{"id":453,"date":"2012-07-15T16:18:11","date_gmt":"2012-07-15T16:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mariannatorgovnick.com\/?p=453"},"modified":"2013-02-16T18:31:52","modified_gmt":"2013-02-16T18:31:52","slug":"witnessing-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/dev.jackmakesthings.com\/tor\/witnessing-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Witnessing History"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Saw a movie and am reading two books that take very different approaches to witnessing history and raise questions about claiming famous ancestors. \u00a0First up, the movie.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s 14-17 July 1789: \u00a0the Bastille falls amidst cries that Louis XVI, his Queen, and most of their friends lose their heads. \u00a0Does the day seem portentous at Versailles? \u00a0Not really for Sidonie, the Queen&#8217;s reader, nor for the other courtiers, nor for Marie herself. \u00a0Disturbing whispers circulate, to be sure. \u00a0But the Court&#8217;s normal business of gossip and flirtation basically proceeds. \u00a0By the 17th, all that will change and we witness it along with Sidonie, who has her part to play by then.<\/p>\n<p>Whether she&#8217;s a servant or an aristocrat, she&#8217;s clearly in danger. \u00a0So much so that one woman said to me as we were leaving: \u00a0&#8220;Do you think she lives?&#8221; \u00a0Well&#8230; in 2012, surely not. \u00a0But that kind of reaction tells you that Director Benoit Jacquot gets us to feel like we are witnessing history in FAREWELL MY QUEEN though it&#8217;s history remained for 21st-century tastes.<\/p>\n<p>I am only 15% of the way into DREAMING IN FRENCH and note here how easily the % gets rendered rather than the # of pages for e-book users like me. \u00a0Alice Kaplan, a friend and colleague, is a terrific writer and this book is a fun read that includes lots of research about post WW II France that is draped over true story of three famous women who studied abroad: \u00a0Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, Susan Sontag, and Angela Davis. \u00a0I&#8217;m only up to Jackie and find myself wondering: \u00a0If Jacqueline Bouvier had not become Jackie Kennedy would the book have been written and read? Not so sure about that. \u00a0I&#8217;ll be reading on to see how the famous ancestor gets claimed here.<\/p>\n<p>Final, light read: \u00a0Alan Furst&#8217;s MISSION TO PARIS. \u00a0The Furst hero has already appeared. \u00a0He&#8217;s a fictional movie actor in this case and not yet playing James Bond, though he will, he will. \u00a0As in most Furst novels, there&#8217;s a wonderful feeling of historical background here: \u00a0right now, Munich is about to happen and halt the momentum in Paris towards war.<\/p>\n<p>Fiction and history; fact and history: \u00a0a curious and ongoing interplay for which I am always a sucker. \u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mariannatorgovnick.com\/?attachment_id=457\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-457\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-457\" title=\"images\" src=\"http:\/\/dev.jackmakesthings.com\/tor\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/images.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"281\" height=\"179\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Saw a movie and am reading two books that take very different approaches to witnessing history and raise questions about claiming famous ancestors. \u00a0First up, the movie. It&#8217;s 14-17 July 1789: \u00a0the Bastille falls amidst cries that Louis XVI, his Queen, and most of their friends lose their heads. \u00a0Does the day seem portentous at [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[32,38,45,49,85],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/dev.jackmakesthings.com\/tor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/dev.jackmakesthings.com\/tor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/dev.jackmakesthings.com\/tor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dev.jackmakesthings.com\/tor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dev.jackmakesthings.com\/tor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/dev.jackmakesthings.com\/tor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":697,"href":"http:\/\/dev.jackmakesthings.com\/tor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453\/revisions\/697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/dev.jackmakesthings.com\/tor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dev.jackmakesthings.com\/tor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dev.jackmakesthings.com\/tor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}