Publication
HarperPerennial / HarperCollins (2007), 880 p.
Original publication date
1992
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Description
It is 1789, and three young provincials have come to Paris to make their way. Georges-Jacques Danton, an ambitious young lawyer, is energetic, pragmatic, debt-ridden--and hugely but erotically ugly. Maximilien Robespierre, also a lawyer, is slight, diligent, and terrified of violence. His dearest friend, Camille Desmoulins, is a conspirator and pamphleteer of genius. A charming gadfly, erratic and untrustworthy, bisexual and beautiful, Camille is obsessed by one woman and engaged to marry another, her daughter. In the swells of revolution, they each taste the addictive delights of power, and the price that must be paid for it.
User reviews
LibraryThing member RidgewayGirl
And when evening came the civil servants hurried home; the jewelers of the Place Dauphine came clank, clank with their keys to lock away their diamonds for the night. No homeward cattle, no dusk over the fields; shrug away the sentimentality. In the rue Saint-Jacques a confraternity of shoemakers
Robespierre and Danton are the two towering figures of the French Revolution. They were almost comically different; Danton living large, with enormous appetites, voice and zest for the challenges of leading a revolution, and Robespierre, tidy, precise and constrained in his personal and public life. They're great fodder for a many a book. However, here Hilary Mantel does something different. She puts the spotlight on Camille Desmoulins, the stuttering lawyer whose speech in the gardens of the Palais Royale was the spark that set the revolution alight. Oh, Mantel spends plenty of time in Danton's head and narrates from the POV of everyone from Robespierre to both of Danton's wives, but the central focus remains on the volatile and scandal-prone Desmoulins. This does make excellent sense; Camille is the connection between Danton and Robespierre, close to both men, but Mantel is interested in Desmoulins for his own sake. This gives a new angle to a familiar story, although Mantel's writing is so fine that she hardly needs the boost.
Usually, it's clear who an author prefers, either Danton or Robespierre. Mantel treads a delicate path of showing both men sympathetic and abundant in faults. She also fleshes out the secondary actors in the Revolution, from Marat (a surprisingly positive portrayal) to Danton's teenage second wife.
Robespierre smiled his thin smile. he was conscious of the thinness of it. If he were remembered into the next generation, people would speak of his thin, cold smile, as they would speak of Danton's girth, vitality, scarred face. He wanted, always, to be different--and especially with Danton. Perhaps the smile looked sarcastic, or patronizing or disapproving. But it was the only one available to his face.
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settled in for a night's hard drinking. In a third-floor apartment in the rue de la Tixanderie, a young woman let in her new lover and removed her clothes. On the Ile Saint-Louis, in a empty office, Maitre Desmoulins's son faced, dry-mouthed, the heavy charm of his new employer. Milliners who worked fifteen hours a day in a bad light rubbed their red-rimmed eyes and prayed for their families in the country. Bolts were drawn, lamps were lit. Actors painted their faces for the performance.Robespierre and Danton are the two towering figures of the French Revolution. They were almost comically different; Danton living large, with enormous appetites, voice and zest for the challenges of leading a revolution, and Robespierre, tidy, precise and constrained in his personal and public life. They're great fodder for a many a book. However, here Hilary Mantel does something different. She puts the spotlight on Camille Desmoulins, the stuttering lawyer whose speech in the gardens of the Palais Royale was the spark that set the revolution alight. Oh, Mantel spends plenty of time in Danton's head and narrates from the POV of everyone from Robespierre to both of Danton's wives, but the central focus remains on the volatile and scandal-prone Desmoulins. This does make excellent sense; Camille is the connection between Danton and Robespierre, close to both men, but Mantel is interested in Desmoulins for his own sake. This gives a new angle to a familiar story, although Mantel's writing is so fine that she hardly needs the boost.
Usually, it's clear who an author prefers, either Danton or Robespierre. Mantel treads a delicate path of showing both men sympathetic and abundant in faults. She also fleshes out the secondary actors in the Revolution, from Marat (a surprisingly positive portrayal) to Danton's teenage second wife.
Robespierre smiled his thin smile. he was conscious of the thinness of it. If he were remembered into the next generation, people would speak of his thin, cold smile, as they would speak of Danton's girth, vitality, scarred face. He wanted, always, to be different--and especially with Danton. Perhaps the smile looked sarcastic, or patronizing or disapproving. But it was the only one available to his face.
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LibraryThing member tomcatMurr
So far I have avoided all the Mantel brouhaha because, as I think it was Rebeccanyc who said: 'I can't read a historical novel written in the present simple', and I'm so over the Tudors. But A Place of Greater Safety is a magnificent novel.
The story is so well known, and so well studied, and has
The novel focuses as well on the secondary characters, those who get short shrift in histories of the Revolution, especially the women, bringing to life such characters as Madame Roland, Anne Theroigne, Lucille Desmoulins, and Danton’s second, child wife. Mantel is an excellent describer of character; she has mastered the very difficult trick of describing change in character, but the character is still recognizably one and the same. This is especially notable in the portrayal of Lucille Desmoulins, whom we first encounter as silly young girl, and whom we leave as a mature and noble Revolutionary on the way to the scaffold; and also in the portrayal of Louise Gely, whom we first meet as a child living upstairs from the Dantons, and whom we leave as her husband is arrested.
The Revolution was as much a revolution of lawyers and writing as it was of storming Bastilles and setting palaces alight, and Mantel includes portions of writings from the main characters, minutes from meetings of the Jacobin club, and trial transcripts. I would have liked more of these, especially the writings from Desmoulins, the greatest writer of them all, and perhaps a more clearly marked sense of chronology: the Revolution was so fast that events whirl past in a wind, and it's hard to keep up with what’s happening when sometimes. Mantel includes nice gestures to her predecessors. Carlyle called Robespierre the ‘seagreen Robespierre’, and in one scene Danton is sitting alone at the green baize covered table in the Committee of Public Safety, and the color of the cloth reminds him, sickeningly, of Robespierre.
Mantel has no axe to grind, no theory of history, unless it be that the quotidian has just as much influence on great events as politics and public life does.
A top notch historical novel, fast paced, realistic, and unbearably suspenseful, even though you know what’s going to happen next.
