Reviewses, precious!
Dec. 28th, 2006 04:01 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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revolution_frIn the past few days, I've read Vive la Revolution by Mark Steel and Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution by Ruth Scurr. I also watched the movie Danton. Some thoughts on them:
Vive la Revolution by Mark Steel
This was, by far, the best of the three. But then I'm a dirty little leftie, so perhaps I'm biased. ;)
Steel covers the revolution and its major players, putting his own humorous spin on events. The following, from his discussion on the fall of the Bastille, is typical:
"The prison governer, de Launay, invited a delegation in for breakfast, but the breakfast went on for three and a half hours, while outside, rumors circulated that royalist troops were massacring local citizens throughout Paris. From my experience of large anti-fascist demonstrations and the odd mass picket, I can imagine the nature of these rumors. A group of three blokes dressed all in black will have arrived in the crowd, yelling, "Don't just stand there, our comrades are being hammered around the other side!" So a huge contingent will have set off and bumped into another crowd coming the other way, who will have have said, "No, we heard they're massacring people around that side." A few will have had to go home to pick up their kids, someone will have had to leave for a dentist's appointment, and someone will have grumbled, "This is the last time I come on one of these things, I told you nothing would happen," and stomped off home."
Steel also mocks the historians over the years who have been absurdly hostile to the revolution, citing, for example, their penchant for describing everyone involved as hideously ugly:
"...and Simon Schama in Citizens tells us that Marat "made an art form of confrontational ugliness" as "His eyes were not quite aligned." After all, modern society would be so much fairer if we reverted to those quaint but effective eleventh-century methods of judging people as being demons and traitors if they lacked a symmetrical face."
"The historian Nodier wrote, "his [Robespierre's] gaze was an indescribable shaft of light from a wild eye between retractile eyelids." Other accounts, such as the one that describes him as "having the face of a tiger," make you wonder whether you're reading Harry Potter and the French Revolution."
Overall, I found it a great book that I intend to read over and over. However, I had a few minor quibbles with punctuation and sentence structure, but as I doubt it was a book that was intended to draw praise for its spectacular prose, it doesn't really matter. I'm just particular. ;) The only other things that I can recall being bothered over were the apparent non-existance of Eleonore Duplay (Elisabeth gets discussed, but not Eleonore o.O), and the fact that I think Steel oversimplified the characters of the revolutionaries a little.
In the simplest terms, if you've been skimming: BOOK AWESOME. BUY BOOK NOW.
**************
Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution by Ruth Scurr
I finished this book at about, oh, 2:30 this morning. My immediate thought was, "Hm." Pause. "Now I can stuff it on the shelf and never look at it again - thank God!" Tired as I had been in the preceeding moments, that thought was invigorating enough to get me up and moving for another half an hour. Maxime's fatigue was spoken of often in the last chapter; if it was even remotely similar to the fatigue I felt trying to soldier on through said chapter, I empathize completely. :P
It didn't start out too badly, and I felt that as far as English-language biographies of Robespierre seem to go, it was definitely a step up all around. But, considering their natures, that's hardly a feat.
At one point, Scurr seems to succumb to exactly the kind of mentality Steel described with regards to the physical characteristics of those involved in the revolution. Charlotte Robespierre, she says, was "too beady-eyed" to be romantic or something of the sort. Perhaps Charlotte should have met up with Marat and started a support group for people whose unusual eyes have detrimental effects on their characters.
I think two things bothered me the most about Scurr's biography:
A. The way nearly every other person mentioned seems to have floweringly positive adjectives attached to them. A paragraph that takes up nearly the whole of one page expounds on the genius of Sieyes, for example. The royal family are always mentioned in sympathetic terms, their plight mourned. Yes, they suffered. But I couldn't see much purpose behind such frequent (or so it seemed to me) references to it in a biography of Robespierre.
B. Scurr says she 'tried to be Robespierre's friend' in writing this book. If that is so, I'd hate to see the way she might have painted him if she'd approached it as his enemy. O.o Obviously, the best friends are the ones who will tell it like it is, even if you don't want to hear it, but Scurr goes overboard a lot. She approaches his illnesses and the assassination attempt on him by nearly suggesting that he faked the former and planned the latter. It's always 'whether or not the [blank] was genuine...' I think that in many cases he suffered from pyschosomatic illness, but having suffered them myself, the fact that they are based on mental processes rather than physical doesn't mean they make you feel any less like crap. And I find the assertation that he may have planned his own failed assassination nothing short of ridiculous. In general, it just seems to me that as she wrote this book, Scurr thought 'objectivity,' meant 'being negative about your subject whenever possible.' Her Maxime never does things, such as going personally to Versailles (?? I'm not sure that it being in Versailles is even accurate, come to think of it) to explain his resignation from a position they had appointed him to, because he was, y'know, considerate and felt a personal explanation was due or anything; he does it because he was ambitious and wanted to build a power base wherever possible by acting like he was considerate and felt a personal explanation was due.
