Proud Destiny (Feuchtwanger)
Oct. 9th, 2023 07:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahn3+/5. Courtesy of selenak, this is a saga primarily concerned with the French author Pierre Beaumarchais (he of the original play version of Marriage of Figaro, which indeed is a significant plot strand in this book) and his quest to help finance the American Revolution. (My understanding from selenak is that Feuchtwanger wrote it after emigrating to the US as sort of a thank-you present to his new country.) Beaumarchais is a hero who is in many ways like Feuchtwanger's other heroes without at all being identical: a complex, not always likeable guy who has strong opinions which are not always correct, and who is interesting without always being entirely sympathetic. He also, like the other Feuchtwanger heroes I've seen, is also quite attractive to the ladies.
There are a lot of different strands and characters, as you might expect, in addition to Beaumarchais: Benjamin Franklin and his visit to France to solicit money; the various news of the American Revolution battles, etc. coming at various points; Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette (called Toinette in the novel) and their struggles with financing, well, both Toinette and the American Revolution; Voltaire's last visit to Paris culminating in his death; Emperor Joseph's visit to France and his taking care of Louis and his sister Toinette's problem with Louis not doing sex correctly to impregnate her ( <-- !! true fact I have learned from salon! though Feuchtwanger blames a surgery that Louis needed, which I believe was older scholarship, and apparently newer scholarship has revealed that the actual problem was that Louis just, er, didn't know how to do sexual intercourse properly, which I'm so sad wasn't known scholarship at the time because I would love to know how Feuchtwanger would have written that). There is, also, the death of a young man, though not as young as in the other Feuchtwangers I've read, and because it's telegraphed from the beginning it's not as dreadful as the other ones.
Anyway, this all sounds like it would be wildly interesting, and parts of it were, though I must admit that this is the Feuchtwanger that took the longest for me to read and that I have found least compelling so far, even though in subject matter it should be right up my alley. I think that part of this is that the disparate plot pieces and characterization arcs didn't come together for me in the same way that they did in The Oppermanns and the Josephus trilogy, which may well be a me problem (I read the bulk of this in a few planes and hotel rooms on three different trips, so that may be part of the disconnect).
I think another part of the issue may have been that -- well -- I mean -- we all know it didn't really turn out that great for the French nobility in the end, so this makes a bit hard to root for the whole endeavor when we're seeing it through the French nobility's eyes, even though of course as an American I do root for it :) And I don't think that Feuchtwanger wholly intended us to root for it (though the novel is of course at its base a story about the American victory).selenak pointed out to me that Feuchtwanger makes Louis the voice of the impending doom -- and in so doing makes him a somewhat different, both sharper and more depressed personality than I have otherwise seen ascribed to him, which unfortunately also makes him less likeable to me. (My strong headcanon is that Louis XVI was on the spectrum, though obviously no one knows.)
Anyway, although I seem not to have connected with it on the book-wide level that I'm sure Feuchtwanger intended, I both loved a lot of the disparate scenes (Voltaire's death! Putting on the Marriage of Figaro!) and learned a lot (I really hadn't known at all about Beaumarchais' role here, or really much about Beaumarchais at all). Feuchtwanger is a detailed and proficient author (to the extent of the scholarship available at the time, etc.), and I was able to put a lot of things into context I hadn't quite figured out before or had seen before but, well, it's very useful to see it all in the same place like this, and I'm glad I read this.