Robespierre to the Jacobins:
The more you isolate me, the more you cut off all my human contacts, the more justification I find in my own conscience, and in the justice of my cause.
Camille Desmoulins to Lucille Desmoulins:
I have walked for five years along the precipices of the Revolution without falling, and I am still living. I dreamt of the republic which the world would have adored; I could never have believed that men could be so ferocious and so unjust.
The story is so well known, and so well studied, and has
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elicited greatness from so many writers- Carlyle, Lefebvre, Lamartine, Buchner - that it's hard to know what a historical novel can add to our understanding of the Revolution. Mantel focuses on the relationship between the three main protagonists of the Revolution: Danton, Desmoulins, and Robespierre, emphasizing the domestic, personal relations between them, as well the political ones: Desmoulins and Robespierre were best friends at school together, and Danton and Desmoulin were rumoured to be sharing the same woman.The novel focuses as well on the secondary characters, those who get short shrift in histories of the Revolution, especially the women, bringing to life such characters as Madame Roland, Anne Theroigne, Lucille Desmoulins, and Danton’s second, child wife. Mantel is an excellent describer of character; she has mastered the very difficult trick of describing change in character, but the character is still recognizably one and the same. This is especially notable in the portrayal of Lucille Desmoulins, whom we first encounter as silly young girl, and whom we leave as a mature and noble Revolutionary on the way to the scaffold; and also in the portrayal of Louise Gely, whom we first meet as a child living upstairs from the Dantons, and whom we leave as her husband is arrested.
The Revolution was as much a revolution of lawyers and writing as it was of storming Bastilles and setting palaces alight, and Mantel includes portions of writings from the main characters, minutes from meetings of the Jacobin club, and trial transcripts. I would have liked more of these, especially the writings from Desmoulins, the greatest writer of them all, and perhaps a more clearly marked sense of chronology: the Revolution was so fast that events whirl past in a wind, and it's hard to keep up with what’s happening when sometimes. Mantel includes nice gestures to her predecessors. Carlyle called Robespierre the ‘seagreen Robespierre’, and in one scene Danton is sitting alone at the green baize covered table in the Committee of Public Safety, and the color of the cloth reminds him, sickeningly, of Robespierre.
Mantel has no axe to grind, no theory of history, unless it be that the quotidian has just as much influence on great events as politics and public life does.
A top notch historical novel, fast paced, realistic, and unbearably suspenseful, even though you know what’s going to happen next.
Robespierre to the Jacobins:
The more you isolate me, the more you cut off all my human contacts, the more justification I find in my own conscience, and in the justice of my cause.
Camille Desmoulins to Lucille Desmoulins:
I have walked for five years along the precipices of the Revolution without falling, and I am still living. I dreamt of the republic which the world would have adored; I could never have believed that men could be so ferocious and so unjust.
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LibraryThing member Poquette
In an author's note following the main text, Hilary Mantel says that her intent was to create "a book one can think and live inside." By this measure, she was wildly successful. Unlike most historical novels that place imaginary characters in a historical setting, A Place of Greater Safety is more
Superb characterizations and historical veracity aside, why is this not a slam-dunk five-star read? For one thing, it reads like a collection of notes, snatches of conversation, speeches, newspaper clippings, diary entries and bits of connective narrative that have been carefully put in order for the purpose of sitting down to write a book. First person, third person, present tense, past tense, scripted dialogue, conversational dialogue without clear attribution, difficult to follow plus occasional dropped quotation marks leading to further confusion — in other words, it reads like an early draft, not a finished work. The final chapter, which is also the longest at 50 pages, is possibly the most polished section of the book. The rest is an editorial mess — choppy and too long.
Despite these flaws, Mantel has managed to meet her own objectives and to convey the right tone and has delivered a compelling inside story of the Revolution.
At the core of Mantel's production are three characters who drove the events between the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, and the guillotining of two of them by the third on April 5, 1794. George-Jacques Danton, a lawyer and highly skilled administrator, Camille Desmoulins, the brilliant and reckless polemicist who was credited by some with inspiring the attack on the Bastille, and Maximilian Robespierre, the respected but enigmatic and cagey politician who rose to the top in time to sign the death warrants of Danton and Desmoulins, who had been in at the beginning of the Revolution, and were his friends!
How could such a thing have happened? As Pierre Vergniaud, a famous politician and orator said, "The Revolution, like Saturn, is devouring its own children." What began as massive civil disobedience in 1789 — resulting from two years of crop failure due to bad weather that was on the verge of causing widespread famine in France, on top of centuries of economic mismanagement of farmlands by the aristocratic owners, not to mention a clueless monarchy — devolved into an unstable Republic fraught with petty jealousies, suspicions regarding loyalty, and a level of paranoia that resulted in shocking internal purges.
The book ends with the beheading of Danton and Desmoulins, and even though it happened beyond the scope of this book, less than four months later Robespierre received a dose of his own medicine: He was guillotined without a trial.
Mantel's editors obviously did not see the deficiencies that I saw. If it seems petty to dislike a book for being too much like a rough draft, so be it. I think it could have been a much better book with a bit more effort.
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like a novelization featuring real people and events at the heart of the French Revolution. Again, by rigorous adherence to the chronology of events, and by imaginatively fleshing out the dozens of historic participants based on their own writings and other documentary evidence, Mantel has successfully recreated the atmosphere, drama, heartbreak and viciousness of the people and events culminating in the Reign of Terror.Superb characterizations and historical veracity aside, why is this not a slam-dunk five-star read? For one thing, it reads like a collection of notes, snatches of conversation, speeches, newspaper clippings, diary entries and bits of connective narrative that have been carefully put in order for the purpose of sitting down to write a book. First person, third person, present tense, past tense, scripted dialogue, conversational dialogue without clear attribution, difficult to follow plus occasional dropped quotation marks leading to further confusion — in other words, it reads like an early draft, not a finished work. The final chapter, which is also the longest at 50 pages, is possibly the most polished section of the book. The rest is an editorial mess — choppy and too long.
Despite these flaws, Mantel has managed to meet her own objectives and to convey the right tone and has delivered a compelling inside story of the Revolution.
