really terrible historical fiction

[camille-love.livejournal.com]

...so, in lieu of reading for my exams (what's WRONG with me?!), I've been trying to clear my head by skimming through a historical novel published about a year ago, simply titled Revolution, by Jennifer Donnelly. First of all, it's technically for "young adults" (the protagonist is a high school senior). Second of all, its perspective on the Revolution is (surprise) very naive and, well, high school. I started reading it last night and I'm almost done now. But, for all its flaws and blatant royalist sympathies, I can't deny that part of me kind of enjoys it. It's kind of like, The Da Vinci Code only with the French Revolution. So, even while I'm groaning over the history and politics, I can't stop reading because it's a page-turner and I'm hooked on the silly plot! Below is the description from Amazon.com:

BROOKLYN: Andi Alpers is on the edge. She’s angry at her father for leaving, angry at her mother for not being able to cope, and heartbroken by the loss of her younger brother, Truman. Rage and grief are destroying her. And she’s about to be expelled from Brooklyn Heights’ most prestigious private school when her father intervenes. Now Andi must accompany him to Paris for winter break.
 
PARIS: Alexandrine Paradis lived over two centuries ago. She dreamed of making her mark on the Paris stage, but a fateful encounter with a doomed prince of France cast her in a tragic role she didn’t want—and couldn’t escape.
 
Two girls, two centuries apart. One never knowing the other. But when Andi finds Alexandrine’s diary, she recognizes something in her words and is moved to the point of obsession. There’s comfort and distraction for Andi in the journal’s antique pages—until, on a midnight journey through the catacombs of Paris, Alexandrine’s words transcend paper and time, and the past becomes suddenly, terrifyingly present.

If you have some time to waste (not likely, given that you all seem like intelligent, productive people) and are in the mood for some very lightweight, very not-to-be-taken-seriously fiction, then go for it.

EDIT:  Please forget that I ever suggested reading this book (unless you're reading it in order to write a vehement, public rebuttal of its contents).

Comments

[camille-love.livejournal.com]

I should mention that I not only hate the whole schizo-Robespierre concept, but also the ignorance and prejudice inherent in Donnelly's use of mental illness as a means of signifying "evil." WTF.

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

Agreed; equating mental illness with evil is about on the same level with equating unattractiveness with evil (unsurprisingly, the two often show up together).

Though I find the whole concept of Robespierre suffering from a mental illness somewhat baffling. Most other "theories," regarding Robespierre, however crazy, can be traced back to *something* even if that something is just a Thermidorian pamphlet. But I don't even know where this one came from - not only is there, as far as I can tell, absolutely no evidence for it, there don't even seem to have been rumors to that effect in Thermidorian propaganda or the memoirs of people who lived through the Revolution or anything like that.

Maybe they just extrapolated it from those ridiculous psychoanalyses that attribute all of Robespierre's thoughts and actions to his having lost his parents at a young age (as if this were particularly rare in the 18th century), or perhaps from people like Keith Baker's pathologizing of the Revolution in general, but it still doesn't make any sense to me.

[hanriotfran.livejournal.com]

Some serious stupidities were written about Robespierre's supposed mental illness in few old books. Von Hentig's and Kretschmer ones are the worst of them all, but they are *almost* hysterical on their own...Kretschmer claims that also Couthon was pretty crazy and wrote that he suffered from arterioesclerosis, "because it was the illness of professional revolutionnary" (Ugh!) , and Von Hentig tries to convince us that Maximilien was a paranoid, an schizoid and wa s jealous of Danton's virility...so, he killed him.

Furthermore, the French author Bernard Nabonne, who wrote "Robespierre's Private Life", traced the roots of Maximilien's crazyness in his own father. he claims that François de Robespierre was more crazy than his son, so old Maximilien (Robespierre's Grandpa), puts him at a convent to have him far from home ,since he would embarrase the whole family before Arras good society.Plain bullshit...

The worst of it is that these are not supposed to be fiction, but history works. No wonder that fiction authors could be pretty absurd if even historians would write down those delirious ideas...

[camille-love.livejournal.com]

Wow, those books sound awful! You're right, they definitely don't belong under the genre of "history."