[/vent]
It's not a wholly irredemable book, especially in the beginning, but I wouldn't really reccomend it. There are some minor factual errors, too, such as the claim that Camille Desmoulins was marrying 'Lucile Horace.' XD
EDIT: Another error I just remembered that stretched the book's credulity for me: In one passage, Scurr describes Collot D'Herbois and Billaud-Varenne as 'close friends' of Robespierre. -.- *Facepalm*
**************
Danton, starring Gerard Depardieu
I wasn't expecting much from this movie in terms of accuracy, so I mostly had fun with it. Depardieu never really convinced me as Danton, though. It wasn't that his acting was bad...he just never felt like Danton to me.
Pszoniak does a good job as Robespierre with the material given, although his 'just-swallowed-a-lemon' face was...slightly overused. Oh well.
The fellow who played Camille looked a little like Stephen Fry when captured from the right angle. This amused me greatly.
Despite the actors' personal charms, however, their characters almost all annoyed the fuck out of me throughout the course of the production. Dude. If Danton threw me a dinner party like that, I'd have been tempted to chop off some head, too. And Camille was being extremely irritating when Robespierre came to see him after said party, and he just...completely and utterly ignored him. "HI CAMILLE I COME TO TRY TO SAVE YOUR LIFE." "..." "PLZ CAMILLE I <3 J00." "..." "LOOK AT ME PLACE MY HANDS CARRESSINGLY ABOUT YOUR STURDY FRAME EVEN THOUGH I HATE TOUCHING PEOPLE JUST BECAUSE I LOVE YOU AND I DON'T WANT YOU TO DIE AND DFJKSDAFJSDAKFJSD." "Lalala, I can't hear you~"
Um. Great move.
Oh, and Eleonore's portrayal. O.O That was just...disturbing.
The definite upside to the movie was the slashiness between Robespierre and Saint-Just. Mmmmmmmmmm.
And as a random, amusing note: The name of Gerard Depardieu's son is Guillaume Jean Maxime Antoine Depardieu. XD
If you don't take Danton seriously in historical terms, it's an entertaining enough watch. I would recommend watching it with loads of either sugar or caffeine running through your system. :D
Also, random plug that has nothing to do with the French Revolution: Little Miss Sunshine is freaking awesome.
Vive la Revolution by Mark Steel
This was, by far, the best of the three. But then I'm a dirty little leftie, so perhaps I'm biased. ;)
Steel covers the revolution and its major players, putting his own humorous spin on events. The following, from his discussion on the fall of the Bastille, is typical:
"The prison governer, de Launay, invited a delegation in for breakfast, but the breakfast went on for three and a half hours, while outside, rumors circulated that royalist troops were massacring local citizens throughout Paris. From my experience of large anti-fascist demonstrations and the odd mass picket, I can imagine the nature of these rumors. A group of three blokes dressed all in black will have arrived in the crowd, yelling, "Don't just stand there, our comrades are being hammered around the other side!" So a huge contingent will have set off and bumped into another crowd coming the other way, who will have have said, "No, we heard they're massacring people around that side." A few will have had to go home to pick up their kids, someone will have had to leave for a dentist's appointment, and someone will have grumbled, "This is the last time I come on one of these things, I told you nothing would happen," and stomped off home."
Steel also mocks the historians over the years who have been absurdly hostile to the revolution, citing, for example, their penchant for describing everyone involved as hideously ugly:
"...and Simon Schama in Citizens tells us that Marat "made an art form of confrontational ugliness" as "His eyes were not quite aligned." After all, modern society would be so much fairer if we reverted to those quaint but effective eleventh-century methods of judging people as being demons and traitors if they lacked a symmetrical face."
"The historian Nodier wrote, "his [Robespierre's] gaze was an indescribable shaft of light from a wild eye between retractile eyelids." Other accounts, such as the one that describes him as "having the face of a tiger," make you wonder whether you're reading Harry Potter and the French Revolution."
Overall, I found it a great book that I intend to read over and over. However, I had a few minor quibbles with punctuation and sentence structure, but as I doubt it was a book that was intended to draw praise for its spectacular prose, it doesn't really matter. I'm just particular. ;) The only other things that I can recall being bothered over were the apparent non-existance of Eleonore Duplay (Elisabeth gets discussed, but not Eleonore o.O), and the fact that I think Steel oversimplified the characters of the revolutionaries a little.
In the simplest terms, if you've been skimming: BOOK AWESOME. BUY BOOK NOW.
**************
Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution by Ruth Scurr
I finished this book at about, oh, 2:30 this morning. My immediate thought was, "Hm." Pause. "Now I can stuff it on the shelf and never look at it again - thank God!" Tired as I had been in the preceeding moments, that thought was invigorating enough to get me up and moving for another half an hour. Maxime's fatigue was spoken of often in the last chapter; if it was even remotely similar to the fatigue I felt trying to soldier on through said chapter, I empathize completely. :P
It didn't start out too badly, and I felt that as far as English-language biographies of Robespierre seem to go, it was definitely a step up all around. But, considering their natures, that's hardly a feat.