At the core of Mantel's production are three characters who drove the events between the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, and the guillotining of two of them by the third on April 5, 1794. George-Jacques Danton, a lawyer and highly skilled administrator, Camille Desmoulins, the brilliant and reckless polemicist who was credited by some with inspiring the attack on the Bastille, and Maximilian Robespierre, the respected but enigmatic and cagey politician who rose to the top in time to sign the death warrants of Danton and Desmoulins, who had been in at the beginning of the Revolution, and were his friends!
How could such a thing have happened? As Pierre Vergniaud, a famous politician and orator said, "The Revolution, like Saturn, is devouring its own children." What began as massive civil disobedience in 1789 — resulting from two years of crop failure due to bad weather that was on the verge of causing widespread famine in France, on top of centuries of economic mismanagement of farmlands by the aristocratic owners, not to mention a clueless monarchy — devolved into an unstable Republic fraught with petty jealousies, suspicions regarding loyalty, and a level of paranoia that resulted in shocking internal purges.
The book ends with the beheading of Danton and Desmoulins, and even though it happened beyond the scope of this book, less than four months later Robespierre received a dose of his own medicine: He was guillotined without a trial.
Mantel's editors obviously did not see the deficiencies that I saw. If it seems petty to dislike a book for being too much like a rough draft, so be it. I think it could have been a much better book with a bit more effort.
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LibraryThing member Widsith
A flawed book, but a very impressive and absorbing one.
Mantel traces the story of the Revolution through the experiences of Danton, Robespierre and Desmouslins, along with an extensive cast of the men and women who knew, loved, or hated them. If I'm honest I'd have to say it could have lost a
Part of me wanted more detail about ordinary life. A Place of Greater Safety is not about that, and there is rather little in the way of dramatisation of the average Parisian's experience through those dark days at the end of the 18th century. This is very much concerned with the ‘great men’ of the time and how they saw things. It's a very useful window on those men, but at the same time the uninformed reader might be left wondering why this fight was thought so necessary in the first place.
Mantel also assumes a fair amount of knowledge about who her characters are. This allows for some beautiful touches of irony in her narration, but, especially towards the beginning, it can make it difficult to distinguish between even such different characters as Robespierre and Danton. Camille Desmoulins is the one who really comes to life here: witty, artistic, sometimes cruel, he is painted convincingly as an aesthete avant la lettre, and a great foil for the splenetic, populist Danton, and the cautious and frighteningly logical Robespierre.
The writing is deceptively simple; it sketches a few lines of dialogue here, a couple of descriptive touches there, not going in for rich portraits of Revolutionary Paris but rather outlining the salient landmarks and allowing the reader to fill in the details. By the time the last hundred pages roll around, the cumulative effect is crushingly powerful, and there is an almost unbearable sense of how badly things will end. I had to put the book down every 20 pages; I just couldn't live in that world for too long at a time. The impression, of good-intentions-gone-wrong, is beautifully given, and followed through ruthlessly. Sometimes the rigorous historical accuracy seemed more of an artistic constraint than a help; but ultimately I was left moved and appalled by the way this story played out. It's a perfect accompaniment to any non-fictional reading in the period, and a great description by any standards of humanity's ability to turn on itself.
Mantel traces the story of the Revolution through the experiences of Danton, Robespierre and Desmouslins, along with an extensive cast of the men and women who knew, loved, or hated them. If I'm honest I'd have to say it could have lost a
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couple of hundred pages – a tighter edit is definitely in there somewhere, although there's something to be said for a lengthy story that you have to live with for a few days.Part of me wanted more detail about ordinary life. A Place of Greater Safety is not about that, and there is rather little in the way of dramatisation of the average Parisian's experience through those dark days at the end of the 18th century. This is very much concerned with the ‘great men’ of the time and how they saw things. It's a very useful window on those men, but at the same time the uninformed reader might be left wondering why this fight was thought so necessary in the first place.
Mantel also assumes a fair amount of knowledge about who her characters are. This allows for some beautiful touches of irony in her narration, but, especially towards the beginning, it can make it difficult to distinguish between even such different characters as Robespierre and Danton. Camille Desmoulins is the one who really comes to life here: witty, artistic, sometimes cruel, he is painted convincingly as an aesthete avant la lettre, and a great foil for the splenetic, populist Danton, and the cautious and frighteningly logical Robespierre.
The writing is deceptively simple; it sketches a few lines of dialogue here, a couple of descriptive touches there, not going in for rich portraits of Revolutionary Paris but rather outlining the salient landmarks and allowing the reader to fill in the details. By the time the last hundred pages roll around, the cumulative effect is crushingly powerful, and there is an almost unbearable sense of how badly things will end. I had to put the book down every 20 pages; I just couldn't live in that world for too long at a time. The impression, of good-intentions-gone-wrong, is beautifully given, and followed through ruthlessly. Sometimes the rigorous historical accuracy seemed more of an artistic constraint than a help; but ultimately I was left moved and appalled by the way this story played out. It's a perfect accompaniment to any non-fictional reading in the period, and a great description by any standards of humanity's ability to turn on itself.
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LibraryThing member cameling
In the late 1700s, the growing unrest in France by the populace leads to some men and women pushing their ideals towards the forming of a republic to great heights and for some, to great falls. This is the beginning of the French Revolution, and amongst the many characters who played a part in the
The relationship of these 3 men is fascinating. Danton is an ambitious lawyer, charismatic, lusty and full of purpose. Desmoulins writes incendiary pamphlets that are distributed around the country to expose corruption of the monarchy and injustices, but is seen as flighty bisexual. Robespierre is a austere lawyer whose ideals are lauded by many. All three share a long term camaraderie and all three share goals of ridding France of the current corrupt practices by the monarchy, but at the same time are not above indulging in their own form of corruption.
The progression they and the other characters in this absorbing historical fiction make towards scheming, planning and then the execution of their plans to build a republic is gripping. The author's use of letters, diaries and other documents lend a balancing weight to the creativity in which she bestows on the early lives of Danton, Robespierre and Desmoulins. As the revolution gains momentum though, we also see how idealism can sometimes be warped as egos grow in proportion to the power that is bestowed or taken by the men. Pride sometimes does come before a fall.
