Doonesbury and Marat

This article picks up where the discussion on Go Comics and other sites left off: with an informed linkage to the revolutionary original.

Trudeau’s cartoon strip memorializes his hero just as David did with his 1793 portrait. Subtle differences reveal a less glorious message however: where David put an enigmatic smile on Marat’s death mask to reveal his serenity and wisdom, Trudeau’s hero Razil is portrayed with the gaping stupor of an idiot. Like Razil, Marat wrote quickly, did little research to back up his views, and subsequently few if any of his writings are worthy of reading today. The only reason Marat lives on is David’s masterful portrait and its mysterious aura. Razil will not fare so well; the dopey expression Trudeau inscribed on his face says it all.

The French aristocracy today, according to Anna Gavalda and Albin de la Simone. Facile satire or signs of an authentic paradigm-shift?

Albin de la Simone, “Mes épaules”

Two popular artists are dealing an interesting curve-ball to the hidebound prestige of the French aristocracy today, although the ultimate meaning of their works remains ambiguous…

1. Anna Gavalda

Q: Where can you find a living, breathing counter-Revolutionary from the Vendée today?
A: In Anna Gavalda’s novel, Ensemble, c’est tout.
His name is Philbert Jehan Louis-Marie Georges Marquet de la Durbellière ; he was born in 1967 in La Roche-sur-Yon, and as a child, he fought off bullies by swinging a satchel armed with a Latin dictionary.

Gavalda must have had a good time inventing his quaint speech patterns for this book! When he finally gets over his stuttering enough to introduce himself to the down-on-her-luck heroine, he explains: “Vous avez devant les yeux un magnifique exemplaire d’Homo Dégénéraris, c’est-à-dire un être totalement inapte à la vie en société, décalé, saugrenu et parfaitement anachronique!” (163). It is thanks to his family’s cavernous apartment on avenue Émile Deschanel (one of the capital’s most prestigious addresses, bordering the Champs de Mars, Paris 7e), that the group of oddballs joins forces in this delightful saga of three misfits who find each other and, against all the odds, form a lasting, loving, “recomposed family.”

Philibert is a caricature of hilariously outmoded habits. When the trio writes up a list of rules for the household, he pulls out a signet and stick of wax, and seals the document with his family’s arms. He is hopelessly incapable of battling it out in the rough-and-tumble capitalism of the twenty-first century, and makes a paltry living by selling postcards of Paris monuments on the street. The history lessons he conducts on their road trips are peppered with deadpan asides on his family’s ties to the French throne (Marguerite de Valois being one of his mom’s cousins). The rest of the Marquet de la Durbellière clan is equally ridiculous; the dead fauna hanging on their walls brings images of The Adams Family to mind, but it is a cold, dusty kind of Gothic here without a touch of humor or gore. Their outdated speech habits (le vouvoiement oblige) and austere home life underline the aristocracy’s inability to evolve, as does their soul-less Catholicism. (The Easter blessing of “Bénissez-nous Seigneur… et bla bla bla” being symptomatic! 545) The author stresses their impervious blindness to economic realities at a boorish banquet at which the marquis and his wife lord it over their son’s friends while serving tasteless canned peas on dishes of priceless china, accompanied by elegant crystal glasses of cheap wine. Baffled by the presence of these lowbrow strangers, the marquise trills, “Comme c’est pittoresque” (541), as if her son was indulging in a bit of Belle époque encanaillement (hobnobbing with the rabble).

The weekend would have been ruined, if Franck (the foul-mouthed, talented cook who is Philou’s best friend from Paris) hadn’t taken charge of the kitchen and whipped up a fabulous Easter dinner, inciting the marquis to share some exquisite bottles of his uncle’s wine, and to get a little drunk and tell funny old stories of his hunting days. On the return trip to Paris, Philou suddenly recalls the reason why he had wanted to visit home: his engagement to a girl from the working-class neighborhood of Belleville, and which he forgot to mention. Significantly, they do not turn the car around. Nor do any members of the Marquet de la Durbellière tribe attend the sweet nuptials, celebrated in the Town Hall of the 20th arrondissement.

