Customer Reviews

City of Darkness City of Light

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

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.

I can't lay my finger on why, but this book was hard to get through. It usually doesn't take me that long to read a book. I keep thinking its because its seperated up into different characters perspectives---or because it is so detailed. As a historian, I am not too familiar with the French Revolution, so I can't tell you how "accurate" it is. I can tell you to, read the authors introduction, in which she states she superimposed our current culture onto the culture of the French people. IE it means she didn't mess around with historical jargon. I didn't mind that at all---especially since she explained that to us in the introduction. Some others find fault with it, I guess. It depends on what you prefer in historical fiction.
Ms. Piercey tells the story of women from several different walks of life, as well as the story from some of the major players in the Revolution. I can tell you that after I finished this book, I went to the bookstore and looked through a general history of the Revolution and was able to identify everyone pictured in it, as well as all the scenarios and events. So---yes, its very detailed. I liked it, it was just hard to get through...
Theres an actress, a chocolatier, Mme. Roland, whom I didn't care for, Nicholas Condorcet, who I did like, Danton and Robespierre. She shared all different walks of life for me, as far as I'm concerned. I appreciate that she took the time and effort to share with us the different aspects of the people, the very real people of the Revolution. She makes them so real.
She is obviously a feminist, too, by her style. But using her feminist background, she was able to explain to us exactly how and why so much of the Revolution depended on THE WOMEN. And NOT the rich, "educated," women! Pretty good; Just expect to take it slow!!

I have bought dozens of copies of this book and given them to everyone I know. It is a beautiful study of the French Revolution from a socialist feminist perspective. Piercy's growth as a writer is evident, she develops a political contextualization of the French Revolution that goes far beyond her earlier works. This book shows the process of how political movements develop and grow, and how various forces and factions affect the balance of power. This book reminded me of the flash of brilliance Piercy showed in Women on the Edge of Time and proved that the early Piercy has grown and matured. Many readers will not be able to sit through the description of political infighting and factional power plays. But for me that was the strength of the book. Piercy placed personal stories into a larger political struggle and actually brings her characters to life. One last point. When I was in Paris last summer searching for the memorial to the Paris Commune (there isn't one!) I realized how Piercy had really brought the people of Paris alive as a revolutionary movement struggling to be free. A beautiful book.

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

The people drove the French Revolution. From the most powerful leaders, such as Danton, to the people of the districts, like Claire Lacombe, who held their pikes, the Revolution was all about the people.
Piercy - a poet, novelist, and occasional playwright - mixes what is known about this time in French history with her vivid imagination. This novel must be called fiction, but Piercy's use of real events and people makes for an interesting study of non-fiction.
The work is written with the average person in mind. Still, one can not overlook Piercy's intense attention to detail and accuracy. This shows that Piercy may have been writing with the layperson in mind, but she also sought to gain scholarly readers. She took all of the facts surrounding the Revolution and filled in the gaps with logical speculation to create this masterful novel.
Centered on the lives of six main characters, the novel tells the story of the French Revolution from the vantage points of these six. At times their paths cross, and the large world of France becomes smaller to the reader. Characters like Maximilien Robespierre and Manon Roland come alive and history seems to make perfect sense. The cast of real-life characters is presented in a way that no history book ever could.
After reading this novel, a student of the French Revolution is better equipped to understand the finer points of the period in detail. Having a personality to attach to a name can make facts and situations easier to recall. Though the novel should not be taken as history, it is certainly a good base for future study of the French Revolution.
The novel also puts a human side to this turbulent era. Cold facts cannot convey intentions, feelings, or home lives of the major and minor players of any period. Piercy's work serves to promote understanding that these men and women who live on in history were just people like those living today.
Piercy's fascinating novel shows the French Revolution in a light that cannot be produced through historical texts. Her work brings the people and passion of the time to life.

I enjoyed this book very much. I found the 'feminist' angle of the French revolution very interesting and enligtening.Generally the idea of telling the inside story of those terrific and terrible times through the eyes of such a panel of narrators was very interesting and educating. After reading this book you really come to appreciate living in the end of the 20th century (being a woman - maybe some thanks is owed to the women French revolutionists). I have enjoyed previous books by Marge Pierce very much, especially Gone To Soldiers, and I am waiting for the next!!!!

As a long time admirer of Ms Piercy's work, I picked up a copy of "City of Darkness : City of Light" to enjoy on holiday. It seemed to promise all the enjoyment of "Gone For Soldiers" - an epic novel of WWII beautifully told from a number of perspectives. . Unfortunately, it didn't live up to my expectations - or indeed the reviews I've read of it. Maybe the problem was that of the characters: all well-known players in the politics of the time. I knew a lot about them already and this book didn't seem to add much. I think Piercy deserves applause for her recognition of the role of women. However, if you want the really great contemporary novel of the French Revolution, try Hilary Mantel's "A Place of Greater Safety".

I might have enjoyed this novel more had I not read Hilary Mantel's brilliant A Place of Greater Safety first. As novels about the French Revolution go, City of Darkness... is a decent read and doesn't embarrass itself with any horrible historical howlers, but can't hold a candle to Mantel's delicious and penetrating characterization and diabolically ironic writing style.

Having six alternating viewpoint characters does water down the story. I sensed that possibly Piercy had wanted to write a novel of the French Revolution from the point of view of the women involved--and only the women--but that her editor persuaded her to include Danton and Robespierre so that there would be a couple of characters that the average reader had actually heard of. Unfortunately, her portrayals of these two figures can't compare with Mantel's complex portraits. I found the portrayals of Claire Lacombe and Pauline Leon much more interesting, primarily because I'd known little about them previously. While this novel is perhaps half as long as Place..., it seems unnecessarily rambling and diffuse in a way that Place... never does.

This was certainly a unique way to study the history of the French Revolution - through the eyes of 6 main characters. I admit to reading this book purely because it was this month's piece for my Book Club but, unlike most of the others in my group, I did not find it difficult to follow the six separate stories. As a matter of fact, the less you worry about who each and every character in the book is, the easier it is to simply glide along and learn or re-learn the basics of the Revolution from a purely historical standpoint. For the most part, it simply doesn't matter which of the characters' chapters you are currently in - the basic timeline of history continues to unfold. I'm glad that I read the book and I did find it interesting but I can't go out of my way to recommend it.

I have read every Piercey I can find and have seldom been disapppointed. Her writing always takes me into interesting contexts with credible characters. I bought the hard cover of City of Darkness, read it once and then gave it away. The other Piercey's are battered prized possessions I regularly re-read. I guess I did not find the characters convincing and the whole thing was rather forced. But given Piercey's amazing output one book like that can be regarded as an experiment. Perhaps she is more comfortable in the present with those fascinating women who just don't ever give up!