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erboe501's review
1.0
Set in sixteenth-century France during the civil wars between Huguenots and Catholics, The Brethren is told as a reflection by the now 25 year old son of one of the Brethren. It starts with how the Brethren met and continues up to the protagonist Pierre's departure from home to study medicine as a teenager. Warning: there are a lot of dry passages about the political moves of the kings of France and religious battles.
This book was written in the 1970s by a man. That's really all you need to understand what irked me about this book. The book is sexist, objectifying women to a gross degree. This is really a book written by men for men. The female characters are all flat, only described in importance based on their relationships to the men of the story. The serving women's identities are wholly tied up in their physical appeal. I don't know how many times I had to read about the wet nurses' large white breasts. Pierre at 10, not to mention his father in adulthood, are always transfixed by this woman's large white breasts when she breastfeeds. The younger women are described by their haunches and breasts as well.
One could argue that this view of women stays in line with how sixteenth-century men treated women. True. But Pierre so often makes inciteful realizations about other social conditions in the sixteenth century, like his father's amassing of wealth at the workers' expense or the hypocritical nature of demanding religious freedom but then forcing servants to convert to your own religion, that I don't believe that this is just Merle keeping in line with medieval attitudes. Since he bestows on Pierre and his father an understanding of many injustices in their society, Merle's treatment of women is inexcusable.
This book was written in the 1970s by a man. That's really all you need to understand what irked me about this book. The book is sexist, objectifying women to a gross degree. This is really a book written by men for men. The female characters are all flat, only described in importance based on their relationships to the men of the story. The serving women's identities are wholly tied up in their physical appeal. I don't know how many times I had to read about the wet nurses' large white breasts. Pierre at 10, not to mention his father in adulthood, are always transfixed by this woman's large white breasts when she breastfeeds. The younger women are described by their haunches and breasts as well.
One could argue that this view of women stays in line with how sixteenth-century men treated women. True. But Pierre so often makes inciteful realizations about other social conditions in the sixteenth century, like his father's amassing of wealth at the workers' expense or the hypocritical nature of demanding religious freedom but then forcing servants to convert to your own religion, that I don't believe that this is just Merle keeping in line with medieval attitudes. Since he bestows on Pierre and his father an understanding of many injustices in their society, Merle's treatment of women is inexcusable.
doobyus's review
4.0
A first class work of historical fiction.
The setting and the pace feel quite precise; the time is delineated with detail and without excessive attention to swashbuckling diversions.
The precision and focus on the people and the small aspects of normal life in Mespech, sets the grander picture of this time of religious upheaval in France in real lives.
I look forward to the next fourteen volumes!
The setting and the pace feel quite precise; the time is delineated with detail and without excessive attention to swashbuckling diversions.
The precision and focus on the people and the small aspects of normal life in Mespech, sets the grander picture of this time of religious upheaval in France in real lives.
I look forward to the next fourteen volumes!
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