A couple of people I know didn't get on with APOGS and I think I can see why. I'm finding it a bit tricky to follow - and I definitely need to keep referring to the cast of characters at the beginning.
Lots of characters turn up, but are they just background? Or maybe minor characters or even major characters we're meeting for the first time?
When Claude turned up at the Cafe du Foy, I was a bit confused. What was he doing there? Why is he so cordial? It feels a bit disorientating.
And I don't have a clue who Camille's mistress is - nor her mother. (I also don't have a clue where Camille gets all his energy from.)
I'm still enjoying it but I'm now trying to read it in terms of a series of snapshots rather than a single picture. Maybe I will be able to make sense of it at the end - perhaps it's a literary form of pointillism.
"Literary pointilism" is a great description of APOGS. I think the effect is supposed to be disorientating, because life... and revolution *is* disorientating.
This being the fourth or fifth time I've read this, I can say we meet lots of minor characters in these chapters who are consequential later. It does make War & Peace look like a walk in the park.
I agree, and II think the slow read helps with this. I'm just trying to soak up the little vignettes without trying to connect everything (that's what Simon's posts are for anyway)!
Ok, this book officially has its hooks in my brain now! Knowing very little about the details of the French Revolution, and trying to balance not spoiling the plot with having at least some necessary background to understand the nuance has been a tricky juggling act so far (and utterly impossible without all your excellent info and character summaries, Simon!). Now we're almost a month in I thought I'd go back and re-read weeks 1-3, and I found it so rich and rewarding to see our key players' childhoods the second time around, knowing a little more about where they might be headed. They're definitely taking shape in my mind, and thanks to the Revolutions podcast, the broader picture is coming clear. The tension mounts indeed!
That is impressive. After last year’s show read, I’m having a second run through ‘War and Peace’. I’ve not thought of rereading earlier chapters while still on a first read - I’m worried that it might break the universe or something.
Had I known those were the stakes I would have proceeded (or regressed, as it were) more cautiously 😅 To be honest, though, I am going against my nature in backtracking like this - I'm a fast, greedy reader, a bit of a skimmer and not so much inclined to close or re-reading, but I would like to train myself to be a bit more careful, less in a hurry. Re-reading in this circular way seems like one way for me to try that.
I have been very much considering going back and reread in the first chapters. Along with the podcast. Just have to find time. I fear I signed up for too many slow reads.
I had a little episode of FOMO, so besides a reread of W&P and Wolf Crawl I am also doing Anna Karenina, Dante's Divine Comedy, The Iliad and the Odessy, a listen along of Moby Dick on Audrey (almost done), and just started Middlemarch. And Dracula Daily - that's a fun one. And I'm in 2 in-person book clubs. I'm in over my head, but too committed to drop anything. I do have to do a little "what country and what century am I in" before I start reading every day.
Oh wow, that’s quite the list! I can see any of these would be hard to pass up though, and to have the chance to read with others and get some good supplementary material etc - hard to say no to that! I am hoping to do a re-read of Middlemarch this year, but maybe after APOGS is done. Can I ask which readalong you’re doing of that one?
1. great line from Camille: "I didn't see anything, I didn't speak to anyone, I thought evil thoughts all the way."
2. I went down a rabbit hole trying to figure out if Camille was bi in real life, or if that was a Hilary Mantel invention. The closest thing I could find was d'Anton accusing Camille of having "des vices honteux" (private? shameful vices) [0] which Robespierre remarked were unrelated to the revolution [1].
3. wait, was Camille the father of Gabrielle's baby? "A note of panic in his veiled eyed struck a corresponding note in her heavy body. The baby was born, the heaviness dispersed; a rootless anxiety remained." (Holt p127) (i guess Camille said he wasn't currently trying to seduce d'Anton because it's "time to think of higher things", at least)
4. on language, I found Fabre using the word 'c*nt' jarringly anachronistic, though I recognize that's absurd considering that they would've been speaking french anyway
5. oh hai there Anne Théroigne, "one of the first Amazons of liberty"
But even assuming for a moment they’d been speaking in English, why would using the word ‘c*nt’ (I’m not usually euphemistic) be anachronistic? It’s more than old enough, and do we really think it wasn’t used as an insult by people speaking informally? And it’s exactly analogous to ‘con’, though the latter has become less frequently gynaecological over time and is used in a multitude of situations
I like to think the artist might be Marie-Guillemine Benoist. She was a supporter of the revolution and studied under David. I can't find anything about her mother (though her sister was also an artist) or any reference to Desmoulins, but she would surely have been mixing in similar circles. Her most famous painting is 'Portrait of Madeleine'. She was quite rock-'n'-roll too - opened an artistic atelier for the training of women artists, painted Napoleon and our old W & P friend Larrey (the battlefield doctor), campaigned for women's rights and against slavery. I think Camille would have liked her.
