Product Description
When the apprentices of a Paris printing shop in the 1730's held a series of mock trials and then hanged all the cats they could lay their hands on, why did they find it so hilariously funny that they choked with laughter when they reenacted it in pantomime some twenty times? Why in the 18th century version of "Little Red Riding Hood" did the wolf eat the child at the end? What did the anonymous townsman of Montpelier have in mind when he kept an exhaustive dossier on all the activities of his native city? These are some of the provocative questions Robert Darnton attempts to answer in this dazzling series of essays that probe the ways of thought in what we like to call "The Age of Enlightenment."

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 11 reviews)

The Molecular Process of The French Revolution

Leon Trotsky in his classic three-volume History of the Russian Revolution spent some time describing the small unresolved contradictions of everyday life that had accrued in pre-1917 Russia and that formed the underlying premises for that huge social explosion. Trotsky, using classic Marxist terminology, called that process the molecular process of the unfolding revolution. By that he meant that for long periods the unanswered grievances at the base of society (in that case, like in the French, an overwhelmingly peasant-based society in the process of facing some major changes) not only go unresolved but unnoticed to the naked eye. However, in retrospect it became easy to see that certain changes almost dictated that a social explosion was in the making. Robert Darnton in the present book makes that same kind of retrospective analysis of some unnoticed points on the pre- French revolutionary cultural map that led up to 1789.

That said, it is rather ironic that Darnton himself is unaware of what he has uncovered. In his introduction and throughout his painstakingly documented work Darnton downgrades the effect that the material he has presented on that later event, the French Revolution. Intellectually, we can argue that point all day- the extent that the cultural superstructure of the old society when under attack can bring forth organizations, cultural phenomena, etc. that form the basis for a many times unconscious `oppositional' cultural structure that can form the basis of a new social outlook. But, we are still nevertheless looking at that old friend, the molecular process.

Darnton has presented six different episode of cultural expression beginning in the early 18th century but most of the episodes coalesce around mid-century. In the course of this exploration he investigates the transformations of `fairy tales' the oral tradition of the peasantry to see what changes are wrought there over time and location. A key episode is the essay from which the book takes its title on the artisan response to changes in the structure of work as the pre-pre industrial age begins to take hold in France. In short, a look at the class struggle at the base that will reach its height in the emergence of the sans culottes in the 1790's. Thereafter Darnton investigates an old regime bourgeois's attempt to make sense out of a world (his city of Montpellier) that is starting ever so slightly to crumble and that can only be called a masterwork of organization and sociological insight for the period.

The last three episodes detail the emergence of the modern intelligentsia that has since played a key role in many revolutions (and counter-revolutions, as well). Darnton, as is necessary when discussing the creation of a self-conscious intelligentsia tips his hat to Diderot and Rousseau the two emerging poles of intellectual discourse.In probably his most insightful essay Darnston describes the new reading habits of the provincial bourgeois- the very type whose break from the old regime is decisive in the early stages of the revolution. One, hopefully, can see by this summary what I mean when I state that Darnton does not fully appreciate the tremendous work that he has uncovered in search of the molecular process of revolution. Kudos, Professor.
June 12, 2008

Interesting, Engaging

I enjoyed this book immensely in the scholarly setting in which I read it. Several chapters are extremely engaging, particularly the chapter on the Great Cat Massacre which so poignantly highlights the tensions between the upper- and lower-classes at the time. The treatment of cultural fairy tales and their evolution over time was especially good. I do, however, find myself agreeing with the reviewer who noted that the book (though engaging in a scholarly setting) is not so engaging in a more casual out-of-school reading experience. It may simply be that the book seems better in the light of its scholarly peers, or it may be that the continued rise of popular history books has caused us to demand more entertainment from our tomes. Either way, the material here is not commonly found elsewhere, so it is still worth a look.