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fall of the monarchy, are 3 men, George-Jacques Danton, Camille Desmoulins and Maximilien Robespierre.The relationship of these 3 men is fascinating. Danton is an ambitious lawyer, charismatic, lusty and full of purpose. Desmoulins writes incendiary pamphlets that are distributed around the country to expose corruption of the monarchy and injustices, but is seen as flighty bisexual. Robespierre is a austere lawyer whose ideals are lauded by many. All three share a long term camaraderie and all three share goals of ridding France of the current corrupt practices by the monarchy, but at the same time are not above indulging in their own form of corruption.
The progression they and the other characters in this absorbing historical fiction make towards scheming, planning and then the execution of their plans to build a republic is gripping. The author's use of letters, diaries and other documents lend a balancing weight to the creativity in which she bestows on the early lives of Danton, Robespierre and Desmoulins. As the revolution gains momentum though, we also see how idealism can sometimes be warped as egos grow in proportion to the power that is bestowed or taken by the men. Pride sometimes does come before a fall.
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LibraryThing member dsc73277
This is a big novel primarily about the first five years of the French Revolution, from the storming of the Bastille in 1789 to the peak of the Terror in the mid 1790s, but it starts by following the early lives of three of the principal players, Desmoulins, Robespierre and Danton. Once we reach
Robespierre in particular comes across as a far more complex character than the monster of historical stereotype. That is not say that he would have been a contender for the Nobel Peace Prize had it existed in the 1790s; the surprise is that one gets the impression he would like to have been. The man who bears a large share of responsibility for the Terror is depicted by Mantel as someone who actually found violence highly distasteful. I do not know sufficient about French history in this, or indeed any other period, to be able to differentiate the fact from the fiction. Intriguingly, the author's foreword suggests that it is the hardest to believe incidents that are most likely to be factual.
Faced with a book that is not far short of 900 pages in paperback, one is bound to ponder whether it needed to be this long, or whether a bit of editing might not have gone amiss? Well it took me more than three weeks to read - slow by my standards - but whilst I tired somewhat of the idea of reading this book, whenever I picked it up it recaptured and held my attention. I was never tempted to skim read. Big events perhaps require big books.
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their adult lives there is an almost equal focus on their personal lives as there is on the events they inspire, our caught up in, and are ultimately destroyed by. Indeed, the extent to which their public and private lives are inextricably intertwined, and the impact this has on the women and children in their lives is a major feature of the novel.Robespierre in particular comes across as a far more complex character than the monster of historical stereotype. That is not say that he would have been a contender for the Nobel Peace Prize had it existed in the 1790s; the surprise is that one gets the impression he would like to have been. The man who bears a large share of responsibility for the Terror is depicted by Mantel as someone who actually found violence highly distasteful. I do not know sufficient about French history in this, or indeed any other period, to be able to differentiate the fact from the fiction. Intriguingly, the author's foreword suggests that it is the hardest to believe incidents that are most likely to be factual.
Faced with a book that is not far short of 900 pages in paperback, one is bound to ponder whether it needed to be this long, or whether a bit of editing might not have gone amiss? Well it took me more than three weeks to read - slow by my standards - but whilst I tired somewhat of the idea of reading this book, whenever I picked it up it recaptured and held my attention. I was never tempted to skim read. Big events perhaps require big books.
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LibraryThing member jonesjohnson
This is historical fiction for people who don't read historical fiction. It essentially traces the movements of key figures in the years and days leading to the French Revolution. I am in a nonfiction phase right now, yet it drew me in enough that I forgot to water my veggies for a few days. Trust
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me, that is a big deal. Writing this even makes me want to read it again. Maybe I'll give it that last star after a second read... Show Less
LibraryThing member JulieStielstra
In the wake of so many other reviews, I don't know that I have a heck of a lot to add. I'm a hardcore Mantel fan, and have long been fascinated by the French Revolution. I even puzzled the chief of security where I used to work when I mentioned to him that calling his department the Department of
Anyway. Mantel was 22 when she started writing this book. Living in Botswana, after years of reading and research in the UK. Without the internet. How the heck she pulled that off, I will never know. But she did, and that alone is a breathtaking achievement. Huge, swirling, overpopulated, over-busy, throwing in every approach, every technique she had at it. She said she thought the French Revolution was the most interesting, most important event in history, and she couldn't find a book that gave her what she wanted to know about it, so she wrote one, god love her. In a later interview, she said that when she pulled the manuscript out after some years, she realized that the women characters were just ciphers compared to the men, so she spent another year or so rewriting them - and that might explain why there are long sections devoted to some pretty minor and not-too-interesting women (Lucile Desmoulins, I'm looking at you). I wanted more Marat (though Mantel has said she left him in the background because otherwise he'd have overshadowed everyone else...), and Charlotte Corday would have been a LOT more interesting than Annette Duplessis, and even Anne Theroigne can't hold a candle to Madame DeFarge. And yes, there are so many Antoines and Louises and toadies and lawyers and opportunists that it's nearly impossible to keep them straight... but then I think, in the chaos of the times, even THEY probably couldn't keep track of who was who and who was your ally or your enemy... that day.
Mantel brilliantly creates the personalities of the three main characters. Her depiction of Robespierre chimes beautifully with that described in Ruth Scurr's Fatal Purity; such a strange, suppressed, rather pathetic man who loved children and dogs and cats, but could barely relate to any other humans, and sincerely seemed to believe everything he ever said, with the best of intentions. Danton - a crude, shrewd force of nature, who on earth could ever play him in a movie but the horribly obnoxious and unsurpassable Gerard Depardieu? I confess, I found Camille Desmoulins such a tiresome jerk I was actually kind of glad when they chopped off his head, just to shut him up. I also rather wish Mantel had let us go to the scaffold with Max R, when we do know historically what a horrific, agonized end it was (in a Paris museum, I've seen the letter he wrote as he awaited the arrest, blotted with blood from his shattered face and jaw). I loved the brief passage from the vantage point of M. Sanson, the executioner, frustrated with the pace of work, wondering how he's going to pay for all those sacks and baskets, and while the new equipment is working out very well, he still has to get a guy in to sharpen the blades. These are the gems in Mantel's historical fiction - as she put it: we know when and where something happened, but we don't know everything about how it happened. She fills in the gaps.
Flawed, absolutely. Overstuffed, too long, scattershot in focus. But to produce such a work at an age when most aspiring writers are still laboring over cryptic, writers-workshop, autobiographical short stories is astonishing, and clearly demonstrates the incipient dazzling work she has gone on to create. Vive Madame Mantel!
