See, not everything you find on google searches featuring Maxime are bad...

[montagnarde1793]

...Some of them are just amusing/bemusing. Try this one, for example. They really seem to have picked the wrong kind of tart, don't they? Or take the logo of the École Robespierre in Nanterre. I'm not yet sure whether that qualifies as cute or creepy looking. Either way though, it's good that he at least has this little elementary school named after him.

As for me, things are not going well. I was going to have an audition today, but I have yet another cold, once again precluding my taking voice lessons with a professor. And I feel sure I would have done well in this audition. I'm half being to think there's some kind of conspiracy going on to stop me from singing. In other news, I've dropped Roman History in favor of Calculus. I kind of regret not giving the class more of a chance, if only to see to what extent I may have been exaggerating the professor's tendencies to myself (see previous post). But, alas, Calculus meets at the same time. So much for that.

Comments

[sibylla-oo.livejournal.com]

I have been thinking of a public television, with a relatively independent funding and some enlightened people working there. I suppose LTeLV was also made this way, wasn't it? However, if the BBC has degenerated to what we have seen recently, I don't think there is much hope.
As for the plays: it's as risky as the movies, I am afraid. The directors deal with the texts very arbitrarily and after all, they are children of these awful times, too. And it can be quite a traumatic experience, too, as far as I have heard, in the latest Przybyszewska's staging, there are guillotined talking-heads of Robespierre and Saint-Just and some hard rock music. WTF. I'd be scared to go to the theater. I appreciate my mental health too much.

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

That *is* how LTeLV was made, but how likely do you think something like that would be these days?
It doesn't take nearly as much money to stage a play as it does to make a movie. The mentality of people in theatre (like people in general) these days is a stickier problem.

[sibylla-oo.livejournal.com]

Yes, so again, thre are only the books left...
But yes, if there were more easy to stage plays, that'd be a possibility. But I am afraid the appreciation of this kind of political historical drama almost died out, at least among the theater people.

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

Though, if you think about it, it's a bit surprising that books have held out, considering the way the publishing industry works. :/
I've noticed that. It seems that their only criterion these days (aside from making enough money to keep afloat) is to be "original" which generally means more outlandish than profound.

[sibylla-oo.livejournal.com]

But have they really held out, or are we still reading the good old things written long time ago? Anyway, if I compare the new stuff on the Revolution with the one written in 1820-1960, it's so fucking un-political. For example Mantel, though she's well-informed (which makes her "crimes" even worse, of course), it's all personal again. I am so sick of this. Have you had time to read the book on Rousseau by Feuchtwanger (I sent you a link)? That's what I'd like to read, it's so political even in the very personal plots, while Mantel is just the opposite: so personal even in the political plots.
Oh yes, the originality kills us, it is nonsense and it turns to a deliberate meaningless extravagance. Here there is an additional obsession: sex and gender relations. 80% of the plays staged now in my city deal with that. I am SOOOOOO bored.

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

I really meant books in general and not just plays and novels, but even so, I don't see how things have changed much in general--English novels on the Revolution have been almost uniformly awful since the 19th century. Marge Piercy's City of Darkness, City of Light is a notable exception to this, in that while the personal is definitely present, it's definitely the political that is most important. And as far as French books go, there have been several good ones in the past several years. Paule Becquaert's are all about politics, especially her play, of which I gave a bit of a "review" here.
And I haven't gotten around to reading the Feuchwanger yet, but I definitely will.

It's funny how they don't seem to realize that being "original" in the same way people have been "original" for the past 50 years or more means no longer being truly original. (It's the same with music and the fine arts too.)

[sibylla-oo.livejournal.com]

Would you be so kind and link me to your review of Paule Beckquaert and recommend me the other fiction books you mention?
Oh, of course there are plenty of good non-fiction books. I thought we were just talking about fiction. The academic publishing still maintains certain autonomy, though it is clear some interpretations are privileged and other are marginalized.
I sort of feel that originality is not what I am looking for. It's not a value per se for me anymore.

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

There's no need; just click on the tag that says "p. becquaert". That should go right to it. Though it's not exactly a review, just some miscellaneous thoughts on the work. I would also recommend, from what I've read of them so far (I haven't quite finished the first book yet), her series Troubles, which begins with Les naufragés de thermidor. Off the top of my head Marianne Becker's unfinished series on Robespierre is also quite good, very meticulous. There are others, but I can't think of them at the moment (and I'm going to be late for class in another minute).