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

I guess that explains it to some degree. When were Von Hentig and Kretschmer writing? I actually have Nabonne's book, but I've only read the sections relevant to the Duplays, so I didn't know he thought Robespierre (or his father) was crazy. He did have a disturbing tendency to credit even the most improbable rumors though - like that idiotic idea that Robespierre would ever have suggested that a bunch of pigs follow the army feeding on dead soldiers and feeding living ones. At least there though the rumor in question does, I believe, go back to the time of the Revolution, whereas I've been unable to pinpoint where the insanity myth first pops up.

Someone ought to inform these authors that when you're writing history, you need a little something called *evidence* for your claims.

[hanriotfran.livejournal.com]

Von Hentig wrote his book in the 1930's or so. He was a bolshevik and must run Germany when Hitler reached power. Kretschmer wrote his later, after 1946...I don't know exactly the year. He was an expert in "morphologic psychology". He supported the idea that a physical morphology will be followed for a certain psychological behavior. For Kretschmer, Danton was an "athletic" and Robespierre an "asthenic"...and like some asthenix he could easily be an esquizoid...Oh, well.

If you have the Nabonne, please read the first part of the book. It's priceless in the bad sense of the word. The anecdote of the pigs made me laugh. I know I must not...but the whole idea is so idiotic that I couldn't help it.

I think that Robespierre's "insanity" must come from some Thermidorian pamphlets. Some of them are just unbelievable and ridicoulous...but some people still takes them seriously. Fréron pointed out that Maxime was always clenching his fist and had a lot of facial tricks and would walk nervously....maybe some "historians" took these depiction to assert that Maximilien was insane

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

It's as I suspected then: claiming Robespierre was insane is a 20th century phenomenon. When someone doesn't like him in the 19th century they tend to settle for "evil demagogue." In any case, regarding Fréron's portrait of Robespierre, I don't think he meant to portray him as insane, but I guess I can see how people might have taken it that way if they felt so inclined.

I don't have the Nabonne with me, but I will definitely go back and give it another look when I'm home. It sounds like it has the potential to be unintentionally hilarious (there were, of course, already parts like that in the section I read).

[hanriotfran.livejournal.com]

It IS hilarious, believe me! :D

[camille-love.livejournal.com]

That's strange. And she claims in the preface to have done so much "research," too. I guess her inability (or refusal) to understand Robespierre just led her to ascribe to him another thing she obviously doesn't understand (and, sadly, has no empathy for).

[camille-love.livejournal.com]

And yes, the association of unattractiveness with evil is also frustrating.

Of course, this makes me think of Danton. No one (historian or novelist) seems to be able to resist the opportunity of emphasizing how ugly he was, even when they like him. I remember Gita May's biography of Madame Roland, which suggests that Roland's strong aversion to Danton's physical appearance (and, probably, his personality and behavior) led her to reject his efforts to compromise with the Girondins. If she had been more willing to engage with Danton, May suggests, then maybe the Girondins might not have met their end when they did. Obviously, it was more complicated than this, but I remember being struck by that detail while reading the book.

[hanriotfran.livejournal.com]

Stanley Loomis said just the same. He thinks that one of the reasons Mme. Roland rejected Danton was his uglyness... :(

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

I think at least part of the reason Danton's physical appearance is mentioned so often is that he himself referred to it in a speech, which is pretty unusual. That said, I think Marie-Hélène Huet is right in arguing that Danton, like Robespierre, has been turned into a kind of "revolutionary monster" by historiography and fictional portrayals alike: the "minotaur" to Robespierre's "sphinx," as she has it.

As for Mme Roland, I honestly can't remember whether she mentions Danton's appearance in her memoirs and I haven't read her correspondance, but even if she does, I doubt it had quite the influence it's often claimed to have had.

[hanriotfran.livejournal.com]

Did Danton said something over the lines of "my ugliness is my strenght"? I think this was the sentence he mentioned in a speech.

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

He said, I believe, "Nature has given me the harsh physiognomy of liberty." There is a certain extent to which Danton overemphasized his own appearance - though it was of course further exaggerated later. Interestingly, the commentary the journal the Révolutions de Paris gives to this speech is that Danton's references to his appearance were out of place and inappropriate. Apparently Robespierre's views on the matter were not unique.

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

They always seem to claim to have done a lot of research, don't they? Carolly Erickson, the one who came up with Robespierre the "Green Ghoul" calls herself a historian. But to be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if she had got the idea on a royalist internet forum, which, as far as I can tell, seems to be the place the myth of Robespierre's insanity has the most currency