FICTION BOOK CLUB decided on this book for MARCH, but after two of my friends were a bit bored with it after reading the first 1/3, I was NOT looking forward to reading it and even considered skipping this month.
I READ it and REALLY ENJOYED IT! I'd give it a 4.5 out of 5.
I LOVE HISTORICAL FICTION.
I LOVE FRANCE.
I LOVE stories of the FULL LIFETIME of the MAIN CHARACTER(S).
I APPRECIATE when a book reads CHRONOLOGICALLY.
This book met the above criteria. It's about the life of MADAME TUSSAUD, who is known for her WAX MUSEUM in LONDON (and now in additional cities). It takes place from 1761 - 1850 (until she was 89 years old).
What a sad, sad life she had. How did she survive the losses and the harsh and unloving treatment? She was terribly unappreciated, not only as a person, but also for her talent and work ethic. I really grew to like her (MARIE/"LITTLE"), so each day when I picked up the book I was curious to know what she was going to do next........
FULL DISCLOSURE -
You WILL have to endure some GOREY DETAILS while the FRENCH REVOLUTION was in full swing.
A FEW PASSAGES THAT PLEASED OR INTRIGUED ME -
Page 50
"Aren't you, little boldness?" This he called me, and very pleased with his own observation, he went on, not caring for a moment how I might take his words: "Little ill-facedness, little minor monster in a child's dress.... little thing.... little howl.... little crumb of protruding flesh.... little statement on mankind .... little.... little?" he concluded, not certain in the end of what I was, only that I was little, a little of something.
Page 65
"Life," explained Mercier, "can be said to start for you now, now that you've found Paris......"
Page 253
"Pity the poor toys, for they are generally loved for such a short time; they get broken, or other things come along to replace them and they are taken to distant rooms set aside for unloved objects."
Page 339
By now its name had changed: when louisette reminded too many of the disgraced king, it was renamed the guillotine, after a doctor who had sought for many years a humane device of death-entering for criminals.
Page 396
We told each other our stories. Again and again. You always knew the true ones from the false ones, for the false ones changed at every telling. The true ones remained constant. What is a life? This is what we were left with: stories. They were our clothes.
Page 398
"No, most of all, I shall tell you who I miss: it's my pug dog."
Page 429
We've climbed to the top of London, which is the greatest of all dung heaps ever laid by man, an excrescence of appalling dimensions.
Page 432
This world has turned mechanical. The new world is made of iron. Life now is heavy, propelled by steam and pistons. In place of candles, people illuminate themselves by gas, which gives off a light without mystery.
JOAN
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