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A review by iamjudgedredd
The Gods Will Have Blood by Frederick Davies, Anatole France
3.0
A lot to discuss, but basically I liked the book inspite of itself. There's some great classical allusion and metaphor, without being too obtuse and the book has some great highs and lows, especially in the second half.
That being said, hopefully you studied both the French Revolution, and also Art History. Evariste Gamelin is an artist, so much of the first half of the book is framing the world and the story as Gamelin sees it - as an artist, through his art, and classical education.
Some of the intricacies of the factionalism within ad without the revolution are discussed in the introduction, but it could still be a bit confusing at times.
But all that said, there are times the book is deeply, and darkly humourous. The final act of the book is Dickensian at times in the way that the sentence structure informs the flow, pace, and alacrity of story's progression.
I enjoyed it, but Anatole France needs to get out of his own way as a writer at times. Some pages were a struggle to follow the syntax and grammer they would just run on forever it seemed.
That being said, hopefully you studied both the French Revolution, and also Art History. Evariste Gamelin is an artist, so much of the first half of the book is framing the world and the story as Gamelin sees it - as an artist, through his art, and classical education.
Some of the intricacies of the factionalism within ad without the revolution are discussed in the introduction, but it could still be a bit confusing at times.
But all that said, there are times the book is deeply, and darkly humourous. The final act of the book is Dickensian at times in the way that the sentence structure informs the flow, pace, and alacrity of story's progression.
I enjoyed it, but Anatole France needs to get out of his own way as a writer at times. Some pages were a struggle to follow the syntax and grammer they would just run on forever it seemed.