It's true that the best books are hardly ever what the public reads, due to lack of distribution and advertisement (and the resulting high costs of academic books as well), but at least they get published. Whereas decent movies don't even get produced in the first place.

I couldn't agree more. That was meant as an internal critique. Forget my standards: they've failed by their own.

[sibylla-oo.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I have read what you have written on The Secret Judgement. It seems interesting, though I have quite a different vision of the Romans, in my opinion they were success lovers...anyway. It made me think about what aI read once at royet.org about Robespierre in the Japanese comics (the "masculine" version). How the authors don't seem to have any problem with his politics, how they see him as a responsible magistrate who, from his position, is obliged to make difficult decisions. I think we'd be surprised how very different judgements could be made from different historical and cultural perspective. I don't know anything about the world of the Japanese comics, so I am only repeating what I have read.

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

Hm, do you mean you have a different vision of the Romans than mine, or than Becquaert's? Because I think now my problem with their judgment is that I don't think they would condemn Robespierre by the criteria they give in the play, because now I think that by Roman standards (which at heart are really different from the overt motivations in the play) they would have condemned him.
...The issue is, the Romans probably would have been fine with those of his actions modern people find most questionable and condemned him for what we would see as his most laudable qualities.

That's really quite interesting. I guess the légende noire hasn't quite made it to Japan then...? Because I can't imagine that they could portray him as the Bloodthirsty Dictator of the propaganda we have to deal with over here and still view him that way.

[sibylla-oo.livejournal.com]

Exactly, I couldn't have written it better. I didn't mean your review, I meant Becquaert's vision of Romans. I don't think they'd be bothered by some of the things she supposes they would be. And that they would not see him as a hypocrit in the things related to the Virtue and to the Republic. Why should they? I think what would have bothered them would be his lack of action in the last months of his life, not the Terror.
As for the Japanese, it seems to me that the Bloodthirsty dictator porpaganda does not work so well with them. It seems they are rather assimilating him to the traditional figures of Japanese magistrates: serious, powerful, learned men who were supposed to bear the responsibility of making difficult, even harsh decisions for the benefit of the whole. And their culture still values less the hedonism, and appreciates more the austerity and the incorrutibility of the magistrates, at least in theory.

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

See, this is what leads me to believe that we're perhaps supposed to infer that the action of the play is all going on in Robespierre's head. Because the vision of the Romans given, while it doesn't seem to have a lot in common with our conception of them, does seem pretty close to general views of them in the 18th century.
But in any case, that's exactly what I mean: the Romans probably wouldn't like him much, but not for the reasons that would seem most obvious to us.
You may have a point there. I don't really know much about Japanese culture, but it would be nice if we could import the part about appreciating austerity and incorruptibility.

[sibylla-oo.livejournal.com]

I cannot find much info on Becker's books, but THE AUTHOR IS AN ASTROPHYSICIST. That sounds cool! I like left-wing history-loving "hard" scientists, both in RL and as public persons.

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

She's also the founder of l'AMRID. The books are very good, very political, and have lots of historical detail. They're supposed to chronicle Robespierre's whole life, but as of now, there are only three books and the third only goes to the end of the Constituent Assembly.
...And it's pretty awesome that she's an astrophysicist too. XD

[sibylla-oo.livejournal.com]

I think my only chance to read her books would be buying them online or in France. I can have them brought by our library, but then I can't take them home :-(

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

That's a pity. I got mine in France--they were selling them at the Conciergerie. You should try to find them when you can, but there's no rush; I don't imagine they're going anywhere.

[sibylla-oo.livejournal.com]

Hahaha! The only thing I am afraid of is that they might be removed from the Conciergerie to make even more space for books on Marie-Antoinette. I was quite disgusted when I was there a year ago.

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

The amount of stuff they had there as of a little more than a year ago on the monarchy in general and on Antoinette in particular was revolting, but I will grant them this: they also had quite a few good Revolutionary things. Becker's books for one, but also LTeLV, a book of Revolutionary songs, etc.