Reading Wednesday

[troisoiseaux]

Currently reading Paris in Ruins: Love, War and the Birth of Impressionism by Sebastian Smee, which I'd acquired after seeing the Paris 1874: the Impressionist Moment exhibit at the National Gallery of Art in December and then just... never actually picked up. Glad I finally did! So far (about halfway through) it's mostly about the 1870-71 Prussian siege of Paris, although it's not not about the Impressionist art movement, as it centers the experiences of Édouard Manet, Berthe Morisot, and other artists. It's the type of narrative non-fiction that reads like a novel, which irks me slightly because there are some details, or feelings that he ascribes to the historical figures he's writing about, that have me like okay, but how do we KNOW this? - not even in a "I'm doubting this account" way! I just want to know if someone had written it in a letter or what! - but also makes for a compelling read, so I don't mind too much.

I don't actually know a lot about the Franco-Prussian war or the Paris Commune, so it's been interesting to learn more about that period. In particular, the use of hot air balloons during the siege of Paris— during my 2023 re-read of Les Mis, I was struck by a reference to hot air balloons in Enjolras' "the 19th century was great, but the 20th century will be happy" speech - "we are on the point of taking the griffin, we already have him, and he is called the balloon" - and this book has added an interesting twist to that. For one thing, apparently Victor Hugo was super interested in hot air balloons! Also, although Les Mis was written about a decade before Nadar's balloons played a vital role in getting letters (and politician Léon Gambetta) out of Paris during the siege, it sort of lends a new significance to the quote, while at the time I'd been like— hot air balloons? How adorably quaint! Just over a century after Hugo wrote this speech, humanity landed on the moon! So, yeah, my apologies to the humble balloon.

Comments

[ioplokon]

Ugh that speech hurts more and more as time goes on. I don't think many people expect the 22nd century to be happy now... And yet, we do have the tools to make it so. Like... we are literally so close to having the technology to eradicate so many diseases (& already basically have it for TB and HIV). Solar and wind power are hitting the turning point where they'll take over from fossil fuels; sustainable batteries with fewer & fewer minerals are getting here (sodium batteries??!!) I wonder if there's some flaw in our vision where our advancements now are still impressive but they're small? Idk, like there is unavoidable misery headed our way but... we have it in our power to attenuate it by so much and yet can't really grasp that or do it?

Anyway, also -- Balloons!!

[troisoiseaux]

I vaguely remember seeing a post at one point in the Les Mis Fandom Era of Tumblr, pointing out that "the 20th century will be happy" reads as sort of ironically tragic now, because of, well, everything that went down in the 20th century, but pointing out that Hugo wasn't wrong— I can't remember all of the examples, but I feel like "children no longer dying of polio" was one of them? Anyway, I think humanity has a tendency to take scientific progress/the good things for granted— speaking of things I saw online, there's a Hank Green (iirc?) post that's been floating around about how no one appreciates the things that didn't kill them, e.g., pollution, food safety standards, etc. And obviously following THAT line of thought will lead to depressing places rn but like. We really have made so much progress, as a species!!! The 22nd century WILL be happy, goddammit!

(Side note: have you read John Green's Everything Is Tuberculosis?)

[ioplokon]

Yeah, it is ridiculous how much we have decreased child mortality since then (though not evenly). That's something that really depresses me; that we're returning to an age where dead children are commonplace everywhere (instead of getting to one where it's rare everywhere).

I agree about taking things for granted, but I think it's also... we need to change our dreams. We're not conquering new frontiers now (& the people trying to take us to space are now the enemies of human flourishing), making larger and larger contraptions. In a lot of ways, what we're doing is making things stronger and better and more durable. I'm not sure how we communicate that in a way that captures the imagination. How do we make multi-variant nasal spray vaccines wonderful? Batteries? Alternative fertilizers? Mushroom concrete? The cure for cancer? I think the importance of these things and their majesty is less immediately accessible than, like, a big balloon.

(I have not, I was just thinking about it because it and HIV both have U=U situations where treatment is prevention; it's on the list!)

[sabotabby]

Oh, the balloons were incredible!

Do you know about the psychic snail sex telegram?

[troisoiseaux]

I truly could not have predicted becoming obsessed with the methods of communication in and out of Paris during the 1870-71 siege as a result of picking up this book but here we are. They turned the train stations into workshops to sew balloons! Carrier pigeons carried letters on proto-microfiche!!!

Do you know about the psychic snail sex telegram?

Not off the top of my head, but I'm assuming that it involves Victor Hugo, which is probably the only context in which I'd read the words "psychic snail sex telegram" and think "...yeah, that checks out."

[sabotabby]

Behold!

[troisoiseaux]

SNELEGRAM.

[osprey_archer]

Oh, this sounds super interesting! I'll have to see if my library has it.

[troisoiseaux]

You'd like this, I think! It's less about art than I'd expected from, you know, buying it at an art museum gift store, but again, it's not not about art, and the author has a really great way of describing paintings.

[osprey_archer]

It was on the new book shelf at the library, so how could I NOT?

[troisoiseaux]

It's fate, really!