It’s a bit rich complaining about wallpaper when one of the first violent revolutionary outbursts was directed towards a wallpaper manufacturer. Oh! But I suppose he was a serious and worthy (because male) businessman…
Did anyone else feel as if suddenly the sun had emerged from the clouds when the narrative voice morphed into Gabrielle‘s (not so much Lucile)? All of a sudden the text is straightforward and sensible, unlike the madcap, whirling, elliptical and often confusing narrative?
Both work really well, but the contrast is delicious.
The sequence in this chapter I was most captivated by was across pages 256-257 in my book:
1. "Camille understood the principle: a tidbit here, a trade-off there, a screamingly good time at the expense of the fools and bores who tried to occupy the middle ground" — it seems to me that this book has a good deal to say about discourse, and particularly the way the notion "revolution" can offer fuel that exacerbates all of its facets, in a way that is highly relevant to today's moment and conversation.
2. "What's the use of your Revolution if it breeds long faces? What's the use of a revolution run by miserable little men in miserable little rooms." This question here from Louis Suleau is remarkably interesting to me, as it seems inject commentary about how principle alone is rarely enough—self-interest is always present, whether it is acknowledge (as Louis does here) or under-the-surface, which our main characters tend towards, right?
More broadly, I appreciated this chapter for the way it contrasted so much of what came before in terms of tone and perspective. This very much feels like a messy book, which from a meta perspective feels quite prescient given the messiness it is depicting.
I went to an exhibition on the weekend called Writers Revealed that had letters and some interviews from many writers, including HM. She said about APOGS that she had been interested in the French revolution at school them moved to other things during university and then came back to it. She was reading a lot and taking notes on everything and eventually she said, 'What are you doing?' and had to admit to herself that she was writing a book. She worried that she didn't have the imagination to pull it off, but at some point the facts ran out and she had to fill in the gaps. She wanted to read a novel about these great characters but there wasn't one so she had to write it. This exhibition is touring from the UK (I'm in Australia) so maybe others here have seen it?
I don't know if it's just me, but I feel that I have a stronger sense of the women as characters than the men. With the men there's so much posturing and playing to the gallery, but the women are being themselves. Including the mother-in-law - in my mind, I'm casting Alison Steadman in the role.
This chapter really does show that nobody is entirely in control and, as Anne-Louise says, they don't have a clue about what they are unleashing. It does have the feel of stroppy teenage rebellion at times rather than a political movement.
Marat's escape was rather fun - and perhaps it was this that led me to think that it is all game-playing at this point. And the wedding arrangements are pure comedy - and certainly ring true.
I noticed Lucile was talking about 'La Nouvelle Héloïse'. Wasn't somebody reading that in W&P?
On the first point, that's what I was getting at in the first footnote above. I think it is rather the point. We haven't had any first-person narratives from the men (yet), and they seem to be keeping us readers at a distance. Not so the women, who now summon us over for an intimate chat about what's *really* going on behind the posing and public performances.
I mentioned "La Nouvelle Héloïse" in an earlier post, as one of the first international bestsellers and the book that made Jean-Jacques Rousseau a household name. And as you point out, it is one of many links to War & Peace: Prince Bolkonsky calls Julie Karagina "Heloise" because the book is epistolary and Marya and Julie are always writing each other letters.
It's also the differentiation between them. I'm still a bit confused by the three men - I have to think about them to separate them - but I've always had a better sense of who the women are. And it's not only Gabrielle (and mother-in-law), Lucile and Annette - there's Anne and Mme Roland and various others who pop up, all bursting with life.
I certainly agree about the women, but I'd also say the three main men are very distinctly drawn: Max is priggish and proper, Camille is a mess and an agent of chaos, and Danton wants success but doesn't want to run any risks. One of the story's attractions for me is how different they are and how unlikely their friendship.
The only one who's made much of an impression on me has been Camille - and not in a good way. Robespierre feels like there's a lot going on, but I'm not quite sure what. And I've no clue at all about Danton, except I don't trust him. And I definitely don't understand how they relate to each other.
Maybe - as with the Revolution - it'll become clearer when I get to the end of it.
I guess this is my fourth or fifth read, and I can't remember what my impressions were the first time around!
Camille is the lynchpin to it all. It's been noted elsewhere that Mantel writes about characters in search of or lacking father figures (this is autobiographical). As Cromwell found Wolsey, Camille finds Mirabeau, but then rejects him. But there is something of the orphan about him, that makes Arthur Dillon (last week) and others want to protect him. But he's far from the harmless creature (Max's little bird) that he appears.