selenak, this is a saga primarily concerned with the French author Pierre Beaumarchais (he of the original play version of Marriage of Figaro, which indeed is a significant plot strand in this book) and his quest to help finance the American Revolution. (My understanding from selenak is that Feuchtwanger wrote it after emigrating to the US as sort of a thank-you present to his new country.) Beaumarchais is a hero who is in many ways like Feuchtwanger's other heroes without at all being identical: a complex, not always likeable guy who has strong opinions which are not always correct, and who is interesting without always being entirely sympathetic. He also, like the other Feuchtwanger heroes I've seen, is also quite attractive to the ladies.There are a lot of different strands and characters, as you might expect, in addition to Beaumarchais: Benjamin Franklin and his visit to France to solicit money; the various news of the American Revolution battles, etc. coming at various points; Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette (called Toinette in the novel) and their struggles with financing, well, both Toinette and the American Revolution; Voltaire's last visit to Paris culminating in his death; Emperor Joseph's visit to France and his taking care of Louis and his sister Toinette's problem with Louis not doing sex correctly to impregnate her ( <-- !! true fact I have learned from salon! though Feuchtwanger blames a surgery that Louis needed, which I believe was older scholarship, and apparently newer scholarship has revealed that the actual problem was that Louis just, er, didn't know how to do sexual intercourse properly, which I'm so sad wasn't known scholarship at the time because I would love to know how Feuchtwanger would have written that). There is, also, the death of a young man, though not as young as in the other Feuchtwangers I've read, and because it's telegraphed from the beginning it's not as dreadful as the other ones.
Anyway, this all sounds like it would be wildly interesting, and parts of it were, though I must admit that this is the Feuchtwanger that took the longest for me to read and that I have found least compelling so far, even though in subject matter it should be right up my alley. I think that part of this is that the disparate plot pieces and characterization arcs didn't come together for me in the same way that they did in The Oppermanns and the Josephus trilogy, which may well be a me problem (I read the bulk of this in a few planes and hotel rooms on three different trips, so that may be part of the disconnect).
I think another part of the issue may have been that -- well -- I mean -- we all know it didn't really turn out that great for the French nobility in the end, so this makes a bit hard to root for the whole endeavor when we're seeing it through the French nobility's eyes, even though of course as an American I do root for it :) And I don't think that Feuchtwanger wholly intended us to root for it (though the novel is of course at its base a story about the American victory).
selenak pointed out to me that Feuchtwanger makes Louis the voice of the impending doom -- and in so doing makes him a somewhat different, both sharper and more depressed personality than I have otherwise seen ascribed to him, which unfortunately also makes him less likeable to me. (My strong headcanon is that Louis XVI was on the spectrum, though obviously no one knows.)Anyway, although I seem not to have connected with it on the book-wide level that I'm sure Feuchtwanger intended, I both loved a lot of the disparate scenes (Voltaire's death! Putting on the Marriage of Figaro!) and learned a lot (I really hadn't known at all about Beaumarchais' role here, or really much about Beaumarchais at all). Feuchtwanger is a detailed and proficient author (to the extent of the scholarship available at the time, etc.), and I was able to put a lot of things into context I hadn't quite figured out before or had seen before but, well, it's very useful to see it all in the same place like this, and I'm glad I read this.
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Date: 2023-10-10 08:15 am (UTC)PierreBeaumarchais and his efforts for the cause!:)Of the other Feuchtwanger novels, I think The Jewess of Toledo and possibly This is the Hour might suit you best. This is the Hour is the Goya novel, so late 18th century; it has the bad luck of being the first part of a planned duology of novels, with the second Goya novel supposedly covering the Napoleonic invasion and Goya's exile in France, but it still has its own completed narrative arc, including the stormy relationship between Goya and Cayetana, the Duchess of Alba, and Feuchtwanger's take on why Maria Luisa, the Queen (and younger sister of Joseph II's wife Isabella of Parma) said yes to Goya's depiction of her and her family. The Jewess of Toledo was Feuchtwanger's last but one novel, and is a lot of people's favourite - not mine, though it might come in second place. It takes a bit of 12th century legend/history which in German language literature previously has been depicted by Franz Grillparzer's drama from the Christian pov, and tells it from the Jewish pov instead, has a fascinating setting (Feuchtwanger includes all three of the religions in not yet called Spain dominant at the period, and there are sympathetic Muslim characters as well, uncluding his hero Jehuda's bff from years of living in one of the Muslim kingdoms of Spain before moving ot Castile), and it does tackle that narrative trickiness, dramatizing NOT going to war. It's Crusade times! Everyone wants to! Except Jehuda and his daughter, the titular heroine Raquel and most of the Jewish subjects of various realms because they know who'll be attacked first.