At one point, Scurr seems to succumb to exactly the kind of mentality Steel described with regards to the physical characteristics of those involved in the revolution. Charlotte Robespierre, she says, was "too beady-eyed" to be romantic or something of the sort. Perhaps Charlotte should have met up with Marat and started a support group for people whose unusual eyes have detrimental effects on their characters.
I think two things bothered me the most about Scurr's biography:
A. The way nearly every other person mentioned seems to have floweringly positive adjectives attached to them. A paragraph that takes up nearly the whole of one page expounds on the genius of Sieyes, for example. The royal family are always mentioned in sympathetic terms, their plight mourned. Yes, they suffered. But I couldn't see much purpose behind such frequent (or so it seemed to me) references to it in a biography of Robespierre.
B. Scurr says she 'tried to be Robespierre's friend' in writing this book. If that is so, I'd hate to see the way she might have painted him if she'd approached it as his enemy. O.o Obviously, the best friends are the ones who will tell it like it is, even if you don't want to hear it, but Scurr goes overboard a lot. She approaches his illnesses and the assassination attempt on him by nearly suggesting that he faked the former and planned the latter. It's always 'whether or not the [blank] was genuine...' I think that in many cases he suffered from pyschosomatic illness, but having suffered them myself, the fact that they are based on mental processes rather than physical doesn't mean they make you feel any less like crap. And I find the assertation that he may have planned his own failed assassination nothing short of ridiculous. In general, it just seems to me that as she wrote this book, Scurr thought 'objectivity,' meant 'being negative about your subject whenever possible.' Her Maxime never does things, such as going personally to Versailles (?? I'm not sure that it being in Versailles is even accurate, come to think of it) to explain his resignation from a position they had appointed him to, because he was, y'know, considerate and felt a personal explanation was due or anything; he does it because he was ambitious and wanted to build a power base wherever possible by acting like he was considerate and felt a personal explanation was due.
[/vent]
It's not a wholly irredemable book, especially in the beginning, but I wouldn't really reccomend it. There are some minor factual errors, too, such as the claim that Camille Desmoulins was marrying 'Lucile Horace.' XD
EDIT: Another error I just remembered that stretched the book's credulity for me: In one passage, Scurr describes Collot D'Herbois and Billaud-Varenne as 'close friends' of Robespierre. -.- *Facepalm*
**************
Danton, starring Gerard Depardieu
I wasn't expecting much from this movie in terms of accuracy, so I mostly had fun with it. Depardieu never really convinced me as Danton, though. It wasn't that his acting was bad...he just never felt like Danton to me.
Pszoniak does a good job as Robespierre with the material given, although his 'just-swallowed-a-lemon' face was...slightly overused. Oh well.
The fellow who played Camille looked a little like Stephen Fry when captured from the right angle. This amused me greatly.
Despite the actors' personal charms, however, their characters almost all annoyed the fuck out of me throughout the course of the production. Dude. If Danton threw me a dinner party like that, I'd have been tempted to chop off some head, too. And Camille was being extremely irritating when Robespierre came to see him after said party, and he just...completely and utterly ignored him. "HI CAMILLE I COME TO TRY TO SAVE YOUR LIFE." "..." "PLZ CAMILLE I <3 J00." "..." "LOOK AT ME PLACE MY HANDS CARRESSINGLY ABOUT YOUR STURDY FRAME EVEN THOUGH I HATE TOUCHING PEOPLE JUST BECAUSE I LOVE YOU AND I DON'T WANT YOU TO DIE AND DFJKSDAFJSDAKFJSD." "Lalala, I can't hear you~"
Um. Great move.
Oh, and Eleonore's portrayal. O.O That was just...disturbing.
The definite upside to the movie was the slashiness between Robespierre and Saint-Just. Mmmmmmmmmm.
And as a random, amusing note: The name of Gerard Depardieu's son is Guillaume Jean Maxime Antoine Depardieu. XD
If you don't take Danton seriously in historical terms, it's an entertaining enough watch. I would recommend watching it with loads of either sugar or caffeine running through your system. :D
Also, random plug that has nothing to do with the French Revolution: Little Miss Sunshine is freaking awesome.
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no subject
Date: 2006-12-30 07:14 pm (UTC)I really must see Danton sometime. Keep meaning to.
.......LUCILE HORACE.
♥s your reivews.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-30 08:14 pm (UTC)Vive la Revolution was amazing, probably the best most enjoyable book I've ever read on the Revolution.
I enjoyed the first few chapters of Fatal Purity, but the book was annoyingly opinionated. Still, it's about time a woman wrote a full length biography on Robespierre.
since he does belong to us...I'm reading Robespierre ed. by Colin Haydon & William Doyle. Fourty fucking dollars for a paperback but some of the essays are really outstanding and I'm pleased so far.
Danton I still haven't seen. I've looked all over NYC for a copy of the dvd, but no luck. :(
no subject
Date: 2007-01-02 11:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-17 11:22 pm (UTC)2. Yeah, I've heard things about Fatal Purity, bah, always good to have more reviews
3. HEHEHEHE!! I caught this movie per chance, and MAN did I laugh! XD