But he has a charisma, something undefinable, that attracts all sorts. Danton and Robespierre have nothing in common but their politics and friendship of Camille.
Danton and Max are mirror opposites: Georges-Jacques shouldn't be trusted because he thinks the philosophy of the revolution is "Grab what you can, and get out while the going's good." Max shouldn't be trusted because he thinks the revolution is all about the General Will, and has the making of a fanatic.
I agree: Gabrielle’s narration of her mother-in-law’s visit to Paris and the story of Camille’s visit to the priest with his notary are flat-out hilarious. And I also loved the first-person views of Gabrielle and Lucile in this chapter. Gabrielle is now a fully-fleshed character in her own right and I like her a lot. On another note, I have been wondering a bit about Mantel’s cornucopia of voices and styles in this novel, especially compared to the format of the Wolf Hall trilogy. If I were reading this on my own, knowing it was her first novel and didn’t find an immediate publisher, I might initially see these shifts as signs of an early writer who’s still finding her way and doing lots of experimentation. But as I get farther into this book, I’m thinking more and more that although this doesn’t feel as masterful as Wolf Hall (a model of mastery!), this variety of voices and styles is not unsettled but deliberate and quite effective. I think I’m getting the hang of this novel’s approach now and it’s definitely working for me.
As Marcus says above, it’s messy, and so the book is messy. I really appreciate how Mantel’s concentration on the three men and their women means that so much happens off-stage—because that’s what it was like for everyone. No-one knows what’s going to happen, partly because no-one knows all that has happened and is happening at that moment. And they wouldn’t believe it if they were told it.
If anyone can find images of Revolution chic, I'd love to see them! Had a little look last week but didn't come up with anything. 1790 is definitely the funniest, *safest* year of the Revolution. The honeymoon. The eye of the storm.
This was such a quotable chapter, I can't resist pulling out a few favourites...
- Marat to Camille: "As for you, your heart is in the right place, but you are mad."
- Gabrielle: "Picture it. You marry a lawyer. One day you find you're living on a battlefield."
- Marat again: "There is perhaps a strain of frivolity in M. Robespierre."(!)
- Camille on Marat (reported by little Louise): "He got out an hour ago, disguised as a human being."
- Gabrielle on Camille: "But why should I want his portrait when I see too much of the original?"
- Lucile: "You've no idea what Camille's like when he's got one of his fits of rectitude." & "These days I wonder what is my relationship to Maximilien Robespierre. I'm living inside his favourite novel." & "You have to employ some fantasy to keep brute reality at bay." & "We roll through our days in a sort of unwholesome glee."
- Annette: "Isn't Camille rather good at exacting human sacrifices?"
- "To be with Robespierre, Camille had to put on gravity like a winter cloak."
- Théroigne's false identity: "Nothing criminal, or madly hyperbolic, just the sort of thing we've all done when necessity has pressed."
- Lucille on Théroigne: "What gave her the right to be a pseudo-man, turning up at the Cordeliers and demanding the rostrum?"
- "Camille didn't mind having to have intelligent conversations with women. He seemed to enjoy them. One of his perversions, Danton said."
This struck me: “‘Robespierre is disinterested, you see. As always. And Camille tells me we shall have to give women the vote. We shall have them at the Riding School soon, wearing black hats and lugging document cases about and droning on about the taxation system.’” France will not give women the vote until after 1945.
This was one of my favourite weeks so far. The shift to first person viewpoint made it much easier to follow and having Gabrielle and Lucile as the viewpoints was fantastic. A lot more humour as well. All the mother-in-law stuff was just the sort of material for an old fashioned stand up comedian.
And all the trouble trying to find a priest willing to perform the marriage ceremony was so well written.
Nothing important to add but this was the first chapter I really truly enjoyed. Loved Gabrielle’s perspective in particular and the MIL from hell! A breath of fresh air and humour before (I suspect as my history is patchy) the storm.
I think this is my favourite chapter so far, the way it is narrated - the smooth movement from first person to the narrator, from past to present tense is just sublime. It really makes the characters and the book alive and very enjoyable. I really do appreciate this insightful essay by Simon - so many aspects of major historical events have more to do with the domestic side and the private lives than with the actual public upheavals. Those last a relative moment but the lives change for generations to come. Like the best Russian literature, say, War and Peace, or Quiet flows the Don, the wars and the revolutions are reflected in the fragments of the mirror that society holds up to its changing face, so to say …. This is an amazing book - it goes into such details with clothes, objects, wallpaper and crockery - like all of Mantel’s historical works, the layers of history are reflected in characters, language, objects, documents and even small gestures (like Marat pulling on a filthy cravatte or the King blowing his nose into his last royal handkerchief). I feel like I am learning a huge amount of historical detail but also enjoying something truly unique that would never be duplicated, except maybe elevated by the author herself in the Wolf hall trilogy …
Love the women’s perspectives! Both in the Wolf Hall trilogy and here, these “domestic”, private, human details bridge the time gap and make me feel a contemporary of the characters.