2. Albin de la Simone
A similar melancholy about the emptiness of the aristocracy haunts a song that is popular among French youth today, by Albin de la Simone, “Mes épaules.” Ostensibly a love ballad by a young father to his wife and baby, where anxiety over the role of breadwinner is symbolized by his skinny shoulders (“pas bien baraquées,” he swoons), the song also belies the singer’s unease with his particule-laden family name. “Le poids de mon nom ridicule / De ce fantôme à particule / Qui avance quand je recule,” the song goes. Typifying a particularly French strain of wimpy male singers whose penchant for self-pity surprises American audiences (remember Alain Souchon’s hit “Allô Papa Maman”?!), Albin de la Simone is nevertheless a favorite among young Frenchmen today, according to reliable sources in Paris. What is interesting is how he combines his worries over fatherhood with his sense of embarrassment over his aristocratic name.

Could it be that France is finally breaking free from the class-bound system of the past? Is Bourdieu’s paradigm in Distinction really due for a tune-up?

Or are these recent phenomena merely a pose, like the long tradition of rueful yet self-congratulatory writers who make up the French canon?

Update on ‘Babette’s Feast’: A Parable of French Politics and Cookery from the Age of Revolutions

As an epicurian (married to a chef-de-cuisine, how could I not be in love with food?) “Babette’s Feast” continues to haunt my thoughts. And now, with some recent discoveries, I am more convinced than ever of its debt to revolution. And the need for a remake!
A few thoughts on my discoveries, to intrigue you:

- On the feisty spirit that emerges in Danish!
Thanks to the great book by Frantz Leander Hansen, The Aristocratic Universe of Karen Blixen (2003), nowadays a more bracing and sober accounting is available to English-language readers. Hansen proves that Dinesen, in rewriting the tale for Danish audiences, reinforced the revolutionary tone and threatening aspect of her heroine. Fantastic linguistic analysis! Thanks FLH!*

- On “Babette’s” Sympathy to La Commune and its Ideals
The 2003 translation of the 1891 history of La Commune by Isak Dinesen’s father, Wilhelm Dinesen Paris sous la Commune, Translated from the Danish by Denise Bernard-Folliot, provides the historical subtext that was hugely important to Dinesen: a fact that has been ignored by most readers. WD was very sympathetic to the ideals of La Commune, and this book should be a “must” for anyone seeking a thoughtful eye-witness account of the terrible events. Thanks DBF!

- Third, tucked in the stacks of Hesburgh Library at ND, I found a copy of the 1952 Danish translation by Jørgen Claudi with the fabulous cover illustration featured here. This rendition makes a startling contrast with the tasteful and cleaned-up rendition presented by Gabriel Axel, no?

In my work-in-progress, these elements are juxtaposed to the film and show how much stronger and more menacing the heroine is in the original text (especially in Dinesen’s Danish version). Dinesen’s character does not forget the past or the utopian hopes she once harbored for La Commune. Rather she transforms them into the ultimate beau geste of a consummate artist and an unrepentant radical. For the last supper of Babette’s Feast is not a liturgical rewriting of silent sacrifice but rather a sadly misunderstood celebration of a lost era. However no one realizes it except Babette. (And her new readers today!)

Hope you enjoyed this little taste of work-in-progress. More to come… jd
(updated 3/15/13)

* Thanks are also due to Lise Kure-Jensen who notes that one of the interesting challenges of studying the work of Isak Dinesen is that, after writing her stories in English, she translated many of them back into Danish (her native tongue) and made significant changes along the way. Most notably, she made the Danish translation of “Babette” WILDER! See LKJ, “Isak Dinesen in English, Danish, and Translation: Are We Reading the Same Text?” in Isak Dinesen: Critical Views, ed. Olga Anastasia Pelensky (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1993), pp. 314-321.

Marie-Antoinette action figure and Call for other objets d’art of revolutionary culture

In honor of a fascinating art exhibit opening soon at the Musée de la Révolution française (see below), I would like to share my personal favorite French Revolution toy: the Marie-Antoinette action figure! First found in the Archie McPhee store in Seattle, this edifying little objet d’art is now available via multiple vendors on the internet. An authentic version should feature: 1) the ejectable head with its detachable wig; 2) the two costumes of the queen: regal robes and a fetching peasant outfit.

