Thoughts on Book 4 - The Golden Hour

"The Golden Hour" by Maiya Williams is about a brother and sister, Rowan and Nina, who go to live with their aunts because their mother has just died and their father is a drunk. Rowan and Nina are both distraught about their mothers death and they both become really withdrawn until they meet Xanthe and Xavier: twins who live nearby. They find a time machine and Nina wants to travel back to the Enlightenment, but gets the wrong century, and ends up in Paris 2 days before the Bastille is stormed to start off the French Revolution. Rowan, Xanthe, and Xavier travel back to the Revolution to find her, and are forced to face all the events leading up to July 14, 1789, the day the Bastille is stormed, and even a little after the revolution begins.

Although the book was much more childish than the other 3 books I read, it was still interesting to see the French Revolution from a more modern perspective. Whereas the first three books were all about the people (peasants) of Paris and how horrific Paris was for them at the time, this books also showed Paris from the perspective of the nobility and the King and Queen. The first three authors wrote their books shortly after the French Revolution and were clearly on the side of the revolutionaries because they knew what the people of Paris had just been through, but Williams gave both perspectives and made it clear that she didn't take any sides by making each of her characters have a different opinion on who was to blame for the misfortunes of the Parisians.

Another thing I liked about this book was that it was sort of like reading from a history books at times. Since it was written for younger readers and the main characters were younger, the reader learned as the character did. So before Xanthe, Xavier, and Rowan traveled back to find his sister, they went to a library to learn about the French Revolution and as they were reading about it, the book narrated what they were reading, so the reader got to learn too. I thought it was kind of cool to get some research from reading a novel like this about France and Paris during and before the French Revolution.

One other thing I really liked about this book, that none of the other books showed was what Paris was like right before the Revolution began (at least for the nobility). This book really showed the beauty of Paris and how amazing it would have been to live there at the time if you weren't a peasant. The book also showed a little bit of what it was like for the peasants, but not too much. That was okay though, because I already knew from reading the other books. It was refreshing to learn that Paris was an amazing place before the Revolution and restored itself back to an amazing place after.

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Novel three Ninety Three by Victor Hugo

"Ninety-Three" by Victor Hugo really painted a picture for me of what Paris was like for peasants and soldiers (Republican Soldiers) in 1793 Paris. The other two books that I read were more about the people and said only some things about what Paris was like at the time. Ninety-Three, while it was still about the characters, it had more more detail about what it was like to live in Paris at the time of the French Revolution.

One of the really cool things about the book was that it showed what it was like in Paris for the peasants or citizens and also what it was like for the Republican soilders (revolutionary soilders). What I learned about the peasants was how scary and violent everything was for them. The revolutionaries didn't care about the peasants and neither did the French Army. Neither valued their lives and so they lived in fear unless they joined the army. Not only were they constantly scared for their lives, they were living off of the scarps of food they could find on the floor and living on the ground. We see all this throughout the novel, but especially through the one peasent womens conversation with some of the soilders that found her and her children.

"'Where do you sleep?' -soldier
'on the ground.' -peasant
'what do you eat?' -soldier
'Nothing.' -peasant
'Nothng?' -soldier
'that is to say aloes and dried berries left from last year, Myrtle seeds and fern shoots'".-peasants

The republic's army (revolutionaries) on the Other hand was brutish and violent and gave the peasants reason to be afraid. Their slogan was "no mercy, no quarter". And they showed no mercy most of the time. One scene there was a battalion on a ship and it was truly on of the most chilling scenes in the book. Everyone was talking at once, yelling about ple who had been killed and who they wanted to kill. They were fierce ans scary and single minded. They seemed like they wanted a better Paris, but they ended up making it worse for everyone involved. This book took place during the Terror and the republic army was the one that caused it with that brutality and no care for human life and the common peasants.

Map - Important Dates and Authors

MAP KEY - IMPORTANT DATES (with authors)


1789 - The French Revolution starts
       July 14 - Bastille is stormed by French peasants
       October 5 - Women protest in Versailles and demand bread from the King
Thomas de Mahy executed (famous Parisian author - anti revolution


1790
       June 19 - Abolition of Nobility and titles (what the revolutionaries wanted)
       August 18 - First counter revolutionaries form assembly in Halles


1791
       July 17 - National Guard fights and kills many revolutionaries
       January-March - Food riots across Paris
Marquis de Sade; after being released from prison, he wrote many novels in Paris
Thomas Paine - The Rights of Man
Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau - French Revolutionary author dies


1792 
       August 10 - Jacobin masses storm the palace and grow in popularity 
Pierre Beaumarchais - Famous revolutionary known for his drama play writes


1793
       January 21 - King Louis XVI executed by guillotine
       September 5 - Reign of Terror begins with Jacobin Constitution accepted
Jean-Louis Laya - French dramatist in Paris, very active at this time


1794
       July 27 - Robespierre executed and Reign of Terror ends


1797
François-René de Chateaubriand - founder of Romanticism in French Literature


1799
       November 9 - Napoleon Bonaparte elected First Consul (becomes dictator)  

Book 2 Thoughts - The Gods Are Athirst

"The Gods Are Athirst", by Anatole France, really shows how single-mindedness can create such horrific and terrible things in a whole city. And while it is good to have an opinion, it is way better to understand not only your opinion, but all the others around you, and decide for yourself.