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Public Safety might be an unfortunate choice...Anyway. Mantel was 22 when she started writing this book. Living in Botswana, after years of reading and research in the UK. Without the internet. How the heck she pulled that off, I will never know. But she did, and that alone is a breathtaking achievement. Huge, swirling, overpopulated, over-busy, throwing in every approach, every technique she had at it. She said she thought the French Revolution was the most interesting, most important event in history, and she couldn't find a book that gave her what she wanted to know about it, so she wrote one, god love her. In a later interview, she said that when she pulled the manuscript out after some years, she realized that the women characters were just ciphers compared to the men, so she spent another year or so rewriting them - and that might explain why there are long sections devoted to some pretty minor and not-too-interesting women (Lucile Desmoulins, I'm looking at you). I wanted more Marat (though Mantel has said she left him in the background because otherwise he'd have overshadowed everyone else...), and Charlotte Corday would have been a LOT more interesting than Annette Duplessis, and even Anne Theroigne can't hold a candle to Madame DeFarge. And yes, there are so many Antoines and Louises and toadies and lawyers and opportunists that it's nearly impossible to keep them straight... but then I think, in the chaos of the times, even THEY probably couldn't keep track of who was who and who was your ally or your enemy... that day.
Mantel brilliantly creates the personalities of the three main characters. Her depiction of Robespierre chimes beautifully with that described in Ruth Scurr's Fatal Purity; such a strange, suppressed, rather pathetic man who loved children and dogs and cats, but could barely relate to any other humans, and sincerely seemed to believe everything he ever said, with the best of intentions. Danton - a crude, shrewd force of nature, who on earth could ever play him in a movie but the horribly obnoxious and unsurpassable Gerard Depardieu? I confess, I found Camille Desmoulins such a tiresome jerk I was actually kind of glad when they chopped off his head, just to shut him up. I also rather wish Mantel had let us go to the scaffold with Max R, when we do know historically what a horrific, agonized end it was (in a Paris museum, I've seen the letter he wrote as he awaited the arrest, blotted with blood from his shattered face and jaw). I loved the brief passage from the vantage point of M. Sanson, the executioner, frustrated with the pace of work, wondering how he's going to pay for all those sacks and baskets, and while the new equipment is working out very well, he still has to get a guy in to sharpen the blades. These are the gems in Mantel's historical fiction - as she put it: we know when and where something happened, but we don't know everything about how it happened. She fills in the gaps.
Flawed, absolutely. Overstuffed, too long, scattershot in focus. But to produce such a work at an age when most aspiring writers are still laboring over cryptic, writers-workshop, autobiographical short stories is astonishing, and clearly demonstrates the incipient dazzling work she has gone on to create. Vive Madame Mantel!
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LibraryThing member kraaivrouw
I really loved Wolf Hall so I was excited to find and read this one. It's a great big wristbreaker of a book, but I don't mind that.
I had a weird progression with this book where I started thinking, "Man, this is really great, really well-written," and progressed to not wanting to pick it up and
I had a weird progression with this book where I started thinking, "Man, this is really great, really well-written," and progressed to not wanting to pick it up and
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picking up everything else, but it (never a good sign). In the end I gave myself permission to abandon it. Not every book is for everybody or for every time and this one just wasn't right for me right now. I may try reading it again in winter - and in paperback - the hardback is just punishing in its heft. Show Less
LibraryThing member libraryhermit
Hilary Mantel has written a very long book about the French Revolution including the Great Terror. One of the strongest portrayals in the book, besides the many personalities, is the feeling of the Revolutionaries of impending invasion by outside forces, and not being able to deal with the
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potential of civil war within their own ranks at the same time. In other words, if there was unity in the French, then they could feel secure in fighting the outside forces. Or, if there were no outside forces trying to invade the country, then they could more securely deal with the potential for civil war. But having both thrust upon them at exactly the same time is too much, and that is when out of panic they feel forced to start rounding up their opponents and chopping off their heads with the Guillotine. Show Less
LibraryThing member JaneSteen
Where I got the book: my local library. Spoilers but only if you never knew the French Revolution = wholesale death and that real characters who lived 200+ years ago may be a little on the deceased side by now anyway.
"Louise Robert says she would write a novel...but she fears that as a character in
Oh, Camille. What a character. And he's flanked by two more tours de force of the literary re-creation of history. Mantel takes the lives of Camille (it's impossible to call him by his surname, Desmoulins), Danton and Robespierre from early childhood right through a date with Mme. La Guillotine.
What a study in contrasts. Camille, Mr. Dark Radiance. Danton, brutal, ugly, massive and yet strangely sexy. Robespierre, aesthetic, stiff, nerveless and cold. And then the other character, the French Revolution: unstoppable history, heartbreaking because it had to happen that way.
Mantel give us the Revolution in conversations. Chunks of dialogue interlarded with here a quotation, there a fact, yonder a dramatic scene. But it's the conversations and the thoughts of the person through whose eyes we're seeing that drive the logic of the inexorable slide toward the Terror. In the Cromwell novels, Mantel funnels everything through Cromwell's POV; here, we're endlessly shifting, a habit I decry in many novels but Mantel pulls it off. She also gets away with switching tenses and generally leaving the reader to work out what's happening by herself. And she does this over 749 pages, which makes it a novel not for the fainthearted. Well worth the reading if you can manage it.
"Louise Robert says she would write a novel...but she fears that as a character in
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fiction Camille would not be believed. Indeed, I just had to look him up to make sure."Oh, Camille. What a character. And he's flanked by two more tours de force of the literary re-creation of history. Mantel takes the lives of Camille (it's impossible to call him by his surname, Desmoulins), Danton and Robespierre from early childhood right through a date with Mme. La Guillotine.
What a study in contrasts. Camille, Mr. Dark Radiance. Danton, brutal, ugly, massive and yet strangely sexy. Robespierre, aesthetic, stiff, nerveless and cold. And then the other character, the French Revolution: unstoppable history, heartbreaking because it had to happen that way.