And now I‘ve read up on her, what a treat. She first studied with Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, who is responsible for most of the Marie-Antoinette iconography, among them the splendid „chemise à la reine“ painting (pastel?), which could spin off into an entirely new tangent all by itself. Just the other day my mother and I were talking about how we see the time of the French Revolution primarily through Jacques-Louis David‘s eyes, but that it‘s really a shame how all those fabulous women painters working at the time don‘t get equal billing (not that there‘s anything wrong with David, whom I adore). Even though they were famous enough in their day, it‘s mostly art history that‘s quashed their memory. I would not have been able to put a name to the famous Madeleine painting, even though it‘s on the cover of Maryse Condé‘s novel „Moi, Tituba sorcière“ (@Simon, another brilliant book to sink your teeth into!) and I‘ve seen it many times.
Definitely a great tangent! Vigée Le Brun's chemise portrait also features in the chapter, along with a picture of MA with her kids that she painted to try and portray the queen in a more relatable way. With her sumptuous red gown and enormous matching hat, I'm not sure she entirely fulfilled the brief!
I was familiar with the Portrait of Madelaine, but I also have Katy Hessel's great book The Story of Art (Without Men) and there's a short section in there about women artists during the revolution.
There's actually another artist in there I thought might be a candidate, Marie Denise Villers, but I think she might have been a bit young, even for a reprobate like Camille. I think HM would have been tickled pink by the fact that the Met inadvertently paid top dollar for one of her portraits in 1917 because they thought it was by David. 😁
I know it's been five years since I listened to the audiobook, but I'd forgotten just how much quiet, dry wit Mantel put into this book.
And in other news, I keep having to remind myself that I already have so many books on my plate. I can't go haring off to read something like Les Liaisons dangereuses just because it was mentioned here. Maybe later. Not right now.
I am listening on Audible rather than reading and it is so entertaining. I was concerned at first about missing important parts or not understanding as like Bren said, it is a little tricky to follow at times, but between these posts and the character list I am doing okay. I’m just going to go with it. I will most definitely want to read the actual book after we finish.
The best thing I did was get the audiobook on Libro.fm to help me with French pronunciation because the reading is so entertaining and adds a layer my brain doesn't allow for during reading.
I feel you - I’ve already read the book at least once and listened to the audiobook all the way through and I STILL rewind the audiobook at frequent intervals to make sure I haven’t missed anything essential
They’re not great on Audible either. They’re just numbered straight through so I had to go through the book and make a list to correspond to the Audible chapters. Kind of a pain.
I so much enjoyed this chapter—for me, the story really has taken off. I have a marker for the list of characters at the front of the book, and I have my own list of the main characters with notes; plus, increasingly, I know I will rely on Simon’s directory; I’ve never had a good memory and old age is not helping—but with all this help I am managing to keep up! Wikipedia is also my friend—even though I have always had serious problems recognizing people whom I know quite well, I do like to know what historical characters looked like. So for this Slow Read, for example, I have Lucile’s portrait handy to remind me of her lively intelligence. (I showed it to the domestic comrade, and he said “She looks like trouble”. Exactly.) Specifically, the conversation in the apartment on the Rue de Cordeliers is so well done: here, even in Mantel’s first book, we see how perfectly she handles dialogue. The wit, the speed, the unflinching dry intellect: it puts me in mind of certain 1930s-1940s films (when females were still allowed to have brains), starring women like Bette Davis, Katherine Hepburn, Barbara Stanwyck sparring with the likes of Clark Gable, Cary Grant and Wm Powell, insert your choice of names. Those exchanges were rarely about issues as charged or indeed as important as those at the heart of APoGS, but it’s the *style* I’m thrilling to.
I’ve been listening to the podcast Revolutions that Simon has recommended and it has helped a lot on understanding what is going on at that time. And the narrator is great!!
I’m so interested in the women, and the expectations of gender and how they contribute to a woman’s ability to be “revolutionary” (whatever that means). There’s something about the radical position (as in reestablishing from the root) that disregards what is currently growing (children and care responsibilities.) I guess I’m pondering the relationship of revolution and community, but those descriptions don’t seem exact. There’s a splendid contrast of domestic and political concerns in the Dantons. Does a woman have to be unconnected to be radical? Surely not. But will we judge her more harshly if she abandons her children in order to revolt? Of course.