Very interesting to learn about the executioner, above. I'm amazed that he outlived everyone, but perhaps that makes sense, if you're the guy wielding the sword/pulling the lever/etc. Fascinating and terrifying to imagine this person's inner life!
Excellent link on the Festival of the Federation! I found myself down a rabbit hole about the Bishop of Autun who celebrated mass at that event, who Gabrielle pitied him as an atheist. What? So it turns out he was a very politically connected person who only became a cleric due to a disability. See more here on this villain vs hero. So many places to read about him. And, wow, he helped negotiate the Luisiana Purchase, just a bit of trivia related to War and Peace/Napoleon too.
Ah! I am running a bit behind on the pod casts. I’m only as far as Declaration of Rights of Man. And of course Mantel can’t cover all the characters. She can only leave clues that make you dig for details. The joy of the hunt.
It’s a bit rich complaining about wallpaper when one of the first violent revolutionary outbursts was directed towards a wallpaper manufacturer. Oh! But I suppose he was a serious and worthy (because male) businessman…
Did anyone else feel as if suddenly the sun had emerged from the clouds when the narrative voice morphed into Gabrielle‘s (not so much Lucile)? All of a sudden the text is straightforward and sensible, unlike the madcap, whirling, elliptical and often confusing narrative?
Both work really well, but the contrast is delicious.
Love the contrast. Love how this book keeps surprising. And I had the same thought about Titonville.
Oh! So much good stuff in the new reading, I‘ve just re-listened to the two chapters.
I absolutely *loved* Camille's trip to see the priest with his notary in tow. My favourite passage in the book so far.
I laughed and laughed through that scene! "I have to be in a state of grace, don't I, like everybody else?"
Me too. Proper laugh-out-loud funny.
Me too. Proper laugh-out-loud funny.
So good!
The sequence in this chapter I was most captivated by was across pages 256-257 in my book:
1. "Camille understood the principle: a tidbit here, a trade-off there, a screamingly good time at the expense of the fools and bores who tried to occupy the middle ground" — it seems to me that this book has a good deal to say about discourse, and particularly the way the notion "revolution" can offer fuel that exacerbates all of its facets, in a way that is highly relevant to today's moment and conversation.
2. "What's the use of your Revolution if it breeds long faces? What's the use of a revolution run by miserable little men in miserable little rooms." This question here from Louis Suleau is remarkably interesting to me, as it seems inject commentary about how principle alone is rarely enough—self-interest is always present, whether it is acknowledge (as Louis does here) or under-the-surface, which our main characters tend towards, right?
More broadly, I appreciated this chapter for the way it contrasted so much of what came before in terms of tone and perspective. This very much feels like a messy book, which from a meta perspective feels quite prescient given the messiness it is depicting.
I went to an exhibition on the weekend called Writers Revealed that had letters and some interviews from many writers, including HM. She said about APOGS that she had been interested in the French revolution at school them moved to other things during university and then came back to it. She was reading a lot and taking notes on everything and eventually she said, 'What are you doing?' and had to admit to herself that she was writing a book. She worried that she didn't have the imagination to pull it off, but at some point the facts ran out and she had to fill in the gaps. She wanted to read a novel about these great characters but there wasn't one so she had to write it. This exhibition is touring from the UK (I'm in Australia) so maybe others here have seen it?
Sounds fabulous. The interview sounds familiar, I've read something similar somewhere. If you're interested, we've compiled a big list of all her interviews here: https://open.substack.com/pub/footnotesandtangents/p/hilary-mantel-general-resources?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=5c06v
I wish that was coming to Sydney, it sounds like a great show!
I don't know if it's just me, but I feel that I have a stronger sense of the women as characters than the men. With the men there's so much posturing and playing to the gallery, but the women are being themselves. Including the mother-in-law - in my mind, I'm casting Alison Steadman in the role.
This chapter really does show that nobody is entirely in control and, as Anne-Louise says, they don't have a clue about what they are unleashing. It does have the feel of stroppy teenage rebellion at times rather than a political movement.
