Background
Information/ Why I Read This Book
This is a
historical novel based on the infamous Dreyfus Affair.
The
Dreyfus Affair (W) was something I first learned about back in my college days from a history lecture in a course on Modern
Europe. My professor at the time spent a
full 50 minutes talking about all the various ramifications of the Dreyfus
Affair, but to sum the whole thing up to its simplest points:
(1).
In 1894, Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer in the French army was convicted of
treason for passing military secrets to the Germans.
(2).
It turned out that Dreyfus might have been innocent, and a victim of anti-Semitism
in the French army.
(3).
French society divided into two camps.
The army and the Catholics were against Dreyfus, the republicans and the
anti-clericals believed Dreyfus was innocent,
(4—and
this is where things get interesting) Everyone in France collectively lost their
minds over this for the next 10 years.
It paralyzed French politics, it caused riots in the streets, it was the
source of trial after trial in the French courts, and Emile Zola, the leading
French literary figure at the time, plunged himself right into the middle of
it, by publically accusing the leaders of the military of corruption in his
infamous J’accuse
(W).
(Zola
was accused of libel, tried in a huge sensational court trial, convicted,
sentenced to jail, and then fled to England.)
At
a certain point, my history professor told us, the French stopped referring to
the case as “The Dreyfus Affair” and
instead just started saying, “The Affair”—so
infamous had the whole thing become that it needed no specification.
I
thought the whole thing sounded fascinating for several reasons. For one thing, the intense passion
surrounding the whole affair, and how completely out of hand everything got,
seems to be very stereotypically French. (As Americans, I think we enjoy mocking the
French for their excitability, but also secretly admire, and maybe even envy,
their intense passion about political issues.)
Also, for us political junkies, as this took place in what can generally
be called the modern era, the secular Left versus religious Right political
divisions caused by this affair look very similar to the political divisions we
still see today. Finally, this affair
revealed the deep anti-Semitism in some parts of French society, and so it
perhaps serves as a bit of an unsettling prelude to Vichy
France.
And
so after the history lecture I mentally marked The Dreyfus Affair down on my
long list of: “Things to read more about someday.”
…and
then, as with most of the things on that long list, I never got around to it.
The
Dreyfus Affair, however, has been touched on in a lot of the books I’ve
read. It was mentioned in the short biography I read of Georges Clemenceau. (Clemenceau was one of the leading supporters
of Dreyfus—or Dreyfusards, as they
were known.) The Dreyfus Affair, and how
it split the French anarchist community in the 1890s, is mentioned in the biography I read of Louis Michel.
The Dreyfus Affair is also featured in The World That Never Was.
(Victor-Henri de Rochefort (W), one of the figures whose
careers is followed in that book, made an interesting political shift from one
of the leading radical leftists in the 1870s to an anti-Semite and one of the
leading Anti-Dreyfusards in the 1890s.)
And the Dreyfus Affair is mentioned in the background as something affecting
the morale of the French troops in Africa in Thomas Pakenham’s The Scramble for Africa.
And
if we include movies in this list, The Life of Emile Zola, which I reviewed on this blog 8 years ago,
also dealt with the Dreyfus Affair.
But
up until now, I had read no full length books specifically devoted to the
subject.
Then,
shortly after reading and reviewing Conspirita by Robert Harris, I discovered that there was a new Robert Harris
historical fiction book about the Dreyfus Affair. “Well,” I thought, “this is definitely right
up my alley. I’m interested in the
Dreyfus Affair. I like historical
fiction. And I’ve enjoyed Robert Harris’s
other books.” (Okay, to be perfectly
honest, I did give Imperium by Robert Harris a bit of a harsh review.
But I enjoyed Conspirita at
least, and didn’t completely hate Imperium.)
So,
naturally, it was a foregone conclusion that I would have to buy and read this
book.
The
Review
An
excellent book! I fully recommend this
book to anyone remotely interested in the subject material.
I’ve
been a bit harsh on Robert Harris in the past, but if you accept that sometimes
the quality of an author can vary from book to book, than it’s possible for me
to be harsh on Imperium and still
praise this book. And this book is about
as perfect a work of historical fiction as you could ask for!
Historical
fiction is a broad genre but this is one of those historical fiction books that
sticks very closely to the historical record.
Just about every event in the book really happened, although it has been
re-imagined and dramatized for the purposes of the novel. And every single name that appears in the
book was a real historical person.
(Of
course, since the demands of the novel are slightly different from the demands
of a pure history, the author admits to having “been obliged to simplify, to cut out some figures entirely, to
dramatise and to invent many personal details” (Author’s Note). But I’m fairly sure these are all small details. At the very least, everything in the book
checks out with all the information available on Wikipedia.)
************************SPOILERS???*******************************
[Sidenote: Whenever I read historical
fiction, I always debate with myself whether or not reading the real history on
Wikipedia constitutes “spoiling” the story.