My friends, students, and family have so enjoyed playing with our Marie-Antoinette that her plastic head socket has gotten a bit out of joint. Thus my question: how, oh how, will I ever get the queen’s head back on her shoulders?!

An announcement : The volume, Les Mythologies révolutionnaires : la Révolution française dans les cultures et imaginaires populaires aujourd’hui, ed. Martial Poirson, is forthcoming, Éditions Garnier !
A query: An exhibit will be hosted at the Musée de la Révolution française in 2013-14 on the topic of « Popular Culture and the French Revolution Today, » organized by Martial Poirson and Museum Director Alain Chevalier (from June 2013 to April 2014). The organizers seek suggestions of objects from popular culture to include in the gallery, for example, novels or popular fiction, school books, images, caricatures, photographs, and any kinds of objects or accessories dating from the last 20 years. Do you have any suggestions on “Musts” of the French Revolution? If so, let us know (we would love to share your findings with the readers of this site) and/or write directly to Martial Poirson.

Version française
Une annonce : Le volume, Les Mythologies révolutionnaires : la Révolution française dans les cultures et imaginaires populaires aujourd’hui sous la direction de Martial Poirson est désormais à paraître aux éditions Garnier !
Une question, un appel aux contributions : Il y aura une exposition au Musée de la Révolution française sous la direction de Martial Poirson et Alain Chevalier, consacrée à “Cultures populaires et Révolution française aujourd’hui”, qui se tiendra à Vizille de juin 2013 à avril 2014. Dans un tel cadre, les organisateurs sont à la recherche de romans populaires, manuels scolaires (moins pour la qualité du récit ou de l’analyse que pour l’objet livre ou de la culture graphique), images, caricatures, photos, objets, accessoires, produits dérivés (des vingt dernières années uniquement), qu’ils pourraient exposer dans différentes vitrines et sur les murs.
Auriez-vous des suggestions “incontournables” ? Faites-nous savoir (nous aimerions bien l’afficher ici pour les lecteurs de « A Revolution in Fiction ») et/ou contactez Martial Poirson.

Perles du bac: La Révolution française

C’est trop bien. Vers 8.39 vous avez une jeune qui explique tout ce qu’il faut savoir: d’abord les Français prennent la Bastille, et puis cela se termine par les feux d’artifice (et le bal des pompiers).
Le 14 juillet quoi.

Insider’s guide to “The Frankenstein of 1790 and other Lost Chapters from Revolutionary France”

Dear Readers,
I am delighted to announce the publication of The Frankenstein of 1790 and other Lost Chapters from Revolutionary France. I wrote this book in the hope of making some of the greatest stories every told come back to life. But I am also a scholar deeply engrossed in the political history of revolutionary France, so it may be a bit detailed for general reading. Hence this little tip:
If you want to jump forward to parts that were the most fun to write, skip to the Codas.
1. Chap. One’s Coda reveals L. Frank Baum’s ties to 19th-c feminism, and highlights the links between the Versailles marchers of 1789, the fish-selling poissardes, and Baum’s plain-spoken character, Our Landlady, who famously declared: “it’s the conceit o’men as is the biggest stumblin’block ter universal sufferin’ o’women!”
2. Chap. Two shows how Shelley’s Frankenstein can be understood as a mechanical invention rooted in 18th-century automaton tales and the Mechanical Theaters of London and Paris.
3. Chap. Three unearths parallels between the lowly rooming-house boarder Old Goriot and King Louis XVI in his powerless (and clueless) last years.
4. Chap. Four argues that Robespierre’s biographers made him into the first truly “modern” villain, and shows why high school teachers are quite right to teach Dickens’s Tale of Two Cities, before ending with the dark humor of Flaubert’s Dictionary of Received Ideas.
5. The Conclusion brings the Revolution up to date with a glance at a notorious film, a couple advertising campaigns, and some food for thought from the Arab Spring.
p.s. There are also lots of pictures.
Happy Reading!
–Julia D.