Mantel give us the Revolution in conversations. Chunks of dialogue interlarded with here a quotation, there a fact, yonder a dramatic scene. But it's the conversations and the thoughts of the person through whose eyes we're seeing that drive the logic of the inexorable slide toward the Terror. In the Cromwell novels, Mantel funnels everything through Cromwell's POV; here, we're endlessly shifting, a habit I decry in many novels but Mantel pulls it off. She also gets away with switching tenses and generally leaving the reader to work out what's happening by herself. And she does this over 749 pages, which makes it a novel not for the fainthearted. Well worth the reading if you can manage it.
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LibraryThing member jdquinlan
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 StarsMs. Mantel has been in the press quite a bit lately thanks to the critical success of her latest, Wolf Hall. Almost every review I've read mentions the unusual writing style she uses, so when I received this book for Christmas, I was curious. Her style is different, though
The story focuses on three of the most recognizable and controversial participants of the Revolution, beginning with childhood and following each of them through education and early careers to the point where they come together to help shape the beginnings of the Revolution.
It took me a week to get around to writing my review for this novel because I needed some time to digest it and decide how I wanted to rate it. There's no question this is an extremely well-written book, meticulously researched and peppered with excerpts from newspapers, diaries and letters; full of zippy, witty dialogue and poetic narrative. The scope of the book is huge but the author does a great job of bringing it into focus. It was a slow read for me because it is a dense book, each page packed with words and each word not to be missed for fear of misunderstanding, but I really enjoyed it, though I was rather depressed afterwards. It left me feeling a bit resentful towards the population of France during the Revolution, and with a sense of mourning for humanity's loss.
It's not the type of book I could read over and over again.The French Revolution was far different from its American counterpart. The French people were not united against one common foe, but divided into violent factions, each opposing a different foe and always opposing each other. Add to that the fact that the rest of the European powers decided it was a great time to take advantage of a weakened France and invade and you've got a recipe for a time of terror and confusion, where virtually the entire ruling class was executed along with many of the brightest and most capable minds of the time, and where there was, in fact, no place of greater safety.
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not difficult as I had feared. She jumps around to different tenses and points of view; from omniscient to third to first, some scenes are in the present tense, some feature a character addressing the reader, some are written as screenplay with stage directions...it sounds like a big mess, but oddly enough, it works in this context and seems to enhance rather than detract from the story. To me, the style seemed to mirror and reinforce the frenetic, tumultuous and paranoid culture that was the French Revolution. The story focuses on three of the most recognizable and controversial participants of the Revolution, beginning with childhood and following each of them through education and early careers to the point where they come together to help shape the beginnings of the Revolution.
It took me a week to get around to writing my review for this novel because I needed some time to digest it and decide how I wanted to rate it. There's no question this is an extremely well-written book, meticulously researched and peppered with excerpts from newspapers, diaries and letters; full of zippy, witty dialogue and poetic narrative. The scope of the book is huge but the author does a great job of bringing it into focus. It was a slow read for me because it is a dense book, each page packed with words and each word not to be missed for fear of misunderstanding, but I really enjoyed it, though I was rather depressed afterwards. It left me feeling a bit resentful towards the population of France during the Revolution, and with a sense of mourning for humanity's loss.
It's not the type of book I could read over and over again.The French Revolution was far different from its American counterpart. The French people were not united against one common foe, but divided into violent factions, each opposing a different foe and always opposing each other. Add to that the fact that the rest of the European powers decided it was a great time to take advantage of a weakened France and invade and you've got a recipe for a time of terror and confusion, where virtually the entire ruling class was executed along with many of the brightest and most capable minds of the time, and where there was, in fact, no place of greater safety.
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LibraryThing member DauntlessGirl
A Place of Greater Safety is a devastating account of the French Revolution, told by a galaxy of voices, both in the words and thoughts Hilary Mantel puts into their mouths and minds, and in the words that they themselves left recorded for posterity, along with extracts from contemporary books and
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newspapers. The chief protagonists are the triumvirate at the heart of the Revolution - three ambitious young lawyers, Maximilien Robespierre, George-Jacques Danton and Camille Desmoulins whose involvement in revolutionary politics takes them to the height of power, but power, of course, corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. We see the Terror justified by the men who instigated it and the whole horror of a society where casual violence and state terror rule, and friendship finally counts for nothing. Mantel perfectly captures the fervour of this tumultuous time, and her vast supporting cast - particularly the women behind the revolutionaries - wives, mothers and lovers as well as those who took an active part in the debate and fought violently for their new society. We know the ending - the three will fall victim to their own revolution - but that does nothing to distill the power and the humanity of the writing Show Less
LibraryThing member Philotera
Being a big fan of Hilary Mantel, I read her first novel, years in the making, A Place of Greater Safety. Alas, I could not finish it.
First, it's about the French revolution. Not that the French didn't need a revolution, but it was whacked, as my son would say. And I cannot keep all those people
Second, I became bored. People talked and talked and talked and nothing happened. I'm sure, since this was the French revolution after all, a great deal did happen. It was happening too slowly to keep me interested. I had to keep going to the index of characters, which is about 15 pages long, to keep track of everyone, so I gave up. I'm sure it's a good book, but I couldn't do it. If I were fascinated by the French revolution, undoubtedly that would make a big difference.
First, it's about the French revolution. Not that the French didn't need a revolution, but it was whacked, as my son would say. And I cannot keep all those people
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straight. I'm sure that's my fault. Second, I became bored. People talked and talked and talked and nothing happened. I'm sure, since this was the French revolution after all, a great deal did happen. It was happening too slowly to keep me interested. I had to keep going to the index of characters, which is about 15 pages long, to keep track of everyone, so I gave up. I'm sure it's a good book, but I couldn't do it. If I were fascinated by the French revolution, undoubtedly that would make a big difference.
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LibraryThing member keywestnan
A wonderful, rich, dense (in a good way) novel about the French Revolution, focusing primarily on three prominent revolutionaries: Georges-Jacques Danton, Camille Desmoulins and Maximilien Robespierre. The book follows them from childhood through the beginnings of the Revolution, when all three
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were young lawyers -- Danton and Desmoulins in Paris, Robespierre in his home province. And while Robespierre is the most notorious in history, he is the least of three in this novel's focus. It was a bit of hard slogging at first, admittedly, because there were so many names, titles and allegiances to track -- but once those are familiar it so absorbing you won't want to stop. Even though you know it won't end well for these characters. Show Less
LibraryThing member bodachliath
An epic, detailed and lively tale of the French revolution - an assured and impressive debut novel, highly recommended to anyone who enjoyed the Cromwell novels.