December 03, 2007

Illuminating

It occured to me while reading this book that the art of cultural history is a bit like photography, and extensive research allows the author to offer extensive & insightful commentary about the "episodes" in this case of French cultural history. The actual instance of cat massacre described is probably about as impressive in scope as a Poison concert today or maybe less, but it's clearly illustrative of the points that the author makes about that particular segment of society at the time, although I'm sure I've seen something similar to this in the early eighties.
The Police Inspector sorts his file is also another great "episode" which gives a great viewpoint of the artistic world through the police lense. The author always takes great care to deflect misunderstanding, and details what a police inspector collecting files on artists really meant at the time for the state and the artists themselves, and of course much of the art, probably a good 50% is in the discovery of these files and the selection of this event for the book I would imagine.
My one criticism would be of the first chapter which was good at first and certainly well written and all, but the peasants tales are brought to the fore, explained and dispatched one after another. I guess the point was to set the tone for the experience of the peasant, but if this was the point I got it halfway through the chapter.
Anyway a pretty good book, and I found it a very useful read, and parts were highly illuminating to me about certain aspects of society.
October 11, 2007

Killing cats to get back at their owners

What a waste of the human soul, to stoop to depravities like that.
December 29, 2006

Other people are other

Little Red Riding, of the Brothers Grimm, is really French, 17th century. The Huguenots brought folk tales to Germany when fleeing the prosecution of Louis XIV. Folk tales are historical documents. They have evolved over many centuries. There was a golden age of folklore research in France between the years of 1870 and 1914. Folklore is a nineteenth century neologism. Oral traditions have enormous staying power. Continuities in form and style outweigh variation of details.

Village life, being a peasant, was a struggle in early modern France. Marriages lasted an average of fifteen years, terminated by death. The peasants lived in a world of stepmothers and orphans. The tales present a Malthusian picture. In the 1690's plague and famine decimated northern France when Perrault wrote 'Tom Thumb'. Wishing takes one form, the wishing for food. Meat is an extravagance. Fulfillment of the wish takes place in the everyday world. It is not an escape fantasy, but survival. In the tales daughters must be married off and sons may explore life on the road. There may be no land, no food, no work. There was danger on the road. English tales tend to be whimsical, French tales bawdy, realistic, comical, German tales supernatural, violent. French folk tales told the peasants how the world was put together and how to cope with it. In France, despite the distinction of social rank, there was a common stock of tales.

The apprentice printers, who staged a cat massacre, delighted in performing the affair again and again--copies. Masters loved cats and, therefore, apprentices hated them. In the second half of the seventeenth century there was an oligarchy of printing masters. It was difficult for journeymen to rise to the rank of masters. The wail of a cat could mean witchcraft, cuckoldry. Killing the mistress's cat was a metonymic insult. The cat massacre was put into writing by Nicholas Contat. In the massacre one of the apprentices imitated a cat.

A description of a French city, Montpellier, was written in 1768. The anonymous writer had an obsession with completeness. A sense of place is fundamental to our sense of orientation in life. The bourgeois was the owner of the modes of production and acquired class-consciousness. Except in Lille and a few other areas, a self-conscious industrializing class was absent prior to the Revolution. Thinkers belonged to the traditional elite. Montpellier was an administrative center. It had a commercial oligarchy. It was underdeveloped and wealthy people dominated the social and cultural life. It had a music academy and there was interest shown in science and technology. There were cabinets containing private natural history collections and private libraries. The ideal of the honest man had, in 1768, a bourgeois coloring.

The author relates that a police officer in Paris, Joseph d'Hemery, inpected the book trade and the men who wrote books. In five years, 1748-1753, he wrote five hundred reports. Clergymen constituted twelve percent of the authors. Seventy percent came from the third estate. Ten percent were doctors or lawyers. Thirty six percent were journalists, tutors, librarians, secretaries. Many careers went from the garret to the gutter. Everyone in the files was seeking or dispensing protection. The police did not question influence peddling. Police agents picked up sedition talk. Diderot was singled out for atheism.

Rousseau described reading and experienced it. He saw literature as an element of a power system. Rousseau initiated a new conception of an author--Prometheus. LA NOUVELLE HELOISE was probably the best seller of the century. Readers believed that Jean-Jacques had made them see deeper into the meaning of their lives. In thinking of how people read five centuries ago, it may be important to keep in mind the distinction between extensive reading and intensive reading. Rousseau taught readers to digest books and literature became absorbed in life.

The notes at the back of the book are interesting and varied.
June 17, 2006

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