Anatole France (1844–1924)

I picked this one up after reading Dumas Club and getting reacquainted with the Milton's Paradise Lost. After few people remarked that Revolt of the Angels is much better book on the relations between Heaven and Hell, and famous fall of The Rebels I was hooked and went to read this one.

Style-wise, book is relatively hard to read. It has archaic sentence structure and - at least for me - it is very very verbose. It is short book in any case but could be shorter still. Again this is something that can be said for every book from this age and I guess use of more sophisticated style was mark of the reader's own literacy level.

Now, story-wise ..... I will put this under spoilers because I will definitely mention them so be warned.



Story starts slow, and I mean slow. We get introduced to the family d'Esparvieu, its history, important members of the family etc and this goes on and on and on. In what might be called the foundation of the family, great library, strange things start to happen - books end up thrown on the floor, they are missing and then found in gutters of Paris. All of this starts to upset the librarian and poor soul starts to go crazy because of all of these events. It is not uninteresting, mind you but after chapter 3 I was like - OK, did they send me wrong book? Was not this about War in Heaven? And then actual story starts when the guardian angel of one of the family scions, Maurice, shows up while Maurice is having an affair (one of many) in a hotel. Guardian angel shows up and states he is leaving Maurice for a greater cause - fight against the impostor in Heaven (Pullman's book "Golden Compass" has a very similar twist). What happened is that this guardian angel (named Arcadia) while disgusted with Maurice's choice of women started reading books in family library and acquired knowledge that showed him he is is serving the wrong master in Heaven. So he decides to rebel and join the Fallen Angels roaming the world under various disguises.

So if we look at this, and time when the book was written (1914) it is obvious that Arcadia starts to play the role of the young revolutionary who reads works he takes for granted (I mean he reads works of mortal humans, creatures he alone says are below him, and finds heavenly truths in them (!?!)) and decides to take arms against what is seen as a perversion and great danger. Enter any revolutionary pamphlet or text here that calls for rebellion against "the others".

As a matter of fact as story progresses we can see that angels are very emotional and when in contact with Earth and especially humans they tend to lose their reason and give themselves completely to emotions. And those that embrace emotions the most fall the lowest - I think that author was giving not so subtle parallels with revolutionaries of the time, [violent] anarchist movements, who were people who sought something - without knowing what exactly - and decided to take arms and blow things up a bit to achieve it.

In general Arcadia and other Fallen Angels become activists, people taken away by emotions, concentrated on a single goal - violent takeover of power - without knowing (or even thinking) about the ultimate question - what then?

So our rebels decide that now is time to make Second War in Heaven - this time they will utilize technology and weaponry developed by humanity (explosives, firearms etc) and this will ensure their victory. Their meetings echo so much meetings of revolutionaries of early 20th century, where stories are told of old times that were beautiful and about all the progress that these activist's brought to the humans at the time (focus here is solely on Christendom, there is no mention of Islam here, which is weird considering what is meant by Fallen as one the greatest tragedies is loss of art and beautiful presentation of nature and humanity, ability to live the life of pleasure always and to the fullest and in this religion, human presentation is forbidden as is heavy drinking and general over-indulgence in life; I assume author was working with what was familiar to him so he skipped this).

To cut it short, Fallen Ones origin story is story how they brought everything that is beautiful to the world and it was only because of dictator from Heaven that suffering and decay entered the world (because in ancient times, especially in old Pharaoh land, there was no suffering, slaves and war - yeah, right :)). As can be taken from above this is very one-sided story, it rightly sounds like a myth, fairy tale to everyone else except those involved - our rebels just cannot accept any other version of the story. Other side is corrupt, dictatorial and they [rebels] are the true ones, protectors of life and all that is beautiful.

Soon they organize the great armies of angels to be hurtled against the Heaven but on their path they start to behave more and more like humans - they become greedy, jealous and possessive, they drink, get drunk and cause mayhem. It comes to a point that Maurice starts to act as guardian to Arcadia because he wants him turned back from the rebels. This in turn raises suspicion of French police because they start to see these loud, mysterious persons as opponents of the French government (especially when informers get information that revolution is on a way). When earthly police gets involved rebels do not think twice, they dispatch them in such a violent way that it should make them think, what have we become. Alas, this does not happen.

One of the small side-elements here are financiers. We are introduced to a wealthy man, who is also one of the original Fallen, ready to finance the rebels against Heaven. Why? Simple, he wants them off his land (France) because he wants to keep his base safe. On the other side other financial forces are financing the military might of the Heaven. Sounds familiar? Should be because here we again have parallels with the real world - heartless international financiers who give money to all sides in war because it is good business. Only condition - don't wage it on my turf.

And then comes the finale. Rebels are in need of leader so they go back to Big S (or L :)) and he says to them no. And thus rebellion fails.

Now, you may ask why not strike? Well Big S figures out that moment he sits on the Throne of Heaven (and he is sure it is doable with all the technology behind it) he will become the new tyrant. All the virtues that he sees in himself as a rebel for good would pass to the one he dethroned and sent to rule in Hell, while he will become what he despises. Basically he will switch the places and become the tyrant who everyone will want to bring down in a couple of millennia.

