I'm sorry for leaving your post unanswered for so long (I didn't feel well).
The action takes place during one night and a day after. To summarize, Robespierre wants to put Dantonists on trial, but hesitates because of Camille. Being seriously ill, he sends for him. Camille comes. They talk for a few hours. Camille promises to leave Danton, convinced that he was used by him for personal reasons. In the morning, Robespierre waits for Camille's anti-Danton article, but nothing comes. Saint-Just presses: decide, you have to, either them or us all. Robespierre does. The end.
What will you NOT find in the book: sex of any kind, Camille/Lucile (he makes an interesting remark about her, realizing that if he would loose her, he would howl like a wolf for w couple of days, than remarry and forget), Saint-Just lusting after Robespierre (at least I don't see it)
What actually IS there: long talks, repressed and admitted feelings, one kiss, not badly written characters (even somewhat annoying Desmoulins), Robespierre aware of and accepting responsibility for all he did, is doing and will do, Saint-Just running without a thought to hold him and protect from falling on the floor which is exactly what Camille was afraid to do a few hours before
As for the historical-political inaccuracies, writing out fantasies and using history to express one's own ideas, I think it's a convention in historical fiction in general. Richard the Lionheart in Walter Scott's Ivanhoe, evil manipulator Richelieu and pure, innocent Anne d'Autriche in Dumas' Les trois mousquetaires, noble, tormented and perfect Marie Antoinette in Le Chevalier de Maison-Rouge etc. Not to mention literature on much lower level.
In my opinion, "little personal affairs", relevant to the plot or not, give literary characters human touch. But much depends on the writer. And if you think Przybyszewska is sexually obsessed, read her father's Requiem aeternam. First sentence - "At the beginning, there was lust" ("Na początku była chuć"; interesting topic of sexuality in modernistic literature, but that'd be another discussion). According to the analyst of her works, PhD Ewa Graczyk, despite the lack of personal contact until she was, as far as I remember, nineteen, she was fascinated with his works and influenced by them (though not entirely). She later married one of her father's followers, but I promised a few posts above to keep Freud out of that. And yes, in her letters she admits to live so deeply in the world of The Danton Case during writing that she saw the events from the play as if she was witnessing them. I don't want to speculate about her mental state (she was a drug addict, too, but it'd need a deeper research to clarify whether she was a such in that particular period of her life), but she was obviously deeply into what she was writing, especially when writing about Robespierre, with whom she was in love with. She writes, by the way, that the only character in The Danton Case she didn't like, was Camille Desmoulins. Which in my opinion gives her even more praise as an author, because no matter how many times I'd shake him myself, I think that he's a very well-written character and according to his biography that I read (the author, Stefan Meller, has rather a good opinion among Polish historians), not very far from historical Camille.
And having a good motivation is a base to learn a foreign language. I've learnt French to read Les Misérables...
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2009-10-20 10:43 pm (UTC)The action takes place during one night and a day after. To summarize, Robespierre wants to put Dantonists on trial, but hesitates because of Camille. Being seriously ill, he sends for him. Camille comes. They talk for a few hours. Camille promises to leave Danton, convinced that he was
used by him for personal reasons. In the morning, Robespierre waits for Camille's anti-Danton article, but nothing comes. Saint-Just presses: decide, you have to, either them or us all. Robespierre does. The end.
What will you NOT find in the book: sex of any kind, Camille/Lucile (he makes an interesting remark about her, realizing that if he would loose her, he would howl like a wolf for w couple of days, than remarry and forget), Saint-Just lusting after Robespierre (at least I don't see it)
What actually IS there: long talks, repressed and admitted feelings, one kiss, not badly written characters (even somewhat annoying Desmoulins), Robespierre aware of and accepting responsibility for all he did, is doing and will do, Saint-Just running without a thought to hold him and protect from falling on the floor which is exactly what Camille was afraid to do a few hours before
As for the historical-political inaccuracies, writing out fantasies and using history to express one's own ideas, I think it's a convention in historical fiction in general. Richard the Lionheart in Walter Scott's Ivanhoe, evil manipulator Richelieu and pure, innocent Anne d'Autriche in Dumas' Les trois mousquetaires, noble, tormented and perfect Marie Antoinette in Le Chevalier de Maison-Rouge etc. Not to mention literature on much lower level.
In my opinion, "little personal affairs", relevant to the plot or not, give literary characters human touch. But much depends on the writer. And if you think Przybyszewska is sexually obsessed, read her father's Requiem aeternam. First sentence - "At the beginning, there was lust" ("Na początku była chuć"; interesting topic of sexuality in modernistic literature, but that'd be another discussion). According to the analyst of her works, PhD Ewa Graczyk, despite the lack of personal contact until she was, as far as I remember, nineteen, she was fascinated with his works and influenced by them (though not entirely). She later married one of her father's followers, but I promised a few posts above to keep Freud out of that. And yes, in her letters she admits to live so deeply in the world of The Danton Case during writing that she saw the events from the play as if she was witnessing them. I don't want to speculate about her mental state (she was a drug addict, too, but it'd need a deeper research to clarify whether she was a such in that particular period of her life), but she was obviously deeply into what she was writing, especially when writing about Robespierre, with whom she was in love with. She writes, by the way, that the only character in The Danton Case she didn't like, was Camille Desmoulins. Which in my opinion gives her even more praise as an author, because no matter how many times I'd shake him myself, I think that he's a very well-written character and according to his biography that I read (the author, Stefan Meller, has rather a good opinion among Polish historians), not very far from historical Camille.
And having a good motivation is a base to learn a foreign language. I've learnt French to read Les Misérables...