LibraryThing member Suva
The task Mentel set herself when she began this work is in itself terrifying. An account of the lives of three main players in the revolution, from French provincial birth to Parisian death.
The resulting novel is, unavoidably, massive and takes in a cast so large that the book requires a list of
Mantel, like Dickens, is at her best when giving full reign to her omniscient narrator, eighteenth century existence is brought vividly to life and the interior thoughts of the characters are dealt with with a beautiful sense of empathy.
The dialogue I was less happy with. Most of the people featured in the book were great and intelligent individuals but much of the speech in the novel comes across as too polished and witty by half. These people were masters of oratory and self publication, but all the time?
Mantel sometimes gives us the dialogue set out as if it were a play text which is possibly an intentional way for the author to acknowledge this problem herself.
In setting out on such a work Mantel must have known she could not please everybody but I for one am glad she has. The book deserves to be better known and hopefully in light of her Booker success it will be.
The resulting novel is, unavoidably, massive and takes in a cast so large that the book requires a list of
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characters at its start. Its large cast reminded me of Dickens and Tolstoy and like those nineteenth century authors Mantel is one of the many writers who have tackled the French Revolution in literature and in this work she shows her flair for historical writing that also won her the Booker in 2009. Mantel, like Dickens, is at her best when giving full reign to her omniscient narrator, eighteenth century existence is brought vividly to life and the interior thoughts of the characters are dealt with with a beautiful sense of empathy.
The dialogue I was less happy with. Most of the people featured in the book were great and intelligent individuals but much of the speech in the novel comes across as too polished and witty by half. These people were masters of oratory and self publication, but all the time?
Mantel sometimes gives us the dialogue set out as if it were a play text which is possibly an intentional way for the author to acknowledge this problem herself.
In setting out on such a work Mantel must have known she could not please everybody but I for one am glad she has. The book deserves to be better known and hopefully in light of her Booker success it will be.
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LibraryThing member amf0001
Firstly, I know nothing about the French Revolution or the terror, so I got a lot of information about various important characters. However, there is a level of assumed knowledge here and lots of important things happen off camera - we barely see the King being killed or indeed much of what
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actually happens (there's a war? how's it going?) So that's where the book loses half a star. But we get so many nuances about the 3 main characters, that we remain entranced. I learnt about Camille and Robespierre and Danton and their long complex history. And it's a fascinating study of intentions and outcomes, what did these men want, what did they create, what did they get (well, even I knew what they got, but did they 'deserve' it? Could we have predicted it?) I loved the book and it will start me reading more about the French Revolution Show Less
LibraryThing member PollyMoore3
Incredible atmosphere. It's like being there.
LibraryThing member BrianHostad
An interesting book which gets better as it goes, with a great finalé (if you don't know already what happens to the key protagonists).
The book is good despite the style, where different styles of narrative are tried, to no discernable pattern or benefit, except to irritate the reader. In the
Of the 3 main characters, Mantel does a great job with Danton and Demoullins, but Robbespierre still remained an enigma to me (and Danton and Demoullins!!) at the end (which I think comes to early in that it doesn't deal with his downfall). In some ways I think Mantel writes best about the female characters, who are more clearly drawn and understandable.
All in all, well worth a read and a great insight into the French Revolution.
The book is good despite the style, where different styles of narrative are tried, to no discernable pattern or benefit, except to irritate the reader. In the
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addition the great number of characters causes problems and the index in the front is essential in helping to keep track of people. Despite this I would encourage anyone to percervere, as it's it's worth it in the end.Of the 3 main characters, Mantel does a great job with Danton and Demoullins, but Robbespierre still remained an enigma to me (and Danton and Demoullins!!) at the end (which I think comes to early in that it doesn't deal with his downfall). In some ways I think Mantel writes best about the female characters, who are more clearly drawn and understandable.
All in all, well worth a read and a great insight into the French Revolution.
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LibraryThing member john257hopper
This novel is very long (870 pages), but highly readable and I got through it in a week and a half. It is immensely interesting and dramatic though also rather depressing, as the original high ideals of the Revolution in 89 and 90 disappear in a torrent of blood, especially after the prison
Being so long, the novel gives a good impression of the different stages in the evolution of the Revolution, from the early more enlightened phases to the climax of the reign of terror. It is sometimes forgotten that France remained a monarchy for three years after the fall of the Bastille. Perhaps the Revolution could have taken a more liberal, democratic course if early events had turned out differently.
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massacre of September 92 and when the reign of terror begins in summer 93. Danton is the strongest and most sympathetic of the main characters and emerges as a colourful, three dimensional persona, occasionally ruthless but essentially very human. Desmoulins is the most irritating of the main characters. Robespierre is the most complex. Until the reign of terror, he is the most liberal character, being opposed to the death penalty and in favour of freedom of speech. But he descends into a cold blooded tunnel vision where his perception of the needs of the Revolution outweighs all human considerations. The appalling Saint Just is the epitome of coldbloodedness throughout. The final trial of Danton makes for morbidly engrossing yet also depressing reading as the last pretences of justice are cynically removed. The fall of Robespierre is not covered.Being so long, the novel gives a good impression of the different stages in the evolution of the Revolution, from the early more enlightened phases to the climax of the reign of terror. It is sometimes forgotten that France remained a monarchy for three years after the fall of the Bastille. Perhaps the Revolution could have taken a more liberal, democratic course if early events had turned out differently.