When it comes to parallels isn't this what happen to Russia after Tsar was deposed? Or let us look what happened when the "carrot-man-who-must-not-be-named" was replaced by another - what actually changed except division and enforcing of authority just grew more stronger (and not just here but also in a special places down under and all around the world)?

You might say that Big S decided to be a realist instead of activist. Instead of taking the throne and becoming what he is currently fighting against he decides to remain where he is and live his life with an image of the eternal rebel. Since he wont be able to answer the hard questions [that would come up if he has the ultimate power] he can always tell a story of small rebel against the gigantic tyrant and play the role of one who tried but failed, but is moral victor. Isn't this the situation with eternal political opposition - just make sure you are always against the power in place? And when you take power (the greatest fear for them all) then, hey, we need to take some drastic action. Please look the other way, nothing to see here, we "know" what we are doing here - right?

Roles might be changed but it is always the same players on both sides. And the oppression? It remains in place but now it supports the "right" guy :) actual people manning the police and other control mechanisms, they never change, they remain the same, only thing that gets changed is a badge or some other identification.

In this case Big S shows more reason than humanity and our band of rebels, and by deciding to remain eternal "rebel" he chooses to live in exile and at times point his finger and say "He is the enemy" and continue living without stirring any actual trouble.

I heard this book was forbidden/censored by Rome. I think that reason is this very ending, indication that every social movement that comes to power through revolution, ends up more strict and suffocating than the one before it. And when you put religious aspect to this .... well it does not sound good to general populace. Might sound strange doesn't it (especially in modern times), but keep in mind that secular forces have heavily censored hundreds of books and dozen of authors in last two years because of similarly ridiculous reasons. Activists, what else can be said......



All in all interesting book, to be honest not something I have expected but I truly liked the ending. It is way different book than Milton's and it has completely different message.

Recommended.… (meer)

Aaaaah, France, France… è sempre una garanzia: in venti paginette (tanto dura questo apologo, se non includiamo la Nota di Leonardo Sciascia, che ne è anche l’illustre traduttore), riesce a far arrivare a lettrici e lettor* il suo messaggio.

Devo confessare di essere arrivata in qualche modo preparata al finale perché conosco Anatole France e ho capito fin dalle prime pagine dove sarebbe andato a parare, e un po’ mi dispiace: sento come se mi fossi persa una parte della forza con la quale avrebbe potuto colpirmi.

Quindi, il mio consiglio, se non conoscete questo autore, è di iniziare proprio da Il procuratore della Giudea, visto che è facilmente reperibile nel catalogo di Sellerio (e, con i libri di France, la reperibilità nella nostra lingua non è proprio da dare per scontata).

Non voglio dirvi di più perché è una di quelle storie delle quali meno si sa e più ci si godono, ma spero di avervi incuriosito perché France è un autore abile a ricordarci concetti che di questi tempi non sembrano poi tanto diffusi...… (meer)

Davanti all'Affare Dreyfus, nel quale si accusava un innocente, non tutti rimasero a guardare ed è ormai proverbiale il J'Accuse...! che Émile Zola scagliò dalle pagine de L'Aurore contro coloro che misero in piedi l'intera vicenda. Non solo: l'indomani, sul medesimo giornale, comparve la Petizione degli intellettuali, firmata tra gli altri anche da Anatole France.

Lo scrittore, oltre a essere molto colpito dall'Affare (probabilmente obbligatorio nella France di fine XIX secolo), ne intuì la grande importanza, dato che finì per parlarne nell'ultimo volume della tetralogia Storia contemporanea e ne L'isola dei pinguini, satira sfacciata della società occidentale e del suo tetro futuro.

Così sfacciata che fece incazzare di brutto la Chiesa cattolica, che in effetti nel romanzo non fa una gran bella figura (come è successo nella storia, comunque, France non si inventa nulla). Ovviamente per punirlo per la sua satira irriguardosa e per la sua irreligiosità blasfema, nel 1920 la Chiesa pensò bene di mettere all'Indice tutte le sue opere.

Chissà come si sarebbero sfregati le mani nel sapere che nel 2016 Anatole France avrebbe continuato a essere bellamente ignorato e dimenticato, nonostante il valore letterario delle sue opere, il suo essere uno dei grandi del Novecento (uno che ispirò Proust, ragazz*), l'aver vinto il Nobel per la letteratura nel 1921 e aver avuto dei funerali di Stato grandiosi (avete presenti quelle cose in grande stile tipiche dei francesi? Ecco).

Mi rendo conto di non aver detto sostanzialmente nulla di questo romanzo: leggete L'isola dei pinguini e lasciatevi dire tutto da France. Lasciate che la sua satira vi diverta, vi faccia riflettere e vi intristisca, oggi come allora: France è uno dei grandi, uno degli autori sempre attuali.… (meer)