel added in so much about the lives of the women. It's fascinating to see things through their perspective. I'll forever be sad that we didn't get Mantel's Marat novel, or her final book that was in conversation with Jane Austen.
I loved the single POV of the Cromwell trilogy, but now I’m really enjoying the contrasting macro/micro viewpoints. One moment we’re reading about socio-economic policies, the turnover of various politicians, the American revolution etc, and then before long we’re in the Duplessis hothouse of hormones with lingering looks and pounding hearts and bare, white throats being exposed. It’s very cinematic - as if we’re zooming in and out. Also I have loved experiencing Mantel’s brilliant humour again - Camille is the perfect character for her dry wit. The idea that his clients are always hanged seemed very sad and tragic until he added “Even in property and matrimonial cases” which made me roar.
hothouse of hormones, chef's kiss!
I do my best 😆
Thank you for recommending Mike Duncan’s Revolutions podcast Simon! I listened to the first 3 episodes you recommended right after finishing the week’s reading and it added a lot of valuable context to the book, and it’s also very interesting on its own.
Mike Duncan’s excellent Revolutions podcast was my walking companion in the early days of the pandemic lockdown. The amount of detail (and the research he did to be able to capture events and characters so well) is amazing.
The Rest is History podcast has a much less detailed but just as engrossing series on the French Revolution. It is in 3 parts so far and I think the hosts (Dominick Sanbrook and Tom Holland) plan to continue the series later this year or early next. Warning: Tom Holland likes to imitate accents, not always well, and occasionally sings (hmmm) but don’t let that scare you off. It really is good. I think the earliest episodes aired in the Fall of 2024
Great!
So far I'm really liking this book! I laughed out loud at Claude's clerk rise, from "clerk menial" to "clerk-to-end-all-clerks."
The only issue is I'm having trouble pronouncing the names; my French is non-existent :)
I also recommend the audiobook to help with the pronunciation of names - Jonathan Keeble does a pretty solid job with them. And his reading is generally admirable. Very strong characterisation game, especially with the more dyspeptic characters.
The audiobook is a great help for this. I'm afraid I'm no help at all, since my school French is appalling!!
I too had this issue so I downloaded the audiobook to listen to as I read to assist with all of the French pronunciation.
Oh, and I want to recommend the French Two-Part Series La Revolution Francaise: it was created by France and some other countries for the 200 year anniversary, and it's the best depiction I've found in TV or film, well worth watching. It's on YouTube here (part 1, with subtitles): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPiiAHSi_48&t=4928s&ab_channel=AntoineSaint-Just
Sorry if you have recommended this somewhere Simon and I missed it!
I haven't! Thank you!
Françoise-Julie certainly makes an entrance. It's a shame we won't be seeing more of her (will we?). Her rage in the bedroom when she is "aghast" at finding herself subject to the same rules as other women. All the other women seem to have to play by the rules - or perhaps 'play the game' - but there's no doubting what Françoise wants and how she will go about getting it.
Rather like the Wolf Crawl, we're seeing how women are subdued and - sometimes - traded. Annette seems to be trapped in a loveless marriage, with daughters who aren't exactly on her side - yet we still don't quite sympathise with her. Françoise,on the other hand...
The Bastille diversion is really telling. People often say 'perception is reality' (not something I fully agree with, to be honest), and here the perception seems rooted in reality, but with elaboration.
The descriptions of Paris were bringing Hogarth - and maybe 'The Rake's Progress' would have been a possible subtitle for this section. Clearly neither Danton nor Desmoulins is a fan of the ten commandments.
Yet again, I'm surprised how funny this is. The dinner table with the fruit bowl and the salt cellar is like so many table top explanations we've sat through.
But where's Robespierre?
*Glances at next chapter* "Maximilien: Life and Times". While the two Ds are getting on in Paris, Max is busy in Arras.
It’s usually the off-side rule being explained with fruit and salt-shakers, in my experience. If your government is *that* complicated it’s no surprise that an overhaul was needed! - I noted that as a result of the explanation no one got their desserts, literally deprived of their (let them eat) cake 😉
The whole Camille/Annette/Lucile triangle reminded me very much of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, especially when Camille is describing his plans to Danton in the cafe, so I imagine the reference was very intentional.
I thought I‘d already said that I wasn‘t too keen on Marat, @Simon, but now you‘ve gone and sent me off on a *really* ridiculous tangent re: the Prussian-ness of what’s now the Swiss canton of Neuchâtel, where he was born. I‘ve had very good crêpes with my friend Rike (who should be around here, too!) there and remember our kids really enjoying the playground by the harbour, but wasn‘t aware until now that it was a Protestant principality before it became a canton, despite being so close to Catholic Jura. But the choice of Frederick II of Prussia as their their prince, by the Neuchâtel estates no less, is really mad even to someone with fairly decent working knowledge of Holy Roman Empire/Swiss territorial history. What were they thinking? How did that make sense?
What now makes more sense that during the Kaiserreich, Neuchâtel was quite the place to send your well-born daughters for some time in a „Mädchenpensionat“, to acquire manners, finish and French, because of course to many Prussian worthies, a finishing school in a Catholic area would not have done at all. I‘m reading up on the conflict between Bismarck and the Catholic Church for another slow read, and it‘s all falling into place. As I said, the most ridiculous tangent.
Well this is what F&T is all about! You don't need to like the character. You don't even have to like the book. If there is a tangent to explore, then it is goddamn worth it.