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LibraryThing member passion4reading
Written in 1992 before she was a household name, this exploration of the background to and immediate aftermath of the French Revolution focuses mainly on its three most prominent and famous participants: Maximilien Robespierre, Georges-Jacques Danton and Camille Desmoulins. It follows them from
Having read a lot of favourable reviews and not knowing a great deal about this period in French history apart from what I learnt at school, I was keen to get to grips with the book myself. It is important to remember that this is a fictionalised retelling of the real events, based on surviving accounts, and not a straightforward biography of the main characters, even if it appears so through large sections of the book. As such, it is not entirely successful: at 872 pages, it is far too long and wordy, I kept losing track of the changing names of the various committees and who occupied which position in it as well as the multitude of individuals despite a cast list in the prelims of the novel. With constantly changing allegiances, I found it difficult to follow which faction some of the minor characters belonged to at any given point in time. It is written in a real hotchpotch of styles, mostly in third person singular (with occasional confusion as to who is speaking when it comes to dialogue), but also in first person plural (who is that supposed to be?), both in past and present tense, so that the novel appears as part biography, autobiography and stage play; this detracts from the already rather complicated goings-on in my opinion. Characters discuss philosophical truths for pages at a time and, while interesting and enlightening on the whole, the momentum and narrative tension evaporate and get lost; in my opinion it is wrong that a book about the French Revolution should drag so much in places. Where Hilary Mantel succeeds unreservedly is the evocation of end of 18th-century France and Paris and Versailles in particular, and the portrayal of the characters that play a part in the Revolution. She manages to raise them from the printed page and transform them from being mere historical figures into human beings, with all their likes and dislikes, weaknesses and neuroses. She describes the terror, violence and arbitrary executions with an almost clinical detachment, reflecting the main participants' actions during the Reign of Terror; consumed by personal enmities, everyone takes the law into their own hands and justifies the arrest and execution of individuals with a different opinion than their own as being for the safety of the nation. The mob scenes are pretty scary, but even more terrifying is the ruthless efficiency of the various committees, a well-organised killing machine that makes a travesty of the law and delights in its own bureaucracy. Here the famous adage "The Revolution devours its own children" really brings home the state of fear and terror that must have prevailed in France at that time, especially in Paris. Having spent an entire part of the book on the three main characters' childhoods and upbringings, I felt the end note, which deals with Robespierre and St Just's downfall, unaccountably rushed; the reader is left with no explanation as to what had happened to change their fortunes as they had managed to dispose of their opponents and their stars were still in the ascendant when the novel ends. Hilary Mantel's prose is atmospheric and descriptive and she has a lovely turn of phrase at times, yet on the whole I feel rather reluctant to pick up her Man Booker Prize-winning Wolf Hall, another brick of a novel with nearly 700 pages, on the basis of this book.
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early childhood through to their very different upbringings and their school and college days until their paths meet in pre-revolutionary Paris, through the turbulent days of the storming of the Bastille, the king`s execution and the so-called Reign of Terror that followed the abolition of the monarchy.Having read a lot of favourable reviews and not knowing a great deal about this period in French history apart from what I learnt at school, I was keen to get to grips with the book myself. It is important to remember that this is a fictionalised retelling of the real events, based on surviving accounts, and not a straightforward biography of the main characters, even if it appears so through large sections of the book. As such, it is not entirely successful: at 872 pages, it is far too long and wordy, I kept losing track of the changing names of the various committees and who occupied which position in it as well as the multitude of individuals despite a cast list in the prelims of the novel. With constantly changing allegiances, I found it difficult to follow which faction some of the minor characters belonged to at any given point in time. It is written in a real hotchpotch of styles, mostly in third person singular (with occasional confusion as to who is speaking when it comes to dialogue), but also in first person plural (who is that supposed to be?), both in past and present tense, so that the novel appears as part biography, autobiography and stage play; this detracts from the already rather complicated goings-on in my opinion. Characters discuss philosophical truths for pages at a time and, while interesting and enlightening on the whole, the momentum and narrative tension evaporate and get lost; in my opinion it is wrong that a book about the French Revolution should drag so much in places. Where Hilary Mantel succeeds unreservedly is the evocation of end of 18th-century France and Paris and Versailles in particular, and the portrayal of the characters that play a part in the Revolution. She manages to raise them from the printed page and transform them from being mere historical figures into human beings, with all their likes and dislikes, weaknesses and neuroses. She describes the terror, violence and arbitrary executions with an almost clinical detachment, reflecting the main participants' actions during the Reign of Terror; consumed by personal enmities, everyone takes the law into their own hands and justifies the arrest and execution of individuals with a different opinion than their own as being for the safety of the nation. The mob scenes are pretty scary, but even more terrifying is the ruthless efficiency of the various committees, a well-organised killing machine that makes a travesty of the law and delights in its own bureaucracy. Here the famous adage "The Revolution devours its own children" really brings home the state of fear and terror that must have prevailed in France at that time, especially in Paris. Having spent an entire part of the book on the three main characters' childhoods and upbringings, I felt the end note, which deals with Robespierre and St Just's downfall, unaccountably rushed; the reader is left with no explanation as to what had happened to change their fortunes as they had managed to dispose of their opponents and their stars were still in the ascendant when the novel ends. Hilary Mantel's prose is atmospheric and descriptive and she has a lovely turn of phrase at times, yet on the whole I feel rather reluctant to pick up her Man Booker Prize-winning Wolf Hall, another brick of a novel with nearly 700 pages, on the basis of this book.
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LibraryThing member PennyAnne
This is the story of Camille Desmoulins, Georges-Jacques Danton and Maximilien Robespierre and their role in the French Revolution. A hugely interesting book, I also found it confusing because of my limited knowledge of that period of History. The changing allegiances, the Committees, the meetings,
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the drama - it was hard to keep track of everything that was happening. But despite that this is an amazing work of fiction - the author is in command of her subject and of herself as a writer - every word is carefully chosen and every word has an affect on the reader - we share the joy and pain of the characters and move beside them on their journey from idealistic revolutionaries to their bitter end at the guillotine. Show Less
LibraryThing member melissarochelle
This book is a huge undertaking (and not at all a good poolside read). I like historical fiction, but this is FOR REAL historical fiction. At times, I had to stop reading and Google what was happening so that I could keep up. During the two weeks it took me to read (which is VERY unusual), I also
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took breaks and read lighter books because the French Revolution is definitely HEAVY. The many different POVs were also daunting. Overall, it's a very interesting book...but it doesn't make me want to read Wolf Hall anytime soon. Show Less
LibraryThing member ntgntg
10/26/2014 9:24 AM Atul Gawande, said Hilary Mantel is his favorite contemporary writer. I thought about Wolf Hall, but the French Revolution resonates more with me. Interestingly, no copies are available from OCPL.
Language
Original language
English
ISBN
9780007250554
Physical description
880 p.; 5.08 inches
Pages
880