(Feuchtwanger always wanted to write a novel about Esther but wasn't content with any of his drafts and then wrote this novel instead. Which also "has the ruler of power falls for pretty Jewess who becomes advocate of her people in hour of need backed up by father figure doubling as minister vs lethally minded other officials of King" fable, but with, hm, different outcomes.)
I'm on the fence as to whether or not to rec you Jew Süss/ Power (depending on which translation you use). It is actually one of his best novels, there's a reason why this became his breakthrough international bestseller in the mid 1920s (which thus saved his life fifteen years later, as I'm not sure he'd have made it out of the camp Les Milles in France if not for being an internationally famous author read by Eleanor Roosevelt), and it's the first Feuchtwanger novel I ever read; it immediately captured me. Also it's early 18th century and thus you have the advantage of period knowledge. (The main Duke of Württemberg in this novel, Carl Alexander, is the fataher of the Carl Eugen who was unhappily married to Wilhelmine's daughter and who bullied young Schiller till the later hightailed it out of Württemberg.) BUT Joseph Süss Oppenheimer especially in the first third of the novel before certain plot elements and character development kick in is an extremely shady Feuchtwanger (anti)hero, and his profession as Court Jew and banker means he's helping Carl Alexander to squeeze his population, thus fulfilling an antisemitic cliché. Now, this is a historical figure, including his profession, and there would not be any character development if he'd started out a good guy. But I think one can tell that this novel was written in the 1920s, pre-Holocaust, and The Jewess of Toledo in the 1950s, post Holocaust when you compare how Joseph and Jehuda, who both are ambitious Jews rising to power with Christian rulers (and refusing to convert) are written early on, despite both being morally ambigious.
(Sidenote, because it bears repeating: this novel is not the basis for the Nazi film. It was put on the index of forbidden books by the Nazis in 1933 and was among the books publically burned that very year. But the fact Feuchtwanger had awoken great interest in this relatively obscure bit of Württemberg history is undoubtedly one of the reasons why Goebbels ordered a counter version with the same title.)
All this being said, it's a fascinating novel. Like I said, there's a reason why this after he'd been writing for many years already became the big breakthrough.
Three Feuchtwanger novels you probably would not like:
- The Ugly Duchess: that rarity, a Feuchtwanger novel around a female main character (The Jewess of Toledo has the titular Raquel as a very important character, but the main character is without a doubt her father Jehuda), but alas Margarete Maultasch, the heroine, due to being a historical figure ends up in failure after first being brilliant and outmanoeuvring the various opponents against her. Her spectacular ugliness was assumed then, but historical research marches on and the famous drawing supposedly depicting her when Feuchtwanger wrote this book in the 1920s was later shown to depict someone else, so we have no idea whether she was really that bad looking. In any case, Feuchtwanger was interested in a woman with everything but high rank against her (she's a woman, she's ugly) in the Middle Ages who still wins for a time. But alas then history happens. Amusingly, Feuchtwanger seems to have found this so unfair he wrote his own canon AU in another work, his (then) present day play Die Petroleumsinseln, which self confessedly transports the bare plot of The Ugly Duchess into his present, and where Magarete becomes an American oil woman, still ugly, but coming out on top. Lotte Lenya played her in the Berlin production. Anyway, back to "The Ugly Duchess": reading about a woman repeatedly vilified for a her looks who when it seems she's finally made it and found people who appreciate her then gets torn down again = not fun.
- Jephtha and his Daughter: Feuchtwanger's last novel, published in the year of his death, and the only one tackling a bit of Jewish history where the Jews aren't a persecuted minority but in a position of power. Also one of his shortest novels. It's highly readable and for a Feuchtwanger novel has a minimal cast of characters (Jephtah, his family, and the main priest, essentially).... but well, the clue is in the title. You know what happens.
