If We Could Foresee The Future, We Should Have No Need Of God

Utmost apologies for taking so long to get to this review, which I promised waaaay back in my first post. But, finally, here we are.

However anxious one is to reach one’s goal, one can excuse delays on the route when these are caused by ovations.
p.417

My favorite author of all time, Alexandre Dumas, wrote The Women’s War in the mid 1840’s, a time that is generally considered to be his best period. It shows. Gone are the weaker story conceits of earlier works, as well as the sprawling stretches of later works in which hundreds of pages are spent on characters that we don’t care about, to the detriment of our heroes. (I see you, Louise de la Valliere.)

While perhaps not quite at the level of his most popular novels, this one clearly deserves much higher esteem than it gets. The characters are almost all uniformly interesting, the action moves along briskly and excitingly, and the plot is suitably labyrinthine, delivering genuine surprises.

The Women’s War is set in the highly conflicted France of the 1650’s, the time of The Fronde, when the country was on the brink of civil war. The novel actually ends up working as almost a sort of companion piece to Twenty Years After, the second Musketeer book. It shows us what was transpiring around Bordeaux at that time, introduces us to those who were to make war on the crown, and even spends a little time with Queen Anne of Austria, Cardinal Mazarin, and a young Louis XIV (all of whom have much more major parts in the Musketeers novels). There is also a sly little reference to D’artagnan, but that’s more a 19th century version of fan service than anything else. Not that I’m complaining, mind you.

The plot is long and sprawling, in a good way, but difficult to describe without spoilers. Essentially, the intrigues of the buildup to a war between two powerful women (Queen Anne of Austria and the Princess de Conde) serve as the background to another, more personal, clash between two other women. The story does not take sides in the larger war, showing the leaders of both in a less than favorable light, for the most part. The more personal side involves Nanon de Lartigues and the Viscountess de Cambes, who are embroiled in a love triangle, but thankfully neither of them are the weak and willowy archetype that one might expect. In fact, a case could be made that the Viscountess is, in fact, the main character of the story, although all in all I’d say that it’s a story of many people, without a clearcut hero.

The closest to a classic Dumas hero, and the one for whom the best case could be made as far as his being the protagonist, is the Baron de Canolles: third corner of the aforementioned love triangle. With a mouth “half-open from its habit of smiling,” he can best be explained in the words of the author:

Canolles did not pride himself on his abstemiousness: he was no anchorite. Perhaps too, as a Huguenot (he was of a Protestant family and more or less professed the religion of his ancestors), Canolles did not believe in the canonization of those pious hermits who got to heaven by drinking water and eating roots. So, however sad, or even however much in love he was, he was never unmoved by the scent of a good dinner or the sight of those bottles, with their peculiar shape, their red, yellow or green stoppers, which, beneath the faithful cork, preserve the finest lifeblood of Gascony, Champagne or Burgundy.
p. 65-66

(The novel, by the way, is eminently quotable in many places, a good deal of which I’m sure should be attributed to Robin Buss’ superb translation.)

A valiant warrior and a constant flirt, but a man who couldn’t really care less about either side of the war, Canolles is truly a classic carefree heroic type. We only ever see him in two battles (the book is actually pretty low on fight scenes, which is fine because it’s still plenty suspenseful) but he and the more minor character of Richon–a peasant who’s pulled himself up to high position–both do very well at providing the necessary bad-ass quotient that I always want from the best of exciting novels.

The narrative also focuses a good deal on one Cauvignac, the only other character who really seems to have no particular side. He is a supremely confident, as well as competent, manipulator, wise-ass, and scoundrel, the purpose behind whose machinations is always in doubt. At times we wonder if he will become our villain, perhaps reform into a hero, or just remain on the sideline–and I honestly can’t tell you much more without giving away alot. I will say, however, that he’s an incredibly enjoyable and worthwhile character on which to spend your time.

The tale itself, as focused as it is on female characters, is not without its own bits of sexism here and there, but overall I felt that the women were shown to have a surprising amount of competence for a book of its time–and one about a war, no less. There isn’t any anachronistic Kiera Knightly grabbing a sword and for no reason being good enough to come off as some sort of kick-ass feminist/fetish object, (thank God) but the female leads definitely do more than sit around and pine. Dumas always specialized in the bonds of male comradery, and the fact that the Viscountess de Cambes spends the beginning of the book disguised as a man while she and Canolles bond (and as he begins to fall in love with her, even while the narrative still refers to her as “he”) is probably a large part of what makes their romance a good deal more affecting than the central love stories of many novels.

And make no mistake, this novel is very heavy on love stories, certainly moreso than violence. (Which suits me just fine, so long as it’s well written.) It’s over 300 pages to the first battle, but the buildup is done so well that when I got there my hands were shaking.

The book’s origin in the serialized form is certainly made clear by the way in which we’re presented with a complex and changing story, into and out of which many different characters weave themselves. While The Women’s War doesn’t quite have the focus of Dumas’ all-time masterpieces, I would still put it up there as one of his best. With only a few short stretches as exceptions, the story and characters had me–hook, line, and sinker, so to speak. Dumas’ own cynicism on the plans of royalty, and the terrible ways in which they’ll enact them, hits very hard by the latter portions of novel, due to all of the time and emotion that we have invested in those characters. An incredible read.