The Revolutions Podcast listening has finally paid off. This chapter is the first that flows for me and love all the character development, especially of the women: Gabrielle, her mother Angelique?, Louise, Lucile. So many of their thoughts, glances, behaviors really building future happenings, I’m sure. Did fall down rabbit holes trying to find French word meanings from the podcast, having no idea how to spell them.
I found Wajda’s Danton on the Criterion Channel - for those in the US and Canada. Gerard Depardieu makes a fine Danton, and Robespierre is convincing. The actor who plays Camille is, sadly, no one’s heart throb :) — I’ve just started watching it. Perhaps VPN might help those in the UK to find it?
Highly recommend the BBC’s new series Scandinavia with Simon Reeves, including a visit to the Laki lava fields with an Icelandic vulcanologist talking about the climatic effects of this eruption
I’ve never worked out why there isn’t an international version of the BBC’s licence fee - it’s just a membership fee after all! And it supports independent journalism and film making
I found this week a bit of a struggle and quite confusing. Maybe it's because there were so many characters. I'm very grateful to your newsletter Simon as it's helped me make sense of what was happening. I didn't have a problem at all in the first two weeks so hopefully it's just a blip.
Hey Gavin. I think you have to slightly embrace the confusion. Revolution is messy, chaotic and full of faces, strange and new. So my advice but be perhaps to enjoy the sense of being lost and immerse yourself in the language and dialogue. I promise it will make much more sense as you go along.
This advice is really helpful Simon. I am reading this and Bring Up the Bodies simultaneously and I have days of the week devoted to each book because my brain needs to be in a different space for each. APOG days my brain is more a place of anarchy and I'm learning to go with the flow.
It's still all a bit messy for me, but I'm hoping it will come together. I'm liking the characters, and it seems like Mantel is getting into her stride now.
I've gone for total immersion. Partly because her conversation dialogues are so subtle and so full of the sort of clues you pick up (or don't) in conversation, I've been reading chapters, then listening to them again on the audio book and getting much more. It's so rich.
How does she do it, make us love these characters so much, all three of them. Camille of course, above all. But Robespierre, too, and even Danton.
Am I the only one who doesn’t like Camille? I mean, I think it’s fabulous as a character, but wouldn’t want to have him after my daughter, when he’s really after the mum? One part of me wants to hug the child in him, who got a stutter after who knows what horrible experience in the school… but I feel he is too destructive, I feel he is more interested in causing mayhem and chaos than in genuinely create a fairer system… My heart goes with the women!
You're not the only one by a long way, Paloma! I think he does want a fairer system though - I've known quite a few young men like him, with a punk sensibility for wrecking the old but perhaps unsure of what to put in its place.
A couple of people I know didn't get on with APOGS and I think I can see why. I'm finding it a bit tricky to follow - and I definitely need to keep referring to the cast of characters at the beginning.
Lots of characters turn up, but are they just background? Or maybe minor characters or even major characters we're meeting for the first time?
When Claude turned up at the Cafe du Foy, I was a bit confused. What was he doing there? Why is he so cordial? It feels a bit disorientating.
And I don't have a clue who Camille's mistress is - nor her mother. (I also don't have a clue where Camille gets all his energy from.)
I'm still enjoying it but I'm now trying to read it in terms of a series of snapshots rather than a single picture. Maybe I will be able to make sense of it at the end - perhaps it's a literary form of pointillism.
"Literary pointilism" is a great description of APOGS. I think the effect is supposed to be disorientating, because life... and revolution *is* disorientating.
This being the fourth or fifth time I've read this, I can say we meet lots of minor characters in these chapters who are consequential later. It does make War & Peace look like a walk in the park.
If that's the case I think I'll have to give War & Peace a shot....next year.
Definitely.
I agree, and II think the slow read helps with this. I'm just trying to soak up the little vignettes without trying to connect everything (that's what Simon's posts are for anyway)!
I like the pointillism description! Like in Sondheim’s song, “bit by bit, putting it together…” 😊Sometimes it reminds me of Virginia Woolf’s style.
I quite like the Woolf comparison.