- Erfolg/Success: the reason why you would not like this is simply because if you think Proud Destiny has a plethora of disconnected characters already, well, Erfolg has many more. It's meant to, as it portrays Bavaria in general and Munich in particular during three critical years in the early 1920s. It's absolutely brilliant in that, both in the still applicable inside satire (what with Feuchtwanger being very very much a guy from Munich), and in being the very first novel taking on the Nazis and Hitler three years BEFORE Hitler came to power (the novel was published in 1930, and the failed Hitler coup from 1923, which Feuchtwanger as a citizen of Munich during the time in question got to witness up close in its ghastly ridiculousness and ridiculous ghastliness (i.e dead people "only" about 20, but many beaten up, and oh, the foreshadowing) is a big plot point). The narrative red thread is a trial in which the conservative circles of Munich get rid of a progressive museum director by framing him, and the guy's friend Johanna's subsequent effort to get him out of prison, but around that plot you have this dozens upon dozens of portraits of all types of people living in Munich in the 1920s, from all classes, and a very very perceptive showing that the liberal enlightened attitudes are in retreat while populism and violence is on the rise. Johanna Krain is probably 99% of Feuchtwanger reader's favourite female Feuchtwanger character (and it does end well for her, if not for everyone else, I hasten to add - she doesn't get raped, she doesn't get killed, she doesn't get imprisoned), and there's a hilarious and wonderful portrait of the young Bertolt Brecht in it (which upset Brecht so much that he travelled after Feuchtwanger to where the Feuchtwangers were vacationing and tried to talk him out of it, in vain), under the nome de plume Caspar Pröckl. (The Hitler character is called Rupert Kutzner. Everyone rl based has different names, I mean, Feuchtwanger and his publisher in 1930 did not want to get sued. But it's very clear who everyone rl based is. Including a character who is Feuchtwanger making fun of himself under the name Jaques Tüverlin. Johanna and a few others are fictional.) But, like I said: practically every chapter has a different pov character. An easy reading, this is not, especially in translation, because I'm not sure how many of the jokes come across in the English version as sharp and funny as they do in German.
(Mind you: it's still good to know that the Nazis were outraged and fuming in 1930 and swearing revenge in every Nazi publication there was when this novel was published, but that they never got it, since Feuchtwanger got out of France in time.)
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Date: 2023-10-12 05:08 am (UTC)(Feuchtwanger always wanted to write a novel about Esther but wasn't content with any of his drafts and then wrote this novel instead. Which also "has the ruler of power falls for pretty Jewess who becomes advocate of her people in hour of need backed up by father figure doubling as minister vs lethally minded other officials of King" fable, but with, hm, different outcomes.)
Huh, this sounds really interesting to me :) Although, uh, okay, I looked up spoilers for Raquel and that sounds like a downer ending too!
BUT Joseph Süss Oppenheimer especially in the first third of the novel before certain plot elements and character development kick in is an extremely shady Feuchtwanger (anti)hero, and his profession as Court Jew and banker means he's helping Carl Alexander to squeeze his population, thus fulfilling an antisemitic cliché.
*nods* I can see why you are on the fence about reccing this. I am also on the fence as to what I would think? It probably depends a lot on the mood I would be in when reading it, which is not helpful :)
but alas Margarete Maultasch, the heroine, due to being a historical figure ends up in failure
Yeah, Do Not Want the failure bit. It's too bad because other than the end bit it sounds fascinating! Hmm, though, it looks like it's available cheap in e-book, unlike everything else which is drastically out of print... maybe I could just skip the ending :P
- Jephtha and his Daughter: .... but well, the clue is in the title. You know what happens.
Argh. Yes. I can't imagine this would be one of my favorites. But idk, I think it could be interesting to see how he tackles it...
Erfolg/Success: the reason why you would not like this is simply because if you think Proud Destiny has a plethora of disconnected characters already, well, Erfolg has many more.
Hee. This sounds like the sort of book that would be absolutely brilliant to read if one knew what he was talking about! But yes, I think my 20th-C German history is not strong enough to bear such a read :)
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Date: 2023-10-11 05:54 pm (UTC)Oh, and since you wanted another version with updated historical research of Joseph having THE TALK with Louis, voila: https://youtu.be/XVQRfkjYFjk?si=pREVropl6eTMkt5e
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Date: 2023-10-12 05:24 am (UTC)LOLOLOL to Joseph having THE TALK! I love it. (And I love the MA/Louis, aw!) Is that a verbatim quote from a letter to MT?
