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Sun King's Review
Hi,
So last night I finally plowed through Saint-Simon and the Court of Louis XIV by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie and Jean-Francois Fitou and translated by Arthur Goldhammber. The title is pretty encapsulating -- it's a study of the various factions in the court of Louis XIV (and in the regency period following his death) that draws heavily on, without uncritically trusting, the famous memoirs of Duc de Saint-Simon.
Although the topic is of some interest to me, the book is a bit of a slog and it's not helped by my general lack of French history (Charlemagne, then a bunch of kings, schism pope, never winning against England, revolution, then Napoleon....you see my problem). On the upside I learned a heck of a lot about various factions within the Catholic Church during the time period, but mostly because I had to look up all these -isms and -ists that were being referred to constantly. All that effort also reminded me that every deep philosophical question, position or argument you've ever had has been done much better by someone who lived a few hundred years before you.
The book was clearly written for a student of French history and I was under no illusions about that so I can hardly complain. Still, it seemed a little unfocused and it didn't seem as though translation was the problem. It jammed a number of anecdotes from the memoirs together and dumped a huge number of characters into the mix without really establishing them or giving anyone (other than Saint-Simon) any real focus. The book takes several different slices to get at the culture of the court, but I think that makes it more imperative to try and follow a bit of narrative so that each section has a stronger punch.
The one really cool part is the relationship map that they draw to represent the various cabals and factions at court. That's actually pretty great and if you want some sort of complex relationship map for an RPG or LARP, it's certainly worth stealing. The three main cabals were focused around Louis XIV, his son and his grandson and because your enemy today might be king tomorrow, there was a fair amount of intermingling between the various groups. A lot of games have groups that are unified and never have any honest under-the-table dealings. This book can help break out of that mold.
In the main though, not a book I'd recommend unless you're really jazzed about French history or this particular period.
later
Tom
So last night I finally plowed through Saint-Simon and the Court of Louis XIV by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie and Jean-Francois Fitou and translated by Arthur Goldhammber. The title is pretty encapsulating -- it's a study of the various factions in the court of Louis XIV (and in the regency period following his death) that draws heavily on, without uncritically trusting, the famous memoirs of Duc de Saint-Simon.
Although the topic is of some interest to me, the book is a bit of a slog and it's not helped by my general lack of French history (Charlemagne, then a bunch of kings, schism pope, never winning against England, revolution, then Napoleon....you see my problem). On the upside I learned a heck of a lot about various factions within the Catholic Church during the time period, but mostly because I had to look up all these -isms and -ists that were being referred to constantly. All that effort also reminded me that every deep philosophical question, position or argument you've ever had has been done much better by someone who lived a few hundred years before you.
The book was clearly written for a student of French history and I was under no illusions about that so I can hardly complain. Still, it seemed a little unfocused and it didn't seem as though translation was the problem. It jammed a number of anecdotes from the memoirs together and dumped a huge number of characters into the mix without really establishing them or giving anyone (other than Saint-Simon) any real focus. The book takes several different slices to get at the culture of the court, but I think that makes it more imperative to try and follow a bit of narrative so that each section has a stronger punch.
The one really cool part is the relationship map that they draw to represent the various cabals and factions at court. That's actually pretty great and if you want some sort of complex relationship map for an RPG or LARP, it's certainly worth stealing. The three main cabals were focused around Louis XIV, his son and his grandson and because your enemy today might be king tomorrow, there was a fair amount of intermingling between the various groups. A lot of games have groups that are unified and never have any honest under-the-table dealings. This book can help break out of that mold.
In the main though, not a book I'd recommend unless you're really jazzed about French history or this particular period.
later
Tom