Yes,but attention end we're probably going to end up with a Jackson Pollock rather than La Grande Jatte! 😉
😂
Ok, this book officially has its hooks in my brain now! Knowing very little about the details of the French Revolution, and trying to balance not spoiling the plot with having at least some necessary background to understand the nuance has been a tricky juggling act so far (and utterly impossible without all your excellent info and character summaries, Simon!). Now we're almost a month in I thought I'd go back and re-read weeks 1-3, and I found it so rich and rewarding to see our key players' childhoods the second time around, knowing a little more about where they might be headed. They're definitely taking shape in my mind, and thanks to the Revolutions podcast, the broader picture is coming clear. The tension mounts indeed!
Love it!
I love this painting of Camille. It’s very close to how I pictured him. Hilary Mantel is a genius.
It‘s on my cover! Along with the annoyingly anachronistic bare-breasted Delacroix Liberty.
That is impressive. After last year’s show read, I’m having a second run through ‘War and Peace’. I’ve not thought of rereading earlier chapters while still on a first read - I’m worried that it might break the universe or something.
Go ahead and break the universe. It might be broken already.
Had I known those were the stakes I would have proceeded (or regressed, as it were) more cautiously 😅 To be honest, though, I am going against my nature in backtracking like this - I'm a fast, greedy reader, a bit of a skimmer and not so much inclined to close or re-reading, but I would like to train myself to be a bit more careful, less in a hurry. Re-reading in this circular way seems like one way for me to try that.
I have been very much considering going back and reread in the first chapters. Along with the podcast. Just have to find time. I fear I signed up for too many slow reads.
There are just too many good books to read! What other slow reads are you doing?
I had a little episode of FOMO, so besides a reread of W&P and Wolf Crawl I am also doing Anna Karenina, Dante's Divine Comedy, The Iliad and the Odessy, a listen along of Moby Dick on Audrey (almost done), and just started Middlemarch. And Dracula Daily - that's a fun one. And I'm in 2 in-person book clubs. I'm in over my head, but too committed to drop anything. I do have to do a little "what country and what century am I in" before I start reading every day.
Oh wow, that’s quite the list! I can see any of these would be hard to pass up though, and to have the chance to read with others and get some good supplementary material etc - hard to say no to that! I am hoping to do a re-read of Middlemarch this year, but maybe after APOGS is done. Can I ask which readalong you’re doing of that one?
It's Closely Reading. Discussion post is on Mondays. Just started last week. Goes 12 weeks through August 11.
Thank you, I'll check it out! Maybe I can access those notes after the fact, and do it on my own time later in the year.
Was
1. great line from Camille: "I didn't see anything, I didn't speak to anyone, I thought evil thoughts all the way."
2. I went down a rabbit hole trying to figure out if Camille was bi in real life, or if that was a Hilary Mantel invention. The closest thing I could find was d'Anton accusing Camille of having "des vices honteux" (private? shameful vices) [0] which Robespierre remarked were unrelated to the revolution [1].
3. wait, was Camille the father of Gabrielle's baby? "A note of panic in his veiled eyed struck a corresponding note in her heavy body. The baby was born, the heaviness dispersed; a rootless anxiety remained." (Holt p127) (i guess Camille said he wasn't currently trying to seduce d'Anton because it's "time to think of higher things", at least)
4. on language, I found Fabre using the word 'c*nt' jarringly anachronistic, though I recognize that's absurd considering that they would've been speaking french anyway
5. oh hai there Anne Théroigne, "one of the first Amazons of liberty"
[0] https://revolution.hypotheses.org/204
[1] https://revolution.hypotheses.org/208
Camille is such a loose cannon.
But even assuming for a moment they’d been speaking in English, why would using the word ‘c*nt’ (I’m not usually euphemistic) be anachronistic? It’s more than old enough, and do we really think it wasn’t used as an insult by people speaking informally? And it’s exactly analogous to ‘con’, though the latter has become less frequently gynaecological over time and is used in a multitude of situations
I like to think the artist might be Marie-Guillemine Benoist. She was a supporter of the revolution and studied under David. I can't find anything about her mother (though her sister was also an artist) or any reference to Desmoulins, but she would surely have been mixing in similar circles. Her most famous painting is 'Portrait of Madeleine'. She was quite rock-'n'-roll too - opened an artistic atelier for the training of women artists, painted Napoleon and our old W & P friend Larrey (the battlefield doctor), campaigned for women's rights and against slavery. I think Camille would have liked her.
Oooh, thanks, Alison. I like that possibility!
What a find, Alison! How did you come up with the idea?