Evariste Gamelin was of the opinion that if you were, in any way, not supporting the revolutionaries, whether you were actually, physically against the revolutionaries or you just ran away from Paris to protect yourself, you were a traitor and deserved to die. He became a member of the Jacobin party, led by Robespierre, who used the slogan, "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity or Death." They believed that if you were not actively involved in the revolution, you didn't support Liberty or Equality or Brotherhood, and therefore would be killed.

The Jacobins truly wanted a better Paris and a better France. The Paris they lived in was terrible and people starved and had to rights, and the Jacobins, along with Gamelin, really started out fighting a revolution that would make France a better country. The were honestly were fighting for Liberty, equality and fraternity.  I think the revolutionaries got too obsessed and too passionate that they forgot the reason they were fighting was to make a better France and create peace and rest in the nation and give everyone rights. The revolutionaries were got their rights, but they also took away everyone else's rights. And not only the horrible people who had oppressed the Parisians for so long, they even took away the rights of those who didn't believe in fighting or ran away to escape the violence. Gamelin became a juror on the Grand Tribunal and basically sentenced thousands of people to death, without a real trial. He started out fair, as did most of the other jurors, but as the revolution went on, they all became worse. Gamelin thought he was doing what was best for Paris still by sentencing everyone who came in...he thought that he was showing equality by sentencing the rich and the poor, but he was only spreading the hatred and murder. Even though all the revolutionaries started out with good intentions and wanted a better place for everyone to live, they became blinded by their obsession and passion and made Paris and France worse off than before. 

What this book made me realize about the French Revolution that I hadn't before was that the revolutionaries were actually the Reign of Terror and were the reason that France fell so low. The revolutionaries could have stopped fighting and killing everyone because the government of France was pretty week at the time and as soon as they started giving in a little at the beginning, there was really no reason to keep up the fighting, but they were just so filled with passion, they became irrational and thought they had to keep going. The Jacobins were the ones that inflicted the reign of Terror on France, not the government, like I had always thought, because they sentenced all those people to the guillotine and didn't let anyone have a say, unless they had the same opinion as them. No one had rights unless they were a Jacobin. The revolutionaries also caused all the wars that France was in at the time, because they killed all the French armies and then didn't create an army that could fight outside of France for 10 years and didn't have a functioning government for that long as well. France was in so much debt and all these countries were trying to fight them, and there was no real organized army to fight back because the revolutionaries were killing everyone in France. A good cause is only as good as the plan to enact that cause, and the revolutionaries of Paris were not organized or rational enough to plan fight for there cause and change Paris for the better.

One other thing I really liked about this book was that, while a lot of the characters were like Gamelin, and were really crazy about the revolution and unfair, there was also someone who stood firm to their beliefs and wouldn't compromise them for anyone or anything. Maurice Brotteaux didn't believe that all the fighting and killing and what the Jacobins were doing to Paris was right and he didn't want to be a part of it. Even though Gamelin was his friend and very powerful, he wouldn't do what he didn't believe in and fight with the Jacobins. Gamelin ended up sentencing him as a traitor, but I liked that the book showed that while most everyone in Paris at the time was blinded by their passion and became irrational, they all still had a choice and could have chosen a different path, like Maurice. 

Response Paper

What I thought was really interesting about the chapters at first was that they were about Asians (Chinese and Japanese) the most, and I had never really studied or read about Chinese racism before. Initially that was what struck me as I was reading, but then I thought about it and racism is racism, no matter what the racial group that is being discriminated against is. It is always a terrible and unjust thing and it shouldn’t matter what color you are, everyone should be outraged by it. Racism is totally irrational, as shown in the chapter 1, when the city of Los Angeles was portraying the Chinese as dirty and unsanitary, even though the city was responsible because it wouldn’t extend the sewage system out of the middle of their area. I cannot understand where racism comes from or why people would feel such a strong hatred for people because of their color. I don’t think anyone can completely understand it, even those who are racist, because they couldn’t rationally explain it to any non-racist. It doesn’t make sense, but what it does (as well as what these chapters did for me) is it made me wonder about what the people of the future will think about out time. I know there are still racist in America today, but it isn’t as prominent an issue anymore, I don’t think, so I wonder if there is anything that is going on today that the our children and grandchildren will look back on in history class and say how incredibly stupid what we were doing was, like how incredibly stupid racism is and was. It really made me think that I really need to think about what I believe in and do, in order to not be looked back on as spurring on an unjust system or living in an unjust word. It made me think about our need to make sure that when we are done living our lives, we are proud of our actions and have not made anyone feel less than they are, and have made as many people as we can happy but not at the expense of others.

