I love how Manzoni uses Renzo as our eyes, going from last chapters stripes of flour and fresh loaves lying on the ground, to the much wider causes, and the rippling effects.
How rare in life is it to come across someone who even seems "willing to say: 'Brother, if I am wrong, correct me, and I will be eternally grateful.'"
The picture of shrewd, cool-headed people taking advantage of the masses' resentment and rage felt current. That being said, I feel like I missed what the opportunists were after. Did they just want bread and flour too? I was expecting a revolution of some sort with demagogues taking control. Maybe that is still to come.
An important allusion to the French Revolution. Marcus Brutus, as the leader of the conspiracy that assassinated Caesar in order to try to save Rome from totalitarianism, was an--ultimately ironic--hero of the French Revolution. Hence, those sympathetic to the French Revolution would in a later epoch turn the statue of a king into Brutus.
Throughout this novel we see the ferment that would lead to the French Revolution. The French Revolution began in 1789 when King Louis XVI convened for the first time in over 175 years the Estates General of the French realm--elected representatives of the three estates, the notability, the clergy, and everyone else except royalty--to deliberate about how to solve the kingdom's financial crisis (in part caused by the aid given to the American Revolution). They reached impasse. The nobility and clergy wanted the commoners and merchants to disproportionately bear the tax burden. The king lost his nerve, and purported to dissolve the assembly. But the third estate and some of the second, the clergy, refused to disband. They formed a revolutionary legislature called the National Assembly.
In this novel we see the three estates clearly manifest, tensions between the three estates, how the more numerous third estate is growing in power and chafing for rebellion. But this was over a century before the French Revolution would start. Changes came a lot more slowly in Europe back then!
“The grain-hoarders, real or imagined; the landowners who did not sell everything immediately; the bakers who bought the grain: anyone, in short, who had either a little or a lot, or was reputed to have some, was blamed for the shortages or the high prices.” A grain conspiracy and the retribution that results is sadly familiar sounding....
Foreign rulers; excessive bureaucracy; immense income inequality; food shortages; provocateurs; rumors (hoarding?); a dearth of clear thinking (Renzo: “this isn’t right, if they destroy all the bakeries, where do they expect to bake bread; in the wells?“); greed; fear (“prices on bread will go down, but they’ll put poison in it to make a us die like flies”); FOMO = out of control mobs
one of my favorite scenes so far in the novel. the innocent bread falling out of the kid's basket in the earlier chapter to the economic lesson to the bread rioting.
I love how Manzoni uses Renzo as our eyes, going from last chapters stripes of flour and fresh loaves lying on the ground, to the much wider causes, and the rippling effects.
How rare in life is it to come across someone who even seems "willing to say: 'Brother, if I am wrong, correct me, and I will be eternally grateful.'"
Why do I feel that the bread Renzo is carrying is like Chekov's gun that will have to go off?
The picture of shrewd, cool-headed people taking advantage of the masses' resentment and rage felt current. That being said, I feel like I missed what the opportunists were after. Did they just want bread and flour too? I was expecting a revolution of some sort with demagogues taking control. Maybe that is still to come.
An important allusion to the French Revolution. Marcus Brutus, as the leader of the conspiracy that assassinated Caesar in order to try to save Rome from totalitarianism, was an--ultimately ironic--hero of the French Revolution. Hence, those sympathetic to the French Revolution would in a later epoch turn the statue of a king into Brutus.
Throughout this novel we see the ferment that would lead to the French Revolution. The French Revolution began in 1789 when King Louis XVI convened for the first time in over 175 years the Estates General of the French realm--elected representatives of the three estates, the notability, the clergy, and everyone else except royalty--to deliberate about how to solve the kingdom's financial crisis (in part caused by the aid given to the American Revolution). They reached impasse. The nobility and clergy wanted the commoners and merchants to disproportionately bear the tax burden. The king lost his nerve, and purported to dissolve the assembly. But the third estate and some of the second, the clergy, refused to disband. They formed a revolutionary legislature called the National Assembly.
In this novel we see the three estates clearly manifest, tensions between the three estates, how the more numerous third estate is growing in power and chafing for rebellion. But this was over a century before the French Revolution would start. Changes came a lot more slowly in Europe back then!
“The grain-hoarders, real or imagined; the landowners who did not sell everything immediately; the bakers who bought the grain: anyone, in short, who had either a little or a lot, or was reputed to have some, was blamed for the shortages or the high prices.” A grain conspiracy and the retribution that results is sadly familiar sounding....
Foreign rulers; excessive bureaucracy; immense income inequality; food shortages; provocateurs; rumors (hoarding?); a dearth of clear thinking (Renzo: “this isn’t right, if they destroy all the bakeries, where do they expect to bake bread; in the wells?“); greed; fear (“prices on bread will go down, but they’ll put poison in it to make a us die like flies”); FOMO = out of control mobs
Piazza de’ Mercanti in recent times.
https://www.travelmyglobe.com/images/Uploaded/Italy/TravelMyGlobe_Piazza_Mercanti_1.jpg
wow; thank you, Peter!
one of my favorite scenes so far in the novel. the innocent bread falling out of the kid's basket in the earlier chapter to the economic lesson to the bread rioting.