Hilary Mantel, 1992
Edition read: Fourth Estate, 2010, 872 pages
Read: April–September 2024
Historical fiction
As with Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy, this hefty historical epic* covers the life and times of some great men of history, this time across the Channel and delving into a social rather than a theological upheaval: the French Revolution.
Told through the carouselling perspectives of three figures central to the revolution (plus a cohort of secondary characters), Georges D’Anton (later just the more streetwise ‘Danton’), Maximilien Robespierre and Camille Desmoulins, the scope is broad, starting with their childhoods in the French countryside, through to their schooldays, their respective moves to Paris, their careers as lawyers and their participation in the revolution. Besides allowing considerable breathing space for characterisation, this scope also effectively portrays how the revolution was as much a process as an event, which ultimately took place over some ten years.
In addition to this ambitious scope, Mantel also writes in great detail. As well as insights into the psyche of each character (as with Wolf Hall’s Cromwell, this is the element of fiction that accompanies the history of the meticulously researched events), it is ornately written, moving not just day by day but idea by idea, very much positing the idea that the revolution took place first in drops and then in rivers (of blood), with the factional struggles that came to characterise the revolutionary movement presented in ample detail. Besides the numerous factors, driving ideas and events of the French Revolution being funnelled through the perspectives of the three main characters, as well as the many, many secondary ones, the tense shifts a lot. At least some of this myriad of secondary characters was surplus to requirement, meaning that I had to flick back to the dramatis personae on a regular basis; more time spent with fewer characters would have resulted in a more focused narrative.
A Place of Greater Safety is partially a history lesson, but its subjectivity and intricate, ultra-focused (and fragmented) perspectives means that it would help to have a knowledge of the French Revolution before reading it.** This provides a segue back to my comment about ‘great men of history’: the novel, with all of its shifting perspectives and subjectivity, makes allowance for the counter-argument that broader social factors were just as responsible for the revolution as were the actions of any one particular figure. Here, events are sometimes seen as the drivers of these men, and sometimes vice versa.
How effective a comment this is upon trying to write a history upon a multifaceted event, and the element of confusion that must accompany being in the midst of a revolution, is up to the patience of the reader. There is a lot between the lines and keeping up this level of active reading for 770 pages is hard. It’s certainly an original approach and Mantel has a distinctive way of writing and you’re either going to enjoy its idiosyncrasies or run out of patience for it.
Worth reading? Yes, although I would start with a shorter Mantel novel to get an idea if you’re going to like her style of writing.
Worth re-reading? If you can handle it, yes. A second read would help a lot with comprehension.
*In what can only be called a daring effort, this, apparently, was the first novel that Mantel ever wrote (although not had published).
** I retroactively did so via The Rest is History podcast.
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