More of Manzoni's irony when he comments, saying how everyone now "recognising Nevers as the new Duke of Mantua, when the whole purpose of the war had been to keep him out of Italy". A prescient remark that might also be applied to the war in Europe at the moment.
Manzoni's comments on the day of the procession are good...'piety clashing with evil etc'. He finishes with "In truth, it was feeble human intellect clashing with its oiwn delusions.
The more I think about the novel, I am feeling more symathetic towards Don Abbondio. He is 'l'homme moyen sensuel' à la Bloom in Joyce's Ulysses. All these princes and prelates and war lords, and Don A. just wants to live a quiet life. A lot of the powerful characters in the novel remind me of Cesare Pavese's observation when he wrote that all sins have their origin in a sense of inferiority otherwise called ambition.
So what is it with humankind that needs some wicked “other” to blame? Do I see myself as a justified good guy if there is a concrete person to blame rather than taking on some public health responsibility? The public beatings remind me of accusations of witches. Has anyone else found a way to work “unguent” into your conversations?
What we've learned is that in any epoch, a large part of society reacts to a plague the same reprehensible way, and these reactions take on different forms as the plague progresses. The reprehensible reactions are similar regardless of how advanced is medical science. There was even something that resembles QAnon in 1628.
The more I read of this novel, the more I realize that Manzoni, himself born before the nineteenth century, was a man who was very far cited. There are people like him in every epoch, usually writers, like Thomas Paine or Henry David Thoreau or Mark Twain.
The ever present guns and butter conflict. The cause of the “widespread misery … included, primarily, the squandering of resources on the army. … Neither help nor provisions were forthcoming from the Governor, who would only say that it was war time, and the troops had to be well cared for“. Is this conflict ever resolved in favor of “butter“?
all these errors of judgment on the vast social scale seem so familiar to us and even though it was centuries ago we naturally make the connections to today and then we think these are universal human behaviors, etc., which they may be -- but I also have to wonder whether there is anything cultural and historically conditioned in these tendencies -- that is, this is Europe, Catholic (and nearby Protestant, and I read that Manzoni left Catholicism?) Europe, not that distant from us on the grand scale, and pretty close in time to the founding of "American" national culture -- so could it be that some of these tendencies are specific to our own tradition and not necessarily shaped in the same way in others? I suspect not, of course-- imagine it's wishful thinking, rather like imagining a "golden age" not before us in time, but elsewhere in space -- in any case a romanticism of one kind or another. Sad lot, us.
These officials might as well say, "Thoughts and prayers..." Plus ca change...
And this: "For anger is quick to punish, and as a wise man accurately observed, it would rather blame troubles on human misconduct, against which it can exact revenge, than recognize a cause against which it can only resign itself."
And I begin to see the hint of a possible weakness in the good cardinal: "It was only a matter of time before his good arguments succumbed to the bad convictions of others. Whether or not a weak will played a part in his concession is a mystery of the human heart..."
"The rumor was that they had mingled with the crowd, infecting as many people as possible with their unguent." This is exactly right! I've read that the plague was spread through bodily fluids - either from people coughing, or through touch. The only mistake the people of that time made, was in thinking that the fluids were being spread with intentional malice.
More of Manzoni's irony when he comments, saying how everyone now "recognising Nevers as the new Duke of Mantua, when the whole purpose of the war had been to keep him out of Italy". A prescient remark that might also be applied to the war in Europe at the moment.
Manzoni's comments on the day of the procession are good...'piety clashing with evil etc'. He finishes with "In truth, it was feeble human intellect clashing with its oiwn delusions.
The more I think about the novel, I am feeling more symathetic towards Don Abbondio. He is 'l'homme moyen sensuel' à la Bloom in Joyce's Ulysses. All these princes and prelates and war lords, and Don A. just wants to live a quiet life. A lot of the powerful characters in the novel remind me of Cesare Pavese's observation when he wrote that all sins have their origin in a sense of inferiority otherwise called ambition.
So what is it with humankind that needs some wicked “other” to blame? Do I see myself as a justified good guy if there is a concrete person to blame rather than taking on some public health responsibility? The public beatings remind me of accusations of witches. Has anyone else found a way to work “unguent” into your conversations?
What we've learned is that in any epoch, a large part of society reacts to a plague the same reprehensible way, and these reactions take on different forms as the plague progresses. The reprehensible reactions are similar regardless of how advanced is medical science. There was even something that resembles QAnon in 1628.
The more I read of this novel, the more I realize that Manzoni, himself born before the nineteenth century, was a man who was very far cited. There are people like him in every epoch, usually writers, like Thomas Paine or Henry David Thoreau or Mark Twain.
The ever present guns and butter conflict. The cause of the “widespread misery … included, primarily, the squandering of resources on the army. … Neither help nor provisions were forthcoming from the Governor, who would only say that it was war time, and the troops had to be well cared for“. Is this conflict ever resolved in favor of “butter“?
Two powerful lines:
"But, oh, the incredible deadly power of a common prejudice!" (p. 531)
"In truth, it was feeble human intellect clashing with its own delusions." (p. 532)
Michael, if you’re willing, I am curious to know why Moravia disliked the novel.
all these errors of judgment on the vast social scale seem so familiar to us and even though it was centuries ago we naturally make the connections to today and then we think these are universal human behaviors, etc., which they may be -- but I also have to wonder whether there is anything cultural and historically conditioned in these tendencies -- that is, this is Europe, Catholic (and nearby Protestant, and I read that Manzoni left Catholicism?) Europe, not that distant from us on the grand scale, and pretty close in time to the founding of "American" national culture -- so could it be that some of these tendencies are specific to our own tradition and not necessarily shaped in the same way in others? I suspect not, of course-- imagine it's wishful thinking, rather like imagining a "golden age" not before us in time, but elsewhere in space -- in any case a romanticism of one kind or another. Sad lot, us.
The opening paragraph on money!
These officials might as well say, "Thoughts and prayers..." Plus ca change...
And this: "For anger is quick to punish, and as a wise man accurately observed, it would rather blame troubles on human misconduct, against which it can exact revenge, than recognize a cause against which it can only resign itself."
And I begin to see the hint of a possible weakness in the good cardinal: "It was only a matter of time before his good arguments succumbed to the bad convictions of others. Whether or not a weak will played a part in his concession is a mystery of the human heart..."
"The rumor was that they had mingled with the crowd, infecting as many people as possible with their unguent." This is exactly right! I've read that the plague was spread through bodily fluids - either from people coughing, or through touch. The only mistake the people of that time made, was in thinking that the fluids were being spread with intentional malice.