Customer Reviews

The Merry Month of May

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For those of us who thought James Jones could only write war stories, this relatively obscure title is a nice surprise. Of course, there is a warlike element to the story's backdrop of 1968 Paris, but ultimately the student riots are just that - a backdrop.

The main focus of the story is on the descent of an American expat family into chaos, in part as a reflection of the generational divides laid bare by the riots. There are bits of sex and violence thrown into the mix (although far more of both are referred to indirectly without actually being portrayed), but the story is more concerned with changing values and the bonds of family and friendship than with anything melodramatic. It turns out that Jones was far better at telling such a tale than his earlier and better known novels had let on.

Since most of the lead characters are defined by their uglier sides, there aren't many people to root for. But as the story progresses, it increasingly becomes a story of the well-to-do American community in Paris as a whole, which makes for a somewhat more sympathetic picture. Jones also did a great job of bringing in real-life events of May-June 1968 on both sides of the Atlantic to influence his fictional characters and their story, which is told from the point of view of an intimate observer of the chaos just a few weeks after it's all over. Is it really the end of an era for the Americans of Paris, or just for one dysfunctional family? For once, as the reader, you're free to decide on your own.

... "The Merry Month of May" is a brilliant, perfectly structured novel which was misunderstood when it was first published, and is apparently still misunderstood. Like Jake Barnes in "The Sun Also Rises," Hartley is a wounded man who finds himself emotionally impotent to help the people he loves most, even when his own godchild's future is in question. He is an observer, in the tradition of Barnes, or Nick Carraway, and to observe is his JOB. His own feelings of guilt and shame come from the very fact that he can't bring himself to act, take sides, or take a stand, even when his friends demand it of him. This is actually, in my estimation, one of the few novels of its time that deals honestly and compassionately with women's true roles in the "sexual revolution" of the Sixties.

For awhile there, I was thinking I don't want to read this book, and thought I wouldn't finish it, BUT I kept reaching for it and I think it was more about my mood lately, I can't seem to find anything to read. There's something about this book that reels me back IN. I find it kind of silly here & there, but I think that's because of the era in which it was published. If I'd read it when I was 20 in 1971, instead of NOW when I'll be 60, I would have seen it all much differently! So, I have to say, I AM enjoying it and I'm glad I read the reviews here. I came specifically for that, to see what others have to say. I'm not quite finished with the book, but it's LURE intrigues me! I can't stop reading it.

The Merry Month of May is centered on the student protests of May 1968 in Paris. Jones' protagonist, Jack Hartley, is a middle-aged American writer who is friends with a family personally affected by the summer's events. The family, the Gallaghers, consist of Harry, a sex-crazed film writer, his long-suffering wife Louisa, and their rebellious, anarchist-wannabe son, Hill. Hill is involved with a radical group bent on filming the protests; Harry's sympathy and help is not welcomed by the boy. Meanwhile, Harry is having a hard time remaining faithful to his wife. Obviously, little of this has anything to
do with Jack Hartley. Because of Hartley's outsider status, he is able to make witty comments about the absurdity of the young idealists' perceptions of the world and the worth of what they are doing. However, Hartley's irrelevance to the action shows in dull passages where he is simply walking around before, during, and after riot action. He is an annoying meddler in the Gallaghers' problems; despite insistent claims to the reader that
he doesn't want to get involved, he continually does so. Here politics and social upheaval are awkwardly mixed with sexual dalliances, particularly Harry's irresponsible ones, for which Hartley condemns him. Gallagher's wife is portrayed as nearly a saint, while all the other women in the book (sexually
liberated by 1968 standards) are physically described at length in vulgar terms, considered amoral if not evil, and whatever efforts they make for the cause are belittled by male characters. This is not uncommon for a novel published in 1970, and perhaps it says something about the so-called sexual revolution that Jones can so easily milk it for sexploitation. Or, perhaps, it just says something about Jones.
Jones' writing has improved since the clunky, adverb-heavy prose of From Here to Eternity, or perhaps he simply acquired better editors by this, his sixth, novel. The book is at times funny in a cynical way that seems before its time, but for the most part, it's windy, too distanced, and terribly dated.

The only reason I read this book was because I've just read a book (Saveage Grace) about the Baekwell family who lived in Paris during the 1950's and 1960's, were good friends of James Jones & his wife, and on whom he based the Gallagher family in this novel.

The best things I can say about this book is that it's a decent short history of the student uprising in France in 1968 & if you're familiar with Paris at all, it gives an accurate description of the city. Other than that, the book is verbose, its depiction of women woefully sexist and out of date, and gives the reader the cringing feeling one gets when an older person is tring to be "with it." This book definitely has not stood the test of time.

I started this book and then stopped. I was about to dispose of it and then read some of the middle parts and started reading it again. I really enjoyed parts. Others, not so much. The almost journalistic parts about the revolution are excellent. The Gallagher soap opera is turgid. Sam Everton is a wholly unrealistic character, mainly a vehicle. The biggest fault with the second half of the novel is it requires sympathizing with "dear, darling Louisa," a character who left me cold.

A classic that stands the test of time. Note the parallels with Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises.

Courageous, unflinching portrayals of Americans in Paris.

Bertolucci's upcoming film covers the same time period. But this novel's the Real Thing.