Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Bren's avatar

One thing I'm finding interesting with both APOGS and the Wolf Crawl is the way you pick the quotations - they seem to be the ones that stick in my brain as well. This week there was an additional one for me in the Mme Roland section: "In the evening, she read classical history, and sat with closed eyes over the books, her hands still on the pages, dreaming of Liberty." There's a nice bit of foreshadowing there.

We really do get a view of how badly women are treated in these two chapters - both the young Mme Roland and the new wife Lucile are treated as commodities by men. The section with the old noblewoman manages to be comic while also making you think that some people were asking for trouble. (I was reminded of Lady Bracknell - and we all know her views of the French Revolution...)

The Danton section is a real eye opener. I've said previously that I find it difficult to differentiate between the leading men - but I now have a very clear view of Danton (and it's not a pleasant one). He's a self-centred, manipulative piece of work - and I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw his hefty frame. It does make if difficult to understand why people followed him - he definitely doesn't have the same charm as Desmloulins. And you'd be thinking about him for a long time before the word 'incorruptible' popped into your mind.

I'm still finding it a bit of a challenge to work out whether some of the characters are walk-on parts or whether they will turn out to be significant (or even whether we've met them before) - but I suppose that's a bit like life.

And we're half way through. I'm impressed. Thanks, Simon, I don't think I would have managed it otherwise.

Expand full comment
Marcus Luther's avatar

What a thing it was to encounter Mme Roland in her chapter—as you note here, it offered a welcomed contrast of both vantage point as well as tone, and in my eyes it is also a really well-developed portrait (tragically so) that offers a respite from the momentum that had been building. The line that really resonated with me here: "She dwelled—forced herself to dwell—on what was great in Man, on progress and nobility of spirit, on. brotherhood and self-sacrifice: on all the disembodied virtues." I feel like this captured her intentions but also the fallibility of all that is occurring in this Revolution, too, with the phrase "disembodied virtues" rendered ominous to me. (Is there a history behind that phrase?)

Also, I thought the depiction of Robespierre through the eyes of Danton was phenomenal—not only in its foreshadowing (not subtle!) but in how it takes the minimized voice and role of Max earlier in the book and uses this as a contrast that shows how he himself is evolving: "he spoke, if you follow me, as if it were beyond dispute." It seems to reveal the darkness of such devout conviction, no matter the benevolence of original intentions—and also how society sometimes sharpens the well-intended strong belief into one that is quite dangerous (and that's before digital algorithms made this sharpening all the more consequential in our current social media moment).

This image haunted me (and also was a great injection from Mantel's narrative voice): "So he went downstairs, the reasonable person, with his dog padding after him and growing at the shadows."

This was my favorite stretch of the book, without question, and it is hard to wait another week...

Expand full comment
44 more comments...

No posts