Marat's escape was rather fun - and perhaps it was this that led me to think that it is all game-playing at this point. And the wedding arrangements are pure comedy - and certainly ring true.
I noticed Lucile was talking about 'La Nouvelle Héloïse'. Wasn't somebody reading that in W&P?
On the first point, that's what I was getting at in the first footnote above. I think it is rather the point. We haven't had any first-person narratives from the men (yet), and they seem to be keeping us readers at a distance. Not so the women, who now summon us over for an intimate chat about what's *really* going on behind the posing and public performances.
I mentioned "La Nouvelle Héloïse" in an earlier post, as one of the first international bestsellers and the book that made Jean-Jacques Rousseau a household name. And as you point out, it is one of many links to War & Peace: Prince Bolkonsky calls Julie Karagina "Heloise" because the book is epistolary and Marya and Julie are always writing each other letters.
It's also the differentiation between them. I'm still a bit confused by the three men - I have to think about them to separate them - but I've always had a better sense of who the women are. And it's not only Gabrielle (and mother-in-law), Lucile and Annette - there's Anne and Mme Roland and various others who pop up, all bursting with life.
I certainly agree about the women, but I'd also say the three main men are very distinctly drawn: Max is priggish and proper, Camille is a mess and an agent of chaos, and Danton wants success but doesn't want to run any risks. One of the story's attractions for me is how different they are and how unlikely their friendship.
The only one who's made much of an impression on me has been Camille - and not in a good way. Robespierre feels like there's a lot going on, but I'm not quite sure what. And I've no clue at all about Danton, except I don't trust him. And I definitely don't understand how they relate to each other.
Maybe - as with the Revolution - it'll become clearer when I get to the end of it.
I guess this is my fourth or fifth read, and I can't remember what my impressions were the first time around!
Camille is the lynchpin to it all. It's been noted elsewhere that Mantel writes about characters in search of or lacking father figures (this is autobiographical). As Cromwell found Wolsey, Camille finds Mirabeau, but then rejects him. But there is something of the orphan about him, that makes Arthur Dillon (last week) and others want to protect him. But he's far from the harmless creature (Max's little bird) that he appears.
But he has a charisma, something undefinable, that attracts all sorts. Danton and Robespierre have nothing in common but their politics and friendship of Camille.
Danton and Max are mirror opposites: Georges-Jacques shouldn't be trusted because he thinks the philosophy of the revolution is "Grab what you can, and get out while the going's good." Max shouldn't be trusted because he thinks the revolution is all about the General Will, and has the making of a fanatic.
I agree: Gabrielle’s narration of her mother-in-law’s visit to Paris and the story of Camille’s visit to the priest with his notary are flat-out hilarious. And I also loved the first-person views of Gabrielle and Lucile in this chapter. Gabrielle is now a fully-fleshed character in her own right and I like her a lot. On another note, I have been wondering a bit about Mantel’s cornucopia of voices and styles in this novel, especially compared to the format of the Wolf Hall trilogy. If I were reading this on my own, knowing it was her first novel and didn’t find an immediate publisher, I might initially see these shifts as signs of an early writer who’s still finding her way and doing lots of experimentation. But as I get farther into this book, I’m thinking more and more that although this doesn’t feel as masterful as Wolf Hall (a model of mastery!), this variety of voices and styles is not unsettled but deliberate and quite effective. I think I’m getting the hang of this novel’s approach now and it’s definitely working for me.
Woo! That's it. This book feels strangely alive. I feel like I'm being sucked into some living thing that won't let me go.
As Marcus says above, it’s messy, and so the book is messy. I really appreciate how Mantel’s concentration on the three men and their women means that so much happens off-stage—because that’s what it was like for everyone. No-one knows what’s going to happen, partly because no-one knows all that has happened and is happening at that moment. And they wouldn’t believe it if they were told it.
"And they wouldn’t believe it if they were told it."
Seems to apply to a lot of what is happening in our current moment, too, unfortunately...
Exactly.
The main characters all seem to be enjoying themselves despite the foreboding terror.
No matter what horror takes place, they all look good. Their fashion style is fabulous! Thanks for including the images, Simon.
If anyone can find images of Revolution chic, I'd love to see them! Had a little look last week but didn't come up with anything. 1790 is definitely the funniest, *safest* year of the Revolution. The honeymoon. The eye of the storm.
I agree. We as the reader know whats ahead, but the main players are yet to find out.
This was such a quotable chapter, I can't resist pulling out a few favourites...