And now I‘ve read up on her, what a treat. She first studied with Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, who is responsible for most of the Marie-Antoinette iconography, among them the splendid „chemise à la reine“ painting (pastel?), which could spin off into an entirely new tangent all by itself. Just the other day my mother and I were talking about how we see the time of the French Revolution primarily through Jacques-Louis David‘s eyes, but that it‘s really a shame how all those fabulous women painters working at the time don‘t get equal billing (not that there‘s anything wrong with David, whom I adore). Even though they were famous enough in their day, it‘s mostly art history that‘s quashed their memory. I would not have been able to put a name to the famous Madeleine painting, even though it‘s on the cover of Maryse Condé‘s novel „Moi, Tituba sorcière“ (@Simon, another brilliant book to sink your teeth into!) and I‘ve seen it many times.
My favourite among them is Marie-Gabrielle Capet. Our local gallery owns a wonderful painting that shows her teacher‘s painting salon, with the artist looking somewhat wearily straight at you, so beautiful in her exhausted middle age and her „coiffure de Titus“: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Marie-Gabrielle_Capet_-_Studio_Scene_-_WGA4049.jpg
Yay, tangents!
Definitely a great tangent! Vigée Le Brun's chemise portrait also features in the chapter, along with a picture of MA with her kids that she painted to try and portray the queen in a more relatable way. With her sumptuous red gown and enormous matching hat, I'm not sure she entirely fulfilled the brief!
I was familiar with the Portrait of Madelaine, but I also have Katy Hessel's great book The Story of Art (Without Men) and there's a short section in there about women artists during the revolution.
There's actually another artist in there I thought might be a candidate, Marie Denise Villers, but I think she might have been a bit young, even for a reprobate like Camille. I think HM would have been tickled pink by the fact that the Met inadvertently paid top dollar for one of her portraits in 1917 because they thought it was by David. 😁
Thank you for the book recommendation!
Ooh yes, MGB is a good suggestion.
As usual, having all the character summaries is a huge help.
I know it's been five years since I listened to the audiobook, but I'd forgotten just how much quiet, dry wit Mantel put into this book.
And in other news, I keep having to remind myself that I already have so many books on my plate. I can't go haring off to read something like Les Liaisons dangereuses just because it was mentioned here. Maybe later. Not right now.
Les Liaisons Dangereuses is an absolute favourite of mine. It's so cleverly put together and a good story. I highly recommend it.
I had the exact same urge- and had to curb my enthusiasm too! Maybe later….
I am listening on Audible rather than reading and it is so entertaining. I was concerned at first about missing important parts or not understanding as like Bren said, it is a little tricky to follow at times, but between these posts and the character list I am doing okay. I’m just going to go with it. I will most definitely want to read the actual book after we finish.
It is such a masterful narration. It really helps, and in places puts your heart in your mouth and your stomach in your feet.
Absolutely!
The best thing I did was get the audiobook on Libro.fm to help me with French pronunciation because the reading is so entertaining and adds a layer my brain doesn't allow for during reading.
I feel you - I’ve already read the book at least once and listened to the audiobook all the way through and I STILL rewind the audiobook at frequent intervals to make sure I haven’t missed anything essential
Oh yeah, I’ve been frequently rewinding too.
I’m listening on Spotify; the reading is great, but the chapter markers are all messed up so it makes it hard to find my place if I want to go back 😩
They’re not great on Audible either. They’re just numbered straight through so I had to go through the book and make a list to correspond to the Audible chapters. Kind of a pain.
This week’s reading was one book chapter but two audio chapters 9 and 10. I thought I was done for the week but was mistaken. Oops.
And terrible in the ebook as well! I'm always on p.21/43.
Sounds like a pain indeed.
I so much enjoyed this chapter—for me, the story really has taken off. I have a marker for the list of characters at the front of the book, and I have my own list of the main characters with notes; plus, increasingly, I know I will rely on Simon’s directory; I’ve never had a good memory and old age is not helping—but with all this help I am managing to keep up! Wikipedia is also my friend—even though I have always had serious problems recognizing people whom I know quite well, I do like to know what historical characters looked like. So for this Slow Read, for example, I have Lucile’s portrait handy to remind me of her lively intelligence. (I showed it to the domestic comrade, and he said “She looks like trouble”. Exactly.) Specifically, the conversation in the apartment on the Rue de Cordeliers is so well done: here, even in Mantel’s first book, we see how perfectly she handles dialogue. The wit, the speed, the unflinching dry intellect: it puts me in mind of certain 1930s-1940s films (when females were still allowed to have brains), starring women like Bette Davis, Katherine Hepburn, Barbara Stanwyck sparring with the likes of Clark Gable, Cary Grant and Wm Powell, insert your choice of names. Those exchanges were rarely about issues as charged or indeed as important as those at the heart of APoGS, but it’s the *style* I’m thrilling to.
