Customer Reviews

The Gods Are Thirsty: A Novel of the French Revolution

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Tanith Lee's obsession with the French Revolution has given us one of those most lucid novels since Tale of Two Cities, and as Lee's book concerns the participants, I would dare say that it is the better of the two.

The novel begins shortly before the French Revolution. The nobles have the power, the poor and starving and there's plenty of freefloating oppression to go around. Through the eyes of the narrator we see the revolution take form and topple an entrenched monarchy and even though we know what is going to come next, Lee's prose makes these scenes exhilarating.

As the book shifts into the days of the Terror, the exhilaration turns to repulsion as the calls for mass execution are heeded and Robespierre seemlessly transforms himself from an idealistic senator into a mass executioner, all for the sake of the revoultion.

Tanith Lee is one of my favorite writers. This book is a big departure for her, and I get the impression writing it was a dream of hers. It is top-rate historical fiction. It starts out a bit slow, but after it got me, I couldn't put it down. I wanted more after I finished it. I can't wait to check out all the facts with a non-fiction history. Lee creates colorful, fleshed-out, human characters out of figures that have become mere historical stick figures.

If you're looking for a typical Tanith Lee (if there is such a thing, knowing Tanith) book, this will come as a surprise. For not only is this out of the sci-fi range, but also hideously long.

It is, however, an enthralling read.

Told in fragments, songs and doggerels, alternating between the first and third person (which some may find confusing), accounts, she tells of the French revolution, from the idea, the catalyst and the overwhelming bloodtide that inevitably followed a flawed idealism.

It's deftly and passionately written -an evident labour of love, but at times so convulous (spelling?) it leaves one head-scratching over her meaning.

Still, whether an old fan or just someone in search of a good read, give it a try -you may be surprised.

It doesn't seem to be common knowledge to newer Lee fans, but this book was written years prior to its actual publication date. According to various "about the author" blurbs I've read, Tanith couldn't find a publisher for this tome because it was over a thousand pages long and not characteristic of her previous work. This was a labor of love, and it probably would have had a better reception if it had been released before some of her more refined later novels.

I think my own interest in this novel was actually dampened by the fact that Lee had to work with historical figures. Her own creations are usually more alien, perverse and aesthetically pleasing than Robespierre could ever be.

I suspect that this ambitious historical novel was Tanith Lee's valiant attempt to write herself out of the mass-market sf and fantasy ghetto and into the rarefied and prestigious world of "literary" publishing. It's too bad that she doesn't quite make it with this novel. It's a good juicy read, and she brings the French Revolution and its many colorful personalities to vivid life, but there were too many small but irritating errors of fact and translation throughout the novel to keep me stuck inside that ol' "willing suspension of disbelief". Her writing, always lushly descriptive, here often becomes embarrassingly lurid purple prose that set my teeth on edge.

Still, among recent "serious" novels about the French Revolution, Gods is a more entertaining read than Marge Piercy's City of Darkness, City of Light; but it can't hold a candle to Hilary Mantel's brilliant A Place of Greater Safety, another biographical novel about Camille Desmoulins which I think Lee must have read and, consciously or unconsciously, emulated (she makes the same minor errors of fact in one or two places).

(Postscript: Frankly, I wonder how any "literary" reviewer could take this novel quite seriously when faced with the author's absurd jacket photo, a decade or two old at least--Lee looks about nineteen--and featuring in-your-face cleavage and raccoonish goth eyeliner. Definitely a photo for one of her (quite wonderful) works of dark fantasy, but not for mainstream, hardcover fiction. Big, big mistake, Tanith.)

I love Tanith Lee. I have just about everything published by Tanith Lee. If you asked me, this book is not by Tanith Lee. What I want to know is, WHO ARE YOU & WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH TANITH LEE???