London: The Folio Society, 1982
This has been my ten-minute read for the last little while: the type of book you can pick up, read for ten minutes, put down again, and pick up an hour or a day later and read another ten minutes. A collection of diary entries, letters, and other documents, it covers the Siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War, and then goes on to the short-lived Paris Commune. It is a quirky book.
It's quirkiness I think comes down to the Publisher - The Folio Society. The choices made are quintessentially English (in fact quite a few of the letters and diaries belong to English or American writers). Paris, and the French, are inevitably portrayed as over-emotional and ineffective, in opposition to the ruthless and cruel Prussians, and both decidedly inferior to the British.
The reader is best to bring to the book the broad outlines of the history of the events it covers, but what the reader does get is a feel for what living through that time in Paris was like: at least, what it was like if you were middle-class. The book completely lacks any documents from the rulers of the Commune, or any reference to the peasant class, apart from the disparaging remarks of the correspondents who are quoted within the book. This once-again comes down to the publisher and the audience for which they are catering.
There are some great descriptions of the burning of the Tuileries, and of the destruction of the Vendome Column, and most of the letters and diary entries are fascinating, but this is a light-weight book. Perfect for ten minute pockets of reading.
Cheers for now, from
A View Over the Bell
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