"She looks like trouble." Absolutely!
I’ve been listening to the podcast Revolutions that Simon has recommended and it has helped a lot on understanding what is going on at that time. And the narrator is great!!
Fabulous! It's been helping me too.
It is super helpful for background! But his French pronunciation is dreadful bordering on painful. 😆
It's nearly as bad when American podcasters cover British history!
I can imagine!
Thank you for all that information and illustration. Loving it -the tension mounts.
I’m so interested in the women, and the expectations of gender and how they contribute to a woman’s ability to be “revolutionary” (whatever that means). There’s something about the radical position (as in reestablishing from the root) that disregards what is currently growing (children and care responsibilities.) I guess I’m pondering the relationship of revolution and community, but those descriptions don’t seem exact. There’s a splendid contrast of domestic and political concerns in the Dantons. Does a woman have to be unconnected to be radical? Surely not. But will we judge her more harshly if she abandons her children in order to revolt? Of course.
The Revolutions Podcast listening has finally paid off. This chapter is the first that flows for me and love all the character development, especially of the women: Gabrielle, her mother Angelique?, Louise, Lucile. So many of their thoughts, glances, behaviors really building future happenings, I’m sure. Did fall down rabbit holes trying to find French word meanings from the podcast, having no idea how to spell them.
Great! I feel like this and the next two chapters are where it all begins to "click" for a lot of people.
I found Wajda’s Danton on the Criterion Channel - for those in the US and Canada. Gerard Depardieu makes a fine Danton, and Robespierre is convincing. The actor who plays Camille is, sadly, no one’s heart throb :) — I’ve just started watching it. Perhaps VPN might help those in the UK to find it?
Highly recommend the BBC’s new series Scandinavia with Simon Reeves, including a visit to the Laki lava fields with an Icelandic vulcanologist talking about the climatic effects of this eruption
Mumblegrumble the Beeb should really make their stuff more available to those beyond the moat…
I’ve never worked out why there isn’t an international version of the BBC’s licence fee - it’s just a membership fee after all! And it supports independent journalism and film making
I found this week a bit of a struggle and quite confusing. Maybe it's because there were so many characters. I'm very grateful to your newsletter Simon as it's helped me make sense of what was happening. I didn't have a problem at all in the first two weeks so hopefully it's just a blip.
Hey Gavin. I think you have to slightly embrace the confusion. Revolution is messy, chaotic and full of faces, strange and new. So my advice but be perhaps to enjoy the sense of being lost and immerse yourself in the language and dialogue. I promise it will make much more sense as you go along.
This advice is really helpful Simon. I am reading this and Bring Up the Bodies simultaneously and I have days of the week devoted to each book because my brain needs to be in a different space for each. APOG days my brain is more a place of anarchy and I'm learning to go with the flow.
Doing the two simultaneously is an impressive feat! Don't feel too hard on yourself if you get a bit muddled.
Thanks Simon. That's good advice. I'm sure it will all make sense the further we get into the story.
It's still all a bit messy for me, but I'm hoping it will come together. I'm liking the characters, and it seems like Mantel is getting into her stride now.
I am enjoying it. I think it's just a lot of characters to get used to.
I've gone for total immersion. Partly because her conversation dialogues are so subtle and so full of the sort of clues you pick up (or don't) in conversation, I've been reading chapters, then listening to them again on the audio book and getting much more. It's so rich.
How does she do it, make us love these characters so much, all three of them. Camille of course, above all. But Robespierre, too, and even Danton.
Total immersion is definitely the way! And everything gets richer with each re-read and re-listen.
Am I the only one who doesn’t like Camille? I mean, I think it’s fabulous as a character, but wouldn’t want to have him after my daughter, when he’s really after the mum? One part of me wants to hug the child in him, who got a stutter after who knows what horrible experience in the school… but I feel he is too destructive, I feel he is more interested in causing mayhem and chaos than in genuinely create a fairer system… My heart goes with the women!
You're not the only one by a long way, Paloma! I think he does want a fairer system though - I've known quite a few young men like him, with a punk sensibility for wrecking the old but perhaps unsure of what to put in its place.
And just wait.