Discussion post: 3.1.7

[genarti]

Sorry it's a bit late! 3.1.7, "La Vendée a fini la Bretagne," translated as "La Vendée was the End of Brittany," or as... nothing? It looks to me like at least one translation just didn't give this one a title? Or possibly I skimmed too fast and missed it; I see another's translating it as "Brittany the Rebel."

Anyway. Talk away, if you have spare brain cells from Barricade Day!

Comments

[primeideal]

"Brittany was always waging the same war,—the war of the local mind against the central mind." And according to the narrator, it was in the right every time except the last--so merely being provincial isn't a drawback. It's just being opposed to the enlightened central government that draws the criticism.

"Halt! cried the ocean to the earth, and barbarism to civilization." Equating the ocean to the provincial-minded, and all of the earth (no matter what its elevation!) with progress.

"without a chief," No matter how the sailors tried to hype him up, even (fictional) Lantenac isn't going to be all that influential in the grand scheme of things.

"burning villages, ruining towns, pillaging houses, the massacre of women and children" The extreme tactics aren't necessarily limited to the counterrevolutionaries (at least if Marat has his way).

"the terror of civilization" Terror inflicted on civilization, by the "barbarians." But I wonder how you'd translate "the terror [carried out] by civilization."

"an unconscious attempt at parricide." The central, modern government is portrayed as the father of the more distant country, even if it belongs to a newer future.

Poking around while looking into a previous chapter, I saw some excerpts from an analysis of this and other books, focused on nationalism, the relationship between fathers and fatherland. This digression is finally over, and while I'm really glad to be leaving it, I guess it's worth having some take on the peasants as a unit, considering the extent to which we do or don't hear from them as individuals. Like I said early on, this narrative arguably began with a lack of mercy in the death of Mr. Fléchard. Since he doesn't get a voice, this is the next best thing.