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4.08 AVERAGE
4.08 AVERAGE
This is a head-scratcher of a book. I have given it 4 stars because I felt the book see-sawed between 3 and 5. Three stars for being overly long, boggy in the middle (a wide middle) and occasionally anachronistic in the dialog. The dialog. There is a lot of it. Too much quite frequently. I honestly considered quitting the book 60% of the way into it but I chose instead to skim the dialog-rich sections which just didn't seem to add a lot.
I sm very glad I did. The pace picked up and the inexorable grasp of the Terror on the the three protagonists created great literary tension and even suspense despite knowing the outcome. The last quarter of the book was riveting. Hence the five stars for drawing me in and making me care about these fascinating, vexed and conflicted key players in French history and hence the Europe of today.
Finally, if one does not have a fairly strong history knowledge of the Fench revolution and the key players, particularly among the Girondins and Jacobins, I think this would be a very painful and confusing read. An ordeal.
I sm very glad I did. The pace picked up and the inexorable grasp of the Terror on the the three protagonists created great literary tension and even suspense despite knowing the outcome. The last quarter of the book was riveting. Hence the five stars for drawing me in and making me care about these fascinating, vexed and conflicted key players in French history and hence the Europe of today.
Finally, if one does not have a fairly strong history knowledge of the Fench revolution and the key players, particularly among the Girondins and Jacobins, I think this would be a very painful and confusing read. An ordeal.
And interesting but also highly frustrating (and long) book. This novel is about relationships, an appropriate subject for a novel, but why pick three of the key figures of the French Revolution and leave out what they themselves thought about it? Camille Desmoulins, we're told, is off writing another political pamphlet, but not until near the end of the book do we get any sense of what he's writing about. George Danton assumes a leadership role, but we don't hear much of what he think of the rights or man or other key topics debated at the time. Maximilien Robespierre is mysterious even to his friends, the Incorruptible until finally corrupted (or pushed into guillotining his two friends) by Saint-Just. Oh, and the book ends before Max meets Dr. Guilotin's invention, so we're left hanging in terms of how he deals with what he's done to his friends and how the faces the counter-reaction to the Terror.
There are also a lot of characters to keep track of. I still found it interesting, but I also expected to come away with a better understanding of the Revolution, and I did not.
There are also a lot of characters to keep track of. I still found it interesting, but I also expected to come away with a better understanding of the Revolution, and I did not.
Well 4 months later . . . . but first, I am not a fast reader. Never have been, but I do read quite a lot. Just never got the hang of reading fast. Reading this on my Kindle didn't help either, with a cast of 00's with sometimes difficult to pronounce names, it wasn't an easy read. I persevered. Ready a little each day. Once half way through, I had invested so much, I became gripped. And boy was it worth it. A fabulous insight to the main protagonists of the French Revolution. I felt as though I knew them personally. Brilliant.
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Brilliant as always! You can see the seeds of the style that made the Wolf Hall trilogy so brilliant. Had a bit of a slow start, but quickly became a book I needed to finish.
don't think i have ever been more proud of myself than when i finished this book
A Revolução Francesa (RF) é um dos eventos mais marcantes da História da Europa, em grande parte responsável pelo desenho societal que ainda hoje vigora no continente. Por isso, e porque tenho vindo a ler cada vez mais ficção histórica, foi com alguma pena que percebi que os livros passados na RF não são tantos como se esperaria. Ainda assim, tendo encontrado uma obra escrita pela notável Hilary Mantel — "A Place of Greater Safety" (1992) — fez-me acreditar que o assunto estava resolvido. Mas não estava. Pouco depois de o começar, sentindo a falta de contexto, acabei por ir atrás de suporte, acabando a ler simultaneamente "A Revolução Francesa 1789-1799" (1992) de Michel Vovelle, "Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution" (1989) de Simon Schama, e ainda o mais recente, "A New World Begins: The History of the French Revolution" (2019) de Jeremy D. Popkin.
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continuar a ler:
https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.com/2022/04/direitos-da-revolucao-francesa.html
..
continuar a ler:
https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.com/2022/04/direitos-da-revolucao-francesa.html
funny
informative
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes