It’s funny sometimes how little one can remember of a book even from a great book. I spent the whole of the first volume of Prousts’ ‘In Search Of Lost Time’ diligently reading, but after I had finished not a single scene could be brought to mind. It’s similar with ‘The Gods Shall Have Blood’, I know that I enjoyed it but I can’t really remember what happened. The book is about a young earnest man in the time of the French revolution and his sense of justice is such that he becomes appointed as a judge for the Health and Public Safety Committee sending guilty men to their deaths. The point of the book is how our noble idea of justice can make people into the worst of criminals. It certainly would have made Les Mis a more interesting film if it had based it’s story on this.
I would like to read it again to see if it was a fault of the book for
being forgettable or me for not being attentive enough. I would like to read more of France and
blimey is there plenty of him to read.
It is curious how few people read France anymore or even have heard of
his name. If I read more of him I
might find out why that is. It is
true that a lot of Nobel Prize Winners do get forgotten but that is part of the
reason why I do this blog, to see if I can find out why it is some get
forgotten while others, such as Rudyard Kipling, seem like they will always be
remembered.
I do remember that there is a love story and I think the young man tries
to use his new influence and power to get her. She possibly refuses and so he takes out his disappointment
by passing tough sentences on others.
I will probably do another post on this book if I get round to reading
it again, but for now I think I’ll leave it at that.
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