The choice of the Neuchâtel estates was probably at least partly to do with wanting a Protestant prince, but probably more importantly, wanting an absentee prince who wouldn't interfere too much. They'd had enough of meddling rulers by this time. A generation or 2 earlier they had already expressed a preference for an absentee, hands-off prince(ss).
Yes, that sort of makes sense, but still, Frederick II? I wouldn‘t feel safe with him even a thousand miles away.
It was in fact Frederick I, not Frederick II.
That’s less bewildering, then!
Thank you for all the work you put into these notes, Simon. Today I was especially intrigued to learn not only that Lucile Duplessis kept a diary and that some of it survives, but that she wrote so fluently and in such radical terms about women’s position in French society—at her age and at that time! This is before Mary Wollstonecraft wrote The Vindication of the Rights of Woman, and is altogether fascinating! I have checked and the London Library has a copy, though it’s on loan at the moment. I go in about once a month, and I could take it out later in the year—but I suspect you are looking for a copy of your own?
Thanks Susan! Is it an English translation? I was more curious as to how easy it is to find. I was surprised that it does not appear to be available online (in French), it seems such a fascinating document. The extracts I can find are tantalisingly good. But you should definitely take out the LL copy.
It looks to be the French edition: the publication details refer to Paris : Éditions des Cendres. I can’t see a translation. It is odd that such an important document (given the scarcity of witness of this kind) isn’t more readily available. I thought the Hathi Trust might have it online, but no such luck. I will reserve the London Library copy when I’m there tomorrow: it will certainly improve my French if I try hard!
I look forward to hearing about what you discover!
We're only on week 2 & I can feel myself getting pulled in deeper already...
I found plenty more to notice here on the themes I was appreciating last week: names & social status again as Danton becomes d'Anton, and lots to ponder on Paris vs the provinces ("It was like Troyes, and very unlike it"). I liked the way the constant change of the big city is repeatedly emphasised, in contrast to the book's first paragraph where Desmoulin's father reflects on his life in Guise: "The town smells of summer; not very pleasant, that is, but the same as last year, the same as the years to follow." And on the subject of change, Danton's observation that "even an old institution can take on a new form" struck me as something Cromwell might have said, with his gift for wrapping dramatic breaks with tradition in ancient legal precedents...
I liked the way that our lead characters are gradually finding their voices: Danton discovers that "God had given him a voice, powerful, cultured, resonant, in compensation for his battered face; it made a frisson at the backs of women's necks." Desmoulin is unable to shake off his stutter, but can produce similar effects with the written word: "Camille writes beautifully, she thought, beautifully. There were phrases that made her hold her breath. Sentences that seemed to fly from the page. Whole paragraphs that held and then scattered the light: each word strung on a thread, each word a diamond."
I hadn't noticed the contrast in the static countryside and ever-changing city. That's a great observation. I loved the idea of Danton's voice causing a frisson to the back of the neck. I suspect that, as with the Cromwell trilogy, we're going to be hearing a lot of references to people's necks!
Ha! I managed to copy out that quote without even noticing the significance of necks, thank you...
The scene with Danton and his sister in the convent is very moving. I love to see his human side. Arguably he is the biggest enigma of the three. He says he’ll rely on her to pray for his soul. One of the salient themes in this tale is that some people have a conscience and some don’t, the mystery of that, and that once’s conscience can assert itself unexpectedly.
Very much enjoying the book and I think Camille is my favourite character so far. The way he was causing chaos at the dinner party by constantly asking questions and expanding upon the problem made for a very funny scene.
I fell in love with Camille on my first read, a few years ago ☺️
I can see why. He's already one of the most interesting characters.
I laughed like a drain at Camille saying to Danton, 'But you told me to cultivate the mother in order to get to the daughter.' And Danton: 'Yes, but not like that!'
My tangent to note is that I serendipitously decided, about a week ago, that it was finally time to start reading THE DAWN OF EVERYTHING, which has been sitting on my TBR shelf for at least 2 years. Imagine my surprise to discover that it doesn’t actually start aeons back in human history the way I expected, but rather plunges first into the philosophical debates of eighteenth-century Europe (cue foreboding rumblings from the direction of France). So along with chunks of APoGS, I’m bobbing about in a sea of historical, philosophical, legal, and economic minutiae absorbed from TDoE and the Revolutions podcast. *And* I just discovered that Episode 49 of the Empire podcast (which has already enriched the slow reads of W&P and The Siege of Krishnapur) is a deep dive into TDoE! Taken together, this all feels like tumbling down a rabbit hole of epic proportions, but it’s a very welcome digression from doomscrolling current events.
What a warren of rabbit holes!
Dare I add that the last novel I finished just before starting APoGS was WATERSHIP DOWN? I couldn’t believe I had overlooked it until now, what an amazing book! Helps me to imagine what the warren I’ve landed in looks like….
Haha! I've never considered a slow read of WD, but why not!
Oh, I love Watership Down and would, if pressed, rate it among the Top Ten books. What a richly imagined world!
THARN!
Now you‘ve scared me!
I love the idea of being buttressed by occasional tables; only Hilary Mantel could bring such an image to mind. I’m enjoying this read of the novel SO much more than my first attempt and I’m sure it’s because we have a week to let scenes, characters and ideas settle our minds before reading the next instalment.
(What a shame we’ll never get to read ‘Marat, The Novel’)