Generally, I tell myself it doesn’t, because the real history is public
knowledge, and it’s stuff I should have known anyways if I were a better, more
educated person. Besides, in many
historical novels, you already know the basics of the history anyway, and the
fun is just in seeing the author dramatizing it.
In
this particular case, however, there are numerous surprising twists along the
way—all of them historically accurate.
(The Dreyfus Affair is one of those cases where the truth really is much
stranger than fiction.) And I did ruin
much of this book for myself by reading the character biographies on Wikipeda
in advance. So be forewarned. Also, possibly if you really want to approach
this book fresh, it might be best to stop reading this review here.]
The
book is a first person narrative told from the perspective of Georges Picquart
(W), who was the head of the statistical section—the equivalent of
France’s
intelligence service at the time. The
book follows his amazing, but true, story of how Picquart started out as a firm
believer in Dreyfus’s guilt, but gradually started to uncover evidence that
proved Dreyfus was innocent. And then
once Picquart did uncover the evidence that Dreyfus was innocent, he faced a huge
struggle to get anyone in the army to care that they had sentenced the wrong
man to life imprisonment.
What’s
particularly good about this book is that Robert Harris completely recreates
Picquart’s whole investigation. The
reader goes on the journey of discovery with Picquart, seeing how initially
small pieces of information lead to bigger and bigger revelations as Picquart
keeps doggedly following the trail.
As
Picquart encounters layers upon layers of deception around him, his perception
about the people around him (both in the army, and his fellow officers in the
Statistical Section) also begins to change.
And the reader gets to experience this change of perception with Picquart,
as characters we once thought were trustworthy are revealed to be thoroughly
corrupt.
The
bulk of this book is on the intelligence detective work aspect of the
story. The huge political incident that
the Dreyfus Affair evolved into is focused on less—it’s not completely absent,
but it only occurs in the second part of the book.
The
book is divided into two parts—the first part is Georges Picquart’s
investigation, the second part is the legal struggle of Picquart and the other
Dreyfusards to get the French government to acknowledge it made a mistake.
The
first part of the book moves with excellent pacing—slow deliberate suspenseful
build-ups to a truth that is only gradually revealed.
The
second part of the book feels a bit rushed.
This is probably inevitable. At
608 pages, I suspect Robert Harris had reached the page limit his publishers
would allow for a mass-market paperback like this. To encompass all the details of the many Dreyfus
courtroom trails would have been just too much for one book.
Connections
with Other Books I’ve Read
I’ve
already listed several books in my introduction, and won’t repeat them
here. But there are a few other books on
my reading list that are related to this one.
* Alexander Dumas and The Man in the Iron Mask is mentioned a couple times in
this book by the characters as a reference to the fate of Dreyfus (who was,
like the man in the iron mask, locked away in a living tomb.)
* Emile Zola’s The Debacle is mentioned briefly in this book and Emile
Zola himself is of course a major player in the Dreyfus Affair.
* Besides Zola, another one of France’s literary giants of the period Anatole France is also mentioned (in passing) as a Dreyfusard.
* To explain the mind-set of the French army
in the 1890s, several references throughout this book are made to the massive
defeat the French suffered against the Germans in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War,
and which the French Army was still traumatized by in 1890. For an excellent history of that conflict,
see The Fall of Paris by Alistair Horne.
* Stefan Blowitz, one of the most famous
journalists of the 1890s, who was a character in Flashman and the Tiger, pops up briefly as well.
* Lastly, and somewhat more tangentially,
in my review of Cambodia’s Curse, I asked the
question of to what degree corruption is a uniquely Cambodian issue, and to
what degree is it something that permeates all governments?
The
Dreyfus Affair, as portrayed in this book, shows that the leaders of the French
Army in the 1890s were all thoroughly corrupt.
I’m sure this doesn’t reflect current French society, but it does seem
to suggest that many (all?) countries have some history of corruption in their
past.
Other
Notes:
* According to Wikipedia (W),
Roman Polanski is currently directing a movie based off of this book.
I’ll
be curious to see the movie when it comes out, although I’m a bit skeptical
that this story will fit neatly into a 2-hour film. But I’ll be happy if he proves me wrong.
* Unlike a lot of the obscure stuff I
sometimes read, I think this book is pretty popular with a lot of people. At least two of my co-workers have also read
it, and they also praised it highly.
* Add this book to my list of historical fiction books.
Link of the Day
4 comments:
Kewl! I'm putting this one on my nightstand.
Let me know what you think when you finish!
Two new eBooks provide chilling evidence of France's institutional antisemitism during the Dreyfus affair, the very comprehensive The Affair: The Case of Alfred Dreyfus by lawyer Jean-Denis Bredin of the Académie française and France and the Dreyfus Affair: A Documentary History with original documents, including from France's antisemitic press of that time.
Thanks for the info
Post a Comment