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Date: 2023-10-12 08:38 am (UTC)Voltaire was great, I agree! I'm sure that Voltaire himself would say that in the hands of a competent writer who could write him in character, which Feuchtwanger is, the material would make sure of that...
LOL, yes, Voltaire would. It occurs to me that the John Adams ministeries as well as the musical 1776 have a wonderful, bursting with vitality Franklin - as a supporting character. Maybe the central spot light plus added virtue are the problem? (I mean, one of the most hilarious scenes in the John Adams miniseries is when Adams shows up in France and finds Franklin taking a bath, naked of course, with his equally naked French mistress.) Whereas Feuchtwanger didn't feel he had to whitewash Voltaire or Beaumarchais.
Is that a verbatim quote from a letter to MT?
It's a slightly paraphrased and of course shorter version of the letter to Leopold where Joseph in the original goes more into graphic details. But the audience has no idea who Leopold is who otherwise is not needed in this movie anyway, whereas MT has that short appearance at the start and when she gets the letter, and is played by Marianne Faithfull of rock legend fame.
The scene is from Sofia Coppola's 2006 movie Marie Antoinette (with Kirsten Dunst as MA). Some more scenes:
ETA: And one more scene: 14 years old Maria Antonia arrives at the French border and ceremoniously has to leave Austria behind, which includes a complete change of wardrobe and a goodbye of her beloved pet dog (whose state of being she will still ask Joseph about 7 years later) so she can become Marie Antoinette: Arrival in France
/ETA
The Du Barry sequence (i.e. the teenage MA vs Dubarry scene culminating in the famous one line "There are many people at Versailles today" which was all she ever said to Du Barry.
I Want Candy sequence: probably the most famous montage of the movie; back then, using modern pop songs in a historical movie was still new. (I'm not sure Sofia Coppola invented it, but it was certainly the first time I saw it used. In the movie, this happens after all the frustration and humilation of marital non-consummation plus ensuing court gossip is shown, and MA throws herself into partying as a distraction. Basically the era from Proud Destiny.
MA on the balcony during the last night in Versailles: The night of the famous women's march on Versailles. Lafayette who did go with Marie Antoinette on that balcony to calm the masses and famously kissed her hand (which did the trick) is Sir Not Appearing In This Movie, but then this is near the end; the movie ends with the royal family leaving Versailles and being brought to Paris by the successful marchers, the next scene:
Leaving Versailles
There's also no credits telling us she got executed two years later, which I thought was the right choice. If you watch a movie about Marie Antoinette, you know this happened. BTW, Louis is Jason Schwartzman, and both Dunst and he were actually as young as Louis and MA were in the movie's first half, if not quite passing for Louis and MA in their 30s in the second. The movie does the "arranged marriage becomes genuine strong affection" trope quite well with these two, though it's also clear that while MA likes Louis and stands by him through thick and thin (and vice versa), she's not romantically attracted to him, whereas he is to her.
When the French Revolution had its big 200th centenary, there was among other things a quite good tv two parter, a European co-production titled: "The French Revolution: Years of Hope" and "The French Revolution: Years of Terror" , respectively, going basically from 1789 to Robespierre's execution. Here, Jane Seymour plays Marie Antonette in her judgment and execution scene. Christopher Lee cameos as Charles-Henri Sanson, probably the most famous executioner of Paris, and they included the incident of her accidently stepping on his foot and apologizing:
Judgment and execution scene
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Date: 2023-10-14 05:15 am (UTC)Oh riiiight, the Leopold letter! I'd forgotten :)
ahahaha those snippets are great.
I Want Candy sequence: probably the most famous montage of the movie; back then, using modern pop songs in a historical movie was still new.
Not being much of a movie watcher, this was still new to me! (Though you'd talked about it before, of course.)
There's also no credits telling us she got executed two years later, which I thought was the right choice. If you watch a movie about Marie Antoinette, you know this happened.
:( Yeah.
BTW, Louis is Jason Schwartzman, and both Dunst and he were actually as young as Louis and MA were in the movie's first half, if not quite passing for Louis and MA in their 30s in the second.