One more thing I wanted to mention about the chapters is how it differed from Richard Wrights piece in allowing the reader to make their own conclusions.  Molina’s chapters said this was racist, this was bad, they thought this, and you should feel that and didn’t allow the reader to think anything other than that. It felt more forced and pressured and made me want to resist it a little. Where as Richard Wright’s style made the reader fell smart. Obviously any rational and sensible person would make the same conclusions about Wrights stories as Molina told us to make about hers, but the reader (or at least I did) feels more accomplished and opinioned when making conclusions about Wrights stories. Its kind of like in movies and shows when the older sister doesn’t tell the little brother what to do, but in a round about way makes him think he should do it, but he thinks the idea was all his own. When he is told to do something, he resists and won’t do it, but if he thinks he thought of it himself, well then he’s convinced it’s the right thing to do and he’s a genius. 

Book 1 Thoughts - A Tale of Two Cities

In "A tale of Two Cities", by Charles  Dickens, one of the main themes (and most interesting to me) was that of 'restoration' or, as Book the First is titled, "Recalled to Life." Another thing this book did a lot was compare things; Cities, people, groups, characteristics. The most interesting 'restoration' in the book to me was that of Sydney Carton. In true fashion of Charles Dickens and "A Tale of Two Cities", I will compare the restoration of Carton and the city of Paris.

Sydney Carton started off as a "Jackal". He was a loner, practically dead inside. He hated everyone and everyone hated him. There was nothing left for him in life, he had no purpose in life and so had given up. All Carton did was drink all day. When he looked in the mirror, he was disappointed with how his life had turned out. Through Charles Darnay (a character who looks exactly like him) he sees the man he could have been and hates himself and Darnay for showing him that he is essentially a failure. Carton believes himself empty of anything worth of love and sees no way for him to change.

But Carton meets Lucie and falls in love with her. I think because of her compassion and willingness to see through to him and believe that he can change, even though no one else, including himself believes in him. His love for Lucie really struck me because he completely opens up to her and tells her his every emotion and thought and personal struggle of his. He allows himself to be open, honest, and vulnerable in front of her. He tells her he loves her and what that love is. But what really makes his love for her so touching is that he gave his love for her husband, basically his competition, to make her happy. His love wasn't dependent upon her love in return. he knew that she loved her husband but he didn't stop loving her. He loved her and loved for her to be happy, even if her happiness didn't depend on his. The fact that someone could love someone that much was really awesome for me to see. It was also really powerful to see how love can transform/restore people, just like Cartons love for Lucie transformed him and allowed him to be happy with his life and feel like he had something worth living for, or even dying for. This love was able to resurrect his wasted life even though physically, he died.But spiritually and emotionally he was recalled to life through his sacrifice to make Lucie and her family happy. His love and death was able to turn his whole life around and  make him see beauty. He even saw the beauty in his death. He was able to see past the mayhem and violence around him (in Paris) to the bright future which would eventually come from it, just like Lucie was able to see through his wasted life.

Which brings me to Paris' go a restoration. In the beginning of "Two Cities" Paris started out at its all time lowest. There were people starving and dying, with no houses and not enough clothes, with no beds or blankets, living on the streets. These peasant made up the majority of of Paris, and the rich, the minority, made up the group of oppressors. The peasants are tired of the injustice that surrounds them and a lot of them are planning to revolt. They are full of hatred for the rich and vengeance for anyone who is not with them. They want a change and will do anything to get it. As they prepare to get there justice, their anger and hatred and vengeance overwhelms them and they become worse than the rich oppressors. They kill people violently and with angry hearts. They kill people who used to be rich or who they think are traitors. They kill everyone who is not fighting with them and even some people who are with them. It because a bloody, violent mess that is worse than before they started the revolution. Because the try at restoration was spurred by hatred and vengeance instead of love and happiness they were not able to recall Paris to Life. The problem only got worse. Instead of feeling liberated and worth something, like Carton did, they just felt even angrier.

This shows me that being born anew requires a selflessness and humility in order to resurrect a person or city or country. Carton was sacrificed his life for Lucie's happiness in the place of her husband, showing both selflessness and humility, while the peasants of Paris acted out of anger and used violence to try and sort out there problems. And while they were right to be angry, they were rash and in the midst of their fight acted out of selfish desires, like Madame Defarge and many other revolutionaries. Martin Luther King Jr's warning that violence will never solve the problem is exemplified here in "A Tale of Two Cities". Perhaps a calmer and less violent revolution would have prevailed and the oppressed would have gained their justice instead of falling deeper into the injustice and taking part in it themselves.