Breaking News in Revolutionary Art: Johann Rousselot’s “Freedom Fighter” series

The most exciting art from the revolutionary scene this fall comes to us from Johann Rousselot, the Paris-based photographer who is already known to readers of A Revolution in Fiction thanks to his fabulous work on India in the DIGNITY exhibit (Amnesty International) which opened this spring in the USA (see “Teach This!” posting no. 10). We at Notre Dame were proud to welcome him to campus in February, and to feature his work in the DIGNITY exhibit, soon to launch its tour of the USA.

Now showing in Perpignan, Rousselot’s new work called “Freedom Fighters” draws on photographs he took on site in Egypt, Morocco, Syria, Libya, and Tunisia, and which mix formal portraits with a variety of text (graffiti, Facebook), and montage techniques. They are all gripping, gorgeous, and powerfully wrought; check out his site!

To appreciate the continuity with the art of the 1790s, consider Rousselot’s portrait of Mouad Belghouat (alias L7A9D; El Haked – The Outraged) alongside the “Mysterious Urn” (ca. 179-99) (featured in our posting of May 13, 2009).
Rousselot’s caption explains that Mr. Belghouat, an engaged rap singer, was imprisoned for political reasons from September 09th, 2011 to January 12th, 2012. He quickly became an icon of the protests nationwide organized by the M20 – Movement of the 20th of February (2011). Seen among the royals on this wall, his portrait forms an ironic riff on celebrity-mongering or act of lèse-majesté. But if one day the caption disappears, his portrait may confound viewers seeking a straightforward political message. They may well wonder which side it supports, just like the enigmatic mixture of monarchical and republican iconography in the “Urn.”

As Rousselot explains, the M20 – Movement of the 20th of February –set up many protests in the main cities of the kingdom, and called for a boycott of the legislative poll of November 25th, 2011 where the king Mohamed VI attempted to calm down the Moroccan street and avoid any propagation of the Arab spring. “Graphic inspiration for this series came from the ubiquitous presence of the framed picture of King Mohamed VI in virtually every shop, hotel, train station, and administrative buildings of course. I decided to replace his image with those of the militants, like a lese-majesty crime.”

Bravo to Johann Rousselot for this brave and beautiful testimonial to the revolutionary spirit!

Aux armes et cætera: Thoughts on August 10 and violence

The massacre of August 10, 1792 has been celebrated as the effective end of the Bourbon monarchy. This year, on the 220th anniversary of the event, I would like to suggest that we lay off the bellicose rhetoric and state the obvious: violence is sickening, then as now.
This was driven home to me by the work I’ve been doing over the last three weeks with high school kids from my home town, South Bend, Indiana, in the Upward Bound program. I have been startled to learn how much violence has already devastated their young lives. In the stories they’ve written and the altered books they’ve created for our class, the memory of loved ones being shot, in execution-style murders or drive-by machine-gun fire, is appallingly real.
So I propose we “commemorate” August 10th this year with a song more suited to the reality of senseless killing: Serge Gainsbourg’s Aux armes et caetera. This song joins a joyful reggae beat to the harsh lyrics of La Marseillaise to evoke the sobering truth that weapons—-like patriotic rhetoric—-can and often do kill.

The Raw and the Cooked, Or Why Politics Matters in ‘Babette’s Feast’

Despite its popularity as a “food film” and icon of the Slow Food movement, one must admit that Babette’s Feast (directed by Axel Gabriel, 1986) disappoints. In its saccharine treatment of the relations between Babette and her employers, Gabriel’s film fails to honor the spirit of Isak Dinesen’s original, published in the Ladies’ Home Journal in 1950 and subsequently reprinted in Dinesen’s final collection, Anecdotes of Destiny (1958). Why does this matter? Because in softening the edges of Babette’s character, the film ignores her political force and transformative potential—a force all the more urgent for the 2010s, when women from Sana’a to Seattle have been mobilizing for political change with astonishing energy and hope. “Babette” deserves better.

