Out of the Shadows: Women and Politics in the French Revolution, 1789-95 Book

I found the title extremely fascinating. In few day, I am going to France for three weeks and thought this might be a good book to read, even though it was written in 1919.

It is a small book. The writing is always powerful but somehow I did not enjoy reading what she has to say about the French. Her take on the French is full of admiration and appreciation. Consequently, I found the text, at least in parts, hilarious. In the preface, she writes, ''one can imagine the first Frenchman born into the world looking about him confidently, and saying: Here I am; and now, how am I to make the most of it.'' Later in the book, she compares the French woman to the American woman and claims that the French woman is fully evolved and grown-up, while the American woman is still in Kindergarten. She gives, not so satisfying reasons, for such a blunt distinction.

As she goes on to describe the French history and its traditions, she just sees greatness everywhere. She is superbly selective, and only through this careful selection she supports what she has to say. One is aware of the greatness of French art, culture and so forth. Paris, for instance, has always attracted artists, writers, young people from every corner of the world. However, page after page Wharton chants paeans of what is good about the French. The book has some wonderful descriptions of the French landscapes. One cannot help thinking how is this different (or superior) from some other European landscapes. I can see in her words European cities and landscapes.

Only in the last chapter, she says a few negative things about the French, and then gently dismiss them. For instance, She writes, ''The French it must be repeated, are a race indifferent to the rights of others.'' She further adds some popular stereotypes about the French such as they are ''mean and cannot be trusted.'' But according to Wharton, these cliches about the French, if there is any truth to them, only reflect the lower classes ( as if the lower classes are not French). The aristocratic (or the right sorts) French are always democratic, laborious and even ascetic. Elsewhere she says they are pleasure seekers and knows how to be joyful.

Wharton right in the Preface warns the reader that her views on The French are not definitive in any way, and refers to her book as desultory that contains a series of disjointed notes on the French.

The book in terms of language is far from disjointed. And not desultory by any standards.