It really did bring home to me how much Louis and MA were really just kids in over their heads. And I also thought it was interesting how much it stressed how Louis just got carried along. I mean, obviously the film is called "Marie Antoinette" and not "Louis XVI," so some of that is just a focus on her, but also it did underscore how much he didn't know what to do, even though he was King.
Christopher Lee cameos as Charles-Henri Sanson, probably the most famous executioner of Paris, and they included the incident of her accidently stepping on his foot and apologizing
I would never have figured out this was Christopher Lee if you hadn't told me!
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Date: 2023-10-14 07:05 am (UTC)Franklin's introduction
Franklin and Adams beta-read the Declaration of Independence
Franklin arguing with Adams
It really did bring home to me how much Louis and MA were really just kids in over their heads.
They were. I mean, Louis himself said "God help us, we are too young" when his grandfather died, as seen in this clip. I mean, the bigger problem was that the Kingdom of France was nearly bankrupt, soon to be actually bankrupt, and that the administrative structures were hopelessly outdated and nearly needed something as radical as the Revolution for a complete reset. (Unless Louis had been willing to offend his entire nobility, for example, he could not have ended the disastrous tradition of handing offices - be they army posts or judges - to people simply because of their blood line instead of their merit. And you can't save a run-down kingdom with people unwilling and/ir incapable of working. And he certainly could not have taken all the Catholic Church property which to a great part financed revolutionary France. But really completely restarting the administration (complete with redesigning the districts into what is still used to this day), overhauling the law code entirely (with the post revolutionary Code Napoleon as the end result) and introducing a meritocracy - I have a hard time imagining how even a political genius could have restored France without using these means. So Louis and Marie Antoinette paid for centuries of Bourbon policy, essentially.
Re: Christopher Lee - did you watch him in anything where he's younger than Saruman?
Re: Sanson - I thought him saying "Courage, Madame" to her in reply and steadying her was a nice touch. Sanson wasn't personally malicious - also he wanted to be a doctor and couldn't be because of the Ancien Regime rules about executioner families -, and he didn't hate her. Mind you, given his first act as a executioner was when his teenage self had to assist his uncle (the then head executioner of Paris) in the absolutely gruesome and barbaric execution of the wannabe assassin of Louis XV (remember, the hanged, drawn and quartered execution complete with extra torture beforehand), I doubt he saw royalty in general in a rosy light. He'd been an eager supporter of the introduction of the Guillontine precisely because he thought it would be less cruel and painful and in danger of exhausted executioners becoming involuntary butchers.
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Date: 2023-10-21 07:19 pm (UTC)I have a hard time imagining how even a political genius could have restored France without using these means. So Louis and Marie Antoinette paid for centuries of Bourbon policy, essentially.
Oh, yes, absolutely, I imagine older and wiser heads would also have... rolled, so to speak, in the same position. But these poor kids :(
Re: Christopher Lee - did you watch him in anything where he's younger than Saruman?
No.
He'd been an eager supporter of the introduction of the Guillontine precisely because he thought it would be less cruel and painful and in danger of exhausted executioners becoming involuntary butchers.
Absolutely agreed about the "Courage, Madame," which I loved -- and you know, something I thought when watching this scene that I wouldn't have thought before salon is how the guillotine really is more humane in that one particular way than all those axe executions you've told me about that don't go well *shudder*. I mean, that says more about the utter terribleness of the bad executions than anything else, as the guillotine of course is terrible in its own way of allowing that numbing volume of executions, but before now (although I had known that it was introduced as a more humane alternative) I didn't have context for what would have been in its place; at least MA got to die instantaneously.
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Date: 2023-10-22 06:21 pm (UTC)(I did watch some of younger Lee's films, including three of the Draculas, but not that particular opus.) Anyway, Christopher Lee: very cool person, good actor if they let him, but you really don't have to watch the majority of his movies because most of them were pulp. The vid is great fun, though. And shows why once Hammer had hired Christopher Lee as Dracula, they kept letting him play the role ad infinitum. There are many better Dracula movies than even the best of the Hammer Dracula movies, but no one menaces and bites quite with such style as young to middle aged Christopher Lee.