I believe Babette’s story is more interesting as a parable of specifically French politics than as a “food film,” and that it is indebted to two icons of French womanhood whose identities are deeply invested in food, fire, and revolution. In Dinesen’s heroine we can hear distant echoes of both the poissarde–the fishmonger or market woman of the French Revolution—and the pétroleuse or fire-starter of the Commune. “Babette’s Feast” allows the lineage from the poissarde to the pétroleuse to come into focus because its heroine is not only a cook she is also a former pétroleuse. And even if the politics of her past were muted by the film-maker in 1986, the relationship between food, fire and revolution is too potent a mix to ignore today.

The film’s shortcoming is unsurprising when one realizes how apolitical most interpretations of Isak Dinesen’s work and her heroine have been. In order to bring this lost subtext back into light, I am developing a short work that follows three moves: first, a quick glance at two moments in French political history will reveal the cultural work done by the poissarde and the pétroleuse in the revolutionary eras of 1789-94 and 1871. Second, textual analysis of culinary allusions and narrative asides in “Babette’s Feast” will demonstrate how Dinesen’s heroine incarnates both the pride of a culinary genius and the pétroleuse’s menace to society. Finally, a comparison of the story’s finale will show how the book’s heroine—unlike her avatar on the screen—transforms radicalism into a different kind of rigor, a more life-giving and artistic ambition than film-goers can see. In her portrayal of an appealing working–class woman who is both an unrepentant revolutionary and an authentic artist, Dinesen’s tale reveals a stronger affirmation of human potential than has yet been realized.

Any film-makers out there? Time for a remake, a truly revolutionary rendition of “Babette’s Feast.” Stay tuned for the fiery details…

Arab Protesters in the American Classroom: Notes on a Failure worth Repeating

Have you seen the Time magazine cover story by Kurt Andersen today? How great that “The Protester” was named Person of the Year for 2011! And how great that an Arab woman is the featured icon! Yet, as much as I applaud the thousands of people who swept through Tahrir Square in January and who continue to help move the revolution into permanent democratic reform in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world, I feel obliged to go on the record about a different kind of encounter with The Arab Protester that I witnessed this year, and which did not turn out so well. I’m not sure why, exactly, it failed. But two things are sure: the videoconference held between students of the University of Notre Dame and the American University of Cairo was a dismal flop. And I’d willingly do it again.

In preparation for our session in early November, students of both classes (my class on the French Revolution at ND, and a political science class at AUC) agreed on texts to prepare: chapter one of Samuel Moyn’s The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History and the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The idea was to discuss the origins and importance of human rights for democratic political progress. When the class convened, however, what ensued were mainly ad hominem attacks on American foreign policy uttered by classmates in Cairo who were visibly upset by the rise of military presence in their city streets, anxious about the potential for fraud in their imminent elections, and assumed that both were caused by a meddling superpower, namely the United States. They were seeking a target for their anger, and the eight Americas in my class were apparently good game. We got an earful. Although some of my students joined in the spirited discussion and appreciated the emotional tenor of this exchange which was truly “revolutionary,” others were unnerved by the anger it incited. One timid soul in my class was almost in tears, and later complained about the “unprofessionalism” of the event, saying that she wished she had never been there.

So why rehash this fiasco?

Because I think it is a good reminder that: 1) revolutionary groups are often violent; they need a target, and they may act in irrational ways. 2) revolutionaries may act irrationally even toward those people who are sympathetic to their feelings, if they are deemed insufficiently fervent in their support. Supporters need to do more than just voice their feelings; some kind of action is called for. 3) in order to be successful, revolutionaries need more than the infrastructure and communication skills outlined in the Time magazine article (p. 61), they also some human skills, e.g. an appreciation for history, an awareness of crowd behavior, and especially, mature leadership. 4) protesters may make for exciting viewing, and participating in a protest itself is good for the soul of any democratically-minded citizen. But it is exasperating to dialogue with a revolution-in-progress in the classroom. The calm, the ability to step back and seek perspective, are really difficult to achieve when a battle is raging outside.

Maybe I should lay off videoconferencing with AUC for a while. Teaching flesh-and-blood students in person feels hard enough on most days. But the memory of this event, as flawed as it was, remains the most powerful image of my past semester in the classroom. I suspect that a little anger and “unprofessionalism” are just what we need to bring human rights into living color… and incite some indignation right here at home.