Biased, myopic novel of the Paris Commune
Philip Landes is an American studying art in Paris. He is not a starving artist, however, but rather inexplicably wealthy, and seems never to have worked a day in his life. While socializing in a cafe with friends, he runs afoul of some boorish ruffians. Landes is then contacted by some out-of-town visitors, the father and sister of a deceased friend, asking for his assistance in depositing a fortune in diamonds into a Parisian bank. When would-be diamond thieves kill the father and kidnap the daughter, Landes suspects those same good-for-nothing ruffians with whom he clashed in the first chapter. Before he can set things right, however, the Commune seizes control of Paris, armed conflict breaks out in the streets, and noble citizens are rounded up in droves to be shot. Wouldn’t you know it, some of the leaders of the Commune just happen to be those same thieves and scoundrels that Landes is pursuing, thus making him a man marked for death.
The period of violent class struggle that took place in France from the late 18th to the late 19th century is a fascinating era in European history that has made for some great literature. French authors have written many memorable novels set during the French Revolutions, most of them sympathetic to the working class and Republican left (the works of Balzac being an exception). British authors, on the other hand, tend to side with the monarchy and the aristocracy. The American Chambers, however, makes those Brits look positively liberal by comparison. Chambers has no sympathy for the working class whatsoever. They are merely rabble and trash who should be bowing to the authority of gentlemen. The Communards are depicted as thugs, thieves, and sadists, the motivation for their coup being the furtherance of their criminal activity. In Chambers’s view, the political basis for the Commune is irrelevant and therefore not discussed.
Amid this biased view of the revolt, Chambers sets a rather hokey romantic melodrama. Long passages of the novel are spent among lovers lounging and flirting in a luxurious apartment while war rages outside. The plot is a meandering and disorganized series of captures and escapes. Though Chambers is obsessed with the variety of military uniforms, which he constantly describes, his confusing prose sometimes makes it hard to tell who is fighting on which side. Chambers makes little attempt to educate the reader. He writes as if his audience already knows every detail of this conflict, every minor historical personage, and every street in Paris. That’s excusable for a French author, but for an American, it just seems like a snooty way of saying “Anyone who’s anyone, myself included, studied in Paris.” A few real people from history appear in the book, like Adolph Thiers and Raoul Rigault, leaders of the Third Republic and the Commune, respectively. Mostly, however, the cast of characters consists of a jumble of nondescript dandies and cartoonish villains whose only distinguishing characteristics are their surnames. The best thing this novel has to offer are a few isolated scenes of shockingly gory warfare.
The best novel about the Paris Commune is Emile Zola’s The Debacle (a.k.a. The Downfall), published in 1892. In terms of historical realism and just general literary intelligence, it makes The Red Republic seem like a children’s book by comparison.
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