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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780449912751
ISBN number: 0449912752
Label: Ballantine Books
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 496
Printing Date: August 12, 1997
Publishing house: Ballantine Books
Release Date: August 12, 1997
Sale Popularity Level: 490234
Studio: Ballantine Books
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'FAST-PACED . . . PIERCY BREATHES LIFE INTO THE ACTUAL HISTORICAL FIGURES WHO SHAPED THE REVOLUTION.'
--San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle
In her most splendid, thought-provoking novel yet, Marge Piercy brings to vibrant life three women who play prominent roles in the tumultuous, bloody French Revolution--as well as their more famous male counterparts.
Defiantly independent Claire Lacombe tests her theory: if men can make things happen, perhaps women can too. . . . Manon Philipon finds she has a talent for politics--albeit as the ghostwriter of her husband's speeches. . . . And Pauline Léon knows one thing for certain: the women must apply the pressure or their male colleagues will let them starve. While illuminating the lives of Robespierre, Danton, and Condorcet, Piercy also opens to us the minds and hearts of women who change their world, live their ideals--and are prepared to die for them.
'MASTERFUL . . . PIERCY BRINGS THE BLOOD AND GUTS, THE IDEAS AND PASSIONS, OF THE REVOLUTION TO LIFE.'
--The Women's Review of Books
'PIERCY'S STORYTELLING POWERS CAPTURE THE TURBULENCE AND EXCITEMENT OF [THIS] LIBERATING ERA.'
--The Boston Herald
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Rated by buyers 
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Follows the lives of 6 historical characters through the turbulent time of the French revolution. Read that while travelling through France, so found it very interesting. I like how the story interweaves the points of view of the different characters, jumping from one to another. Found the novel very thought-provoking and very reflective of human nature.
Rated by buyers 
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...this is not it. You ought to buy a copy of A Place of Greater Safety: A Novel instead of this stinker.
There are so many grammatical and syntactical errors in this book that the prose is just plain painful. And why pick such a serious subject if you are going to treat it so childishly? This is the kind of book that gives historical fiction a bad name.
While based on historical events and real people, Piercy has her own agenda which she liberally indulges. She never misses a chance to mention excretory functions. Piercy never met an odious smell or rubbish heap she didn't like. She mentions sweat as often as a deoderant commercial. What an odd perspective on history!
It is beyond me to mention everything that is wrong with this novel. If you are a sucker for punishment, go ahead and read it and find out for yourself. Thank God I bought this loser second hand and didn't waste much money.
Now I am going to chuck this book onto the compost heap and pick up my copy of Les Miserables (Modern Library)instead.
Rated by buyers -
In *City of Darkness, City of Light,* Marge Piercy follows six, count `em, *six* characters through the French Revolution. This turbulent period molds their characters, as each of them plays important roles in, if not the actual revolution, the evolution of France. The end of the book (guessing who will survive the guillotine) is riveting.
As much fun as this book is to read, and as interesting as the history is, there is more importance than mere romp and period to this work. Postmodernism has been touted as obscure and difficult, like *Gravity's Rainbow* or some of the more abstract, narrativeless forms. *City of Darkness, City of Light* is, IMHO, postmodernism as it was meant to be. Piercy reinterprets history from the POV of those who did not have a voice at the time: women. She explores the lives of women during the French Revolution with kindness, emotion, and depth. Her characters range from politically active minor nobility (Manon) to the impoverished (Claire) to the middle class (Pauline), an oftentimes neglected strata of society. There are also male counterparts for each of the archetypal women, including a character that becomes the bloody Robespierre, who begins life as a studious son of a lawyer named simply Max.
In addition to the postmodern aspects of this book, *City* is important because it attempts to discuss what it is to be human, and different types of human, within a larger context, during a historical event. Too often, IMHO, contemporary novels examine one character, doing very little, or nothing. The novel should not be measly navel-gazing. It should be an experience that broadens the reader. I don't mean merely educational or informative. By reading widely, one should understand one's fellow human better, deeper, more intensely. One should feel more. *City* offers you six people to understand in depth, with feeling, and with humanity.
Please do not be intimidated by my classification of this book as "postmodern" or my admonition that it's "good for you," like Brussel sprouts. *City* is readable and entertaining. Like I said, some of the six characters lose their heads at the end, and I'm not speaking metaphorically. Try to guess which ones.
TK Kenyon
Author of Rabid: A Novel and Callous: A Novel
Rated by buyers -
Piercy's fiction/nonfiction account of the French revolution has high ambitions, and she achieves them--partly. Piercy views this momentous event through the eyes of six people, all of whom are historical characters, but the amount of historical information about each varies greatly. She starts at the top with Nicholas, Danton, and Robespierre, representing the enlightened aristocrat, the pragmatic revolutionary, and the extreme radical. Next on her list is Manon Roland, the wife of a mediocre beaurocrat who exercises influence and power through her husband. Last but certainly not least are Claire and Pauline, two women who led the women's revolution, driven to the streets by the lack of the basic necessities of life--bread, wine, meat--and a desire for equality.
Piercy excels in describing the everyday details of the lives of these people, and makes Danton and Robespierre human. Her portrayal of the Paris of the time, the teeming streets, the houses of the poor, the entertainments, the struggle for food--is masterful. In the cases of Pauline and Claire, she took the little that is known about them and developed them into strong, powerful women.
But Piercy also struggles under the weight of information she tries to incorporate into this "novel," and the result is often plodding. She is a masterful novelist, and "Gone to Soldiers" is a wonderful example of what she can do with a good story that has a historical background. But here she tries to do way too much--explain the politics, the history and life of the time, and also accurately render historical figures in a fictional way while being faithful to the facts we do know. The very first third of the book is a chore, as she tries to set everything up for the characters to come together in Paris. It is no accident that her best characters are Claire and Pauline, about whom little is known, and who come alive under her wonderful novelist's pen. The three men are rendered more clumsily, especially when she tries to describe their feelings during historical events. And Manon is a failure--I suspect Piercy got bogged down in trying to be faithful to the autobiography this woman left behind. As the revolution picks up steam, the story does too, but I found myself reading along to find out how they all get out of the mess that they've created, rather than out of real feeling for the characters.
Having said all that, this book does send you back to brush up on the history, and also sparked a very lively discusion in my book club about why the American Revolution was so different. Was it because the English had a much longer tradition of democracy? Was it that a lot of tradition and custom that hampered change had been left behind in the Old World? Or was it because there was no need to take property away from the rich--there were limitless opportunities available to anyone willing to push west and start out fresh on his own land. Probably all of the above.
Rated by buyers -
This is a good read.
This is good history. This is great fiction. This is the honest story of the French revolution, told from the side of masses of working people, peasants, real French people, told from the side of women and men who live as we live. This is a story of people finding searching for truth and love. This is not about disillusion with revolution, disillusion with the great moments when masses of working people take the world in their hands, this is a celebration of it, of love. This is not about the tragedy of the French revolution, but about the glory of it, and the glory of working men and above all working women.
When big fights will rage to turn back the Clinton-Gore-Bush Cheeny billionaire led attacks on the standard of living of working people, their wars against people around the world, the hideous lame, stupid repulsive culture that blares out of the television and the radio monopolies, books like this will be in the hands of the young women, the young men who will lead the changes. Read this book and feel that young power, look into the past and see our future.
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