- Marat to Camille: "As for you, your heart is in the right place, but you are mad."
- Gabrielle: "Picture it. You marry a lawyer. One day you find you're living on a battlefield."
- Marat again: "There is perhaps a strain of frivolity in M. Robespierre."(!)
- Camille on Marat (reported by little Louise): "He got out an hour ago, disguised as a human being."
- Gabrielle on Camille: "But why should I want his portrait when I see too much of the original?"
- Lucile: "You've no idea what Camille's like when he's got one of his fits of rectitude." & "These days I wonder what is my relationship to Maximilien Robespierre. I'm living inside his favourite novel." & "You have to employ some fantasy to keep brute reality at bay." & "We roll through our days in a sort of unwholesome glee."
- Annette: "Isn't Camille rather good at exacting human sacrifices?"
- "To be with Robespierre, Camille had to put on gravity like a winter cloak."
- Théroigne's false identity: "Nothing criminal, or madly hyperbolic, just the sort of thing we've all done when necessity has pressed."
- Lucille on Théroigne: "What gave her the right to be a pseudo-man, turning up at the Cordeliers and demanding the rostrum?"
- "Camille didn't mind having to have intelligent conversations with women. He seemed to enjoy them. One of his perversions, Danton said."
Thanks for highlighting these gems!
This struck me: “‘Robespierre is disinterested, you see. As always. And Camille tells me we shall have to give women the vote. We shall have them at the Riding School soon, wearing black hats and lugging document cases about and droning on about the taxation system.’” France will not give women the vote until after 1945.
Well ahead of their time in some ways. In others, not so much!
This was one of my favourite weeks so far. The shift to first person viewpoint made it much easier to follow and having Gabrielle and Lucile as the viewpoints was fantastic. A lot more humour as well. All the mother-in-law stuff was just the sort of material for an old fashioned stand up comedian.
And all the trouble trying to find a priest willing to perform the marriage ceremony was so well written.
The pages flew by.
Nothing important to add but this was the first chapter I really truly enjoyed. Loved Gabrielle’s perspective in particular and the MIL from hell! A breath of fresh air and humour before (I suspect as my history is patchy) the storm.
I think this is my favourite chapter so far, the way it is narrated - the smooth movement from first person to the narrator, from past to present tense is just sublime. It really makes the characters and the book alive and very enjoyable. I really do appreciate this insightful essay by Simon - so many aspects of major historical events have more to do with the domestic side and the private lives than with the actual public upheavals. Those last a relative moment but the lives change for generations to come. Like the best Russian literature, say, War and Peace, or Quiet flows the Don, the wars and the revolutions are reflected in the fragments of the mirror that society holds up to its changing face, so to say …. This is an amazing book - it goes into such details with clothes, objects, wallpaper and crockery - like all of Mantel’s historical works, the layers of history are reflected in characters, language, objects, documents and even small gestures (like Marat pulling on a filthy cravatte or the King blowing his nose into his last royal handkerchief). I feel like I am learning a huge amount of historical detail but also enjoying something truly unique that would never be duplicated, except maybe elevated by the author herself in the Wolf hall trilogy …
Love the women’s perspectives! Both in the Wolf Hall trilogy and here, these “domestic”, private, human details bridge the time gap and make me feel a contemporary of the characters.
Very interesting to learn about the executioner, above. I'm amazed that he outlived everyone, but perhaps that makes sense, if you're the guy wielding the sword/pulling the lever/etc. Fascinating and terrifying to imagine this person's inner life!
Excellent link on the Festival of the Federation! I found myself down a rabbit hole about the Bishop of Autun who celebrated mass at that event, who Gabrielle pitied him as an atheist. What? So it turns out he was a very politically connected person who only became a cleric due to a disability. See more here on this villain vs hero. So many places to read about him. And, wow, he helped negotiate the Luisiana Purchase, just a bit of trivia related to War and Peace/Napoleon too.
https://www.historyskills.com/classroom/modern-history/talleyrand/
Or -
https://www.thoughtco.com/charles-maurice-de-talleyrand-4176840
Ah! I am running a bit behind on the pod casts. I’m only as far as Declaration of Rights of Man. And of course Mantel can’t cover all the characters. She can only leave clues that make you dig for details. The joy of the hunt.
Absolutely!
Thanks Claudia. I also noted that he's a favourite of Mike Duncan's, who does the Revolution podcast. He does a supplemental episode on him here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7bNbFIS0ZJ0RAF2HdxTB14?si=s9jfM8iKQRe6f9fRYP0Bnw