Anatole France

The Gods Will Have Blood (eBook, ePUB)

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

The Gods Will Have Blood a novel by Anatole France. It is a fictional story set during the French Revolution. The story of the infernal rise of Évariste Gamelin, a young Parisian painter, involved in the section for his neighborhood of Pont-Neuf, it describes the dark years of the reign the Reign of Terror in Paris. The long, blind train of speedy trials drags this idealist into a madness that cuts off the heads of his nearest and dearest, and hastens his own fall as well as that of his mentor Robespierre His love affair with the young watercolor-seller Élodie Blaise heightens the terrible contrast between the butcher-in-training and the man who shows himself to be quite ordinary in his daily life. Justifying this dance of the guillotine by the fight against the plot to wipe out the gains of the Revolution Gamelin is thirsty for justice, but also uses his power to satisfy his own vengeance and his hatred for those who do not think like him. The long, blind train of speedy trials drags this idealist into a madness that cuts off the heads of his nearest and dearest, and hastens his own fall as well as that of his mentor Robespierre in the aftermath of the Thermidorian Reaction. His love affair with the young watercolor-seller Élodie Blaise heightens the terrible contrast between the butcher-in-training and the man who shows himself to be quite ordinary in his daily life. Justifying this dance of the guillotine by the fight against the plot to wipe out the gains of the Revolution, in the midst of the revolutionary turmoil that traverses Paris, Gamelin is thirsty for justice, but also uses his power to satisfy his own vengeance and his hatred for those who do not think like him. He dies by that same instrument of justice that up until then has served to satisfy his own thirst for blood and terror. Gamelin's profession of painter also reflects on the book's theme. His best work is a depiction of Orestes and Electra, with Orestes resembling a self-portrait of the artist; Gamelin, like Orestes, is capable of killing his family. Élodie later comes to be identified with Electra - though, in her affair with Gamelin, where she loves him first for his mercy and then for his violence, and takes a less radical lover after he dies, she also represents France. The character of Maurice Brotteaux is very interesting. Without being reactionary, this former noble is well aware of the problems the Revolution faces in this period and finds the charges unjustified. One might think that this character speaks for the author.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Bookrix GmbH
• Erscheinungstermin: 9. Januar 2019
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9783736815261
• Artikelnr.: 54658788

Autorenporträt

Anatole France (Jacques-Anatole-Francois Thibault) was born in Paris in 1844, the only son of a book dealer. Working throughout his life in the publishing industry, he also contributed to various reviews and from 1873 was beginning to focus on his own creative writing. In 1897 he was elected to the Academic Francaise. The decisive shift in his career came in his participation in the Dreyfus affair, on behalf of the convicted Jewish officer. It marked the first stage of his emergence as one of the 'representative men' of his epoch, and brought about his conversion to socialism. Subsequent works reflect thsi sharpened humane concern. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1921. He died in 1924. Frederick Davies is widely known as the translator of the plays of Carlo Goldini. He is a Fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge.