The Fickleness of Memory

Napoleon Buonaparte remains one of the most divisive figures in French history. He was an emperor with too much power, but he did great things with it. He supported the arts, reorganized the banking and educational systems, was an excellent general, and codified the laws. He was a tyrant, but France may have taken decades without him to achieve this crucial foundation of laws and reforms. I have studied Napoleon in the past, but I only retained the memorable sections. I recalled him being shipped off to an island as punishment. I also remember him fighting in Russia, only to lose because it got too cold. These don’t create the most positive or heroic portrait of Napoleon. Based on what I had learned in high school, I remembered him as slightly pathetic, but his grasp on many French citizens is strong. His tomb was gigantic and centrally placed in the gorgeous Les Invalides. The statues made him appear like a strong leader of the people, and some flowers were even left at his foot by visitors. However, even this building was controversial as many did not want to celebrate him.

In Les Misérables, Marius grows up hating both Napoleon and his father because of how his grandfather and the salon speak of them. He was indoctrinated by these influences, and this turned him into a fierce royalist. Marius’ impression of his father and Napoleon lasts years until he learns the truth about how much his father loved him. This new information launches him on a new trajectory intellectually. He is forced to start from scratch and relearn everything about the world. His grandfather had kept him isolated, which stunted his emotional development. When he finally broke his shell and formed his own opinion, he joined the revolutionary group the Friends of the ABC. Marius’ morals and politics greatly change as he loses the conditioning he grew up with. He reevaluates his impression of his father and, as a result, his impression of Napoleon. Marius is forced to confront his learned prejudices against Napoleon and begins to see his glory. We would like to believe we are in control of our thoughts and opinions, but so many of our beliefs are shaped by other influences that can be difficult to shake.

On Monday, we went bookpacking Napoleon - wrestling with his legacy as Marius does in the novel. The way we remember prolific figures like Napoleon says a great deal about the nature of history. The victorious people are the ones who get to write history. However, the collective memory of groups can also be poignant and play a strong role in how we remember historical figures. Our memory can be manipulated, as we have seen with propaganda. Sometimes the way we remember someone or something is more powerful than just knowing specific facts. Political campaigns use propaganda all the time to get voters to have a negative impression of a candidate. This emotional response is harder to unlearn than knowing a candidate’s stance on issues. Art plays a large role in this. Every painting is a result of particular artistic decisions made by an artist. The way they choose to represent a person/place is never accidental. An artist can choose to glorify something or condemn it, and the result shows in the art. It is commonplace for monarchs to hire painters to create portraits designed to exalt themselves and their court. The Coronation of Napoleon, painted by Jacques-Louis David, screams propaganda to me. The neoclassical piece hung at Versailles is a towering canvas that features Napoleon and his wife in glittering clothes in front of an adoring audience. Anyone seeing this painting can feel the power and prestige of Napoleon’s regime. Even when he has long died, the painting remains to influence viewers in a certain way. Propaganda is effective because it subtly influences you to think about someone a certain way, which lasts much longer in your memory than just facts.

  Marie Antoinette is another prime example. She has been used as a figurehead for everything wrong with the nobility. We explored the Conciergerie over a week ago, which was where Marie Antoinette was held before her beheading in 1793. Her cell has since been turned into an oratory dedicated to her memory. People know Marie as promiscuous, pompous, and devoid of any sympathy for the poor struggling while she enjoyed life as queen of France. According to the information in the Conciergerie, people even spread rumors she had an incestuous affair with her son (which was completely untrue). Marie was actually quite charitable, witty, and devoted to her children. So why do we all remember her so poorly? Revolutionaries needed someone to unite people for their cause. Marie Antoinette served as an easy scapegoat to pin all the ails of the monarchy on. Revolutionaries even created rumors that she said “let them eat cake” to further her scandalous reputation. She was a victim of circumstance and propaganda, which led to her execution. The fact that people still remember her poorly speaks to how easily our memories can be manipulated and taken advantage of.

Our decisions are much less rational than we would like to believe. They are affected by influences that are difficult to see, like the people around us and our own biased views. The only way to counteract this is to try to make the information we receive as objective as possible. Propaganda is easy to come by, and it is far more subtle today than it was during the 19th century. In the age of the internet, people are encouraged to create the most eye-catching headlines and posts to maximize engagement. To create our own opinions and impressions, we must stay aware. Objective information is not just handed to us anymore, we must hunt for it. Discerning fact from fiction is more difficult than ever, but it’s something that must be done if we hope to truly understand and make decisions for ourselves and our society.

The Nature of Truth

The Louvre is an absolutely beautiful museum. It is well worth the visit and you could devote days to exploring every nook and crevice. It is known for the Mona Lisa (which was far smaller in person), but there are so many gems worth exploring like Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People or one of Monet’s pieces. Even beyond art there was a gorgeous scultpture garden and a room dedicated to the royal jewels. It requires several days to fully walk through the museum, but to actually appreciate everything it holds easily requires weeks.

“By telling stories, you objectify your own experience. You separate it from yourself. You pin down certain truths. You make up others. You start sometimes with an incident that truly happened, like the night in the field, and you carry it forward by inventing incidents that did not in fact occur but that nonetheless help to clarify and explain.”

— The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

I have always held a special penchant for art and what it represents. Of course it is pretty to look at, but I think the concept behind art is equally as fascinating. I love to view it from the lens of one of my favorite books, The Things They Carry by Tim O’Brien. It is a quasi-fiction/nonfiction book about a soldier’s experience in the Vietnam War. It is a well written story about war, but it is also an exploration into the nature of truth. The novel is told by an unreliable narrator who often contradicts himself or flat out lies about what happens at different sections of the book. This seems strange, but O’Brien does this to convey the idea that sometimes a lie can tell the truth better than reality. If I tell you a story and it makes you feel the way I want you to feel, isn’t it true on some level? His format fits especially for war because that is the sort of experience you can never truly communicate to someone that hasn’t been through it. So, O’Brien settles with making you understand the emotion and message of the story even if that requires lying about what specifically happened. Objective truth matters less than the feelings evoked from a story. The Things They Carried is one of the most honest books I have ever read, despite little of it being true.

“It wasn’t a question of deceit. Just the opposite; he wanted to heat up the truth, to make it burn so hot that you would feel exactly what he felt.”

— The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

This concept is so fascinating to me because it applies to everything. Art is the easiest way to see. For hundreds of years painters were aspiring to paint something that was as close to realistic as possible. With the invention of cameras this became pointless. Painters began experimenting with how they could represent the world in different ways. I love impressionism for this exact reason. Monet’s Haystacks, End of Summer (right) may not be a perfect representation of what he saw, but instead they capture what he felt. He is communicating how nature makes him feel through the sweeping brushstrokes and vivid colors. In this way, I think his painting is a truer representation than a photograph. It captures a moment and makes it timeless. A photograph seems to make everything seem stagnant and still, but a painting has the ability to bring something to life. Impressionism does this more than any other type of art (in my opinion). I feel like O’Brien would admire this era of painting for the same reason. 

Books are an obvious extension as well. Reading has the irreplaceable ability to put you into a new world. Movies show you one, but in a book you are an active participant in this world. As a result, they serve as powerful ways to make you feel something. A Tale of Two Cities and Les Miserables are incredibly moving stories. Does Sydney Carton’s sacrifice become less meaningful because he is a figment of Dicken’s imagination? Is Jean Valjean’s story of redemption rendered less consequential because it never happened? I am sure thousands of lives have been changed by these characters and their actions. When you lose the shackles of reality, you have the freedom to go wherever you want. You can create a world of your own, just as Dickens and Hugo did. Reality is so fickle that we need these artistic expressions to open up our eyes. They bypass pure logic and reasoning to get to the heart of something. They are our means of breaking down this crazy and confusing world into something understandable. Art (in whatever form) allows us to communicate with the world. I love science and math, but if we don’t have the creativity and ingenuity to explore and manipulate our world they mean nothing.

Going Beyond the Map

We have progressed to the stage of class that involves mapping the locations we are reading about in our books. For both A Tale of Two Cities and Les Miserables, it is an advantageous way to bring the sites to life. Reading about the walk Sydney Carton takes around Paris or the garden that Jean Valjean and Cosette frequent is one thing, but seeing it in real life is another. We have mapped both specific locations and journeys of characters, and both are rewarding in their own way. 

“Then the night, with the moon and the stars, turned pale and died, and for a little while it seemed as if creation were delivered over to Death’s dominion.”

— A Tale of Two Cities pg. 327

One of my favorite parts to track was Sydney Carton’s final journey in A Tale of Two Cities before he was executed in Charles Darnay’s place. The section of the book was incredibly moving and beautiful. Carton is one of my favorite characters, and watching his development from a depressed and aimless man to one who has found his purpose in saving others is lovely. In his final journey around the Seine, you can see how far he has come.

      We have not walked this exact passage yet, but we did walk the paths of the tumbrils as they brought Carton to the guillotine. The walk was done in broad daylight, which may slightly detract from the introspective state it should put you in. However, the view was gorgeous as we passed the Louvre, the Palais Royale, and Place de la Concorde. After reading the book, each location feels tinged with years of pain. It was difficult to imagine the horror of the French Revolution given how far removed we are from it. Reading A Tale of Two Cities almost seemed to enhance this sense of distance as we saw the events as a backdrop to the stories of fictional characters rather than just learning about it. However, walking the path made it more real.

       Dickens tends to focus on individual characters and events through their eyes rather than just recounting historical events. The impact of this is twofold. It can make the actual events much easier to understand because you can see them from a human perspective. However, this human perspective offers certain limitations. You can never achieve an objective idea about historical events because of the limitations of the character you see it through. I am a big subscriber of perspectivism. I don’t think it’s possible for any of us to access a truly objective perspective on an event because all our thoughts and experiences are filtered through our past. As a chemistry major, I believe in some truths, but the vast majority of facts are inaccessible to us because we mirror the world through our human perception. As a result, we can never truly understand the reality of something because our own views and ideas limits us. Therefore, as I revisit these mapped locations I am forced to rethink my interpretation of them. When reading, I saw the walk along the Seine through the perspective of Carton, the tumbril’s path through the view of the revolutionaries, and the route across France through Darnay’s interpretation. Now that we visit these places in person, I have to see how my perspective and interpretations shape these. 

      As I walked past the Louvre and Palais Royale, I tended to pay more attention to superficial things. I noticed the architectural style, the crowds of people, and the general grandeur. I thought more about how the sheer opulence of the palace must have been leagues away from what 95% of the population of France experienced. Everything that stood out to me and what I thought of it was shaped by what we had studied in class and what I’ve learned about the French Revolution. This starkly contrasts what is focused on in A Tale of Two Cities.

“Along the Paris streets, the death-carts rumble, hollow and harsh.”

— A Tale of Two Cities pg. 385

     A Tale of Two Cities captures the horror of the tumbrils while also capturing how numb people have become to it. These revolutionaries are so used to seeing this spectacle that they hardly bat an eye. Their perspective has been dramatically altered by how regular this level of violence has become. The people are dissociated from what this really means for the revolution and themselves. If I were shipped back to 1792 right now to watch the passing carts, I would not react the same. This is, however, a moot point because I didn’t experience the years of oppression and injustice the revolutionaries did. I didn’t feel the purity in the initial goals of the people and how it twisted its way into violence and vengeance. All of this to say I will never experience these locations the way Dickens or Hugo wants them to be because I never lived the life of an eighteenth century peasant. Despite this, there is still much I can take from the experience regarding how I see the world. Since everything I see reveals my own views of the world, this bookpacking trip offers a unique opportunity to reflect on what preconceptions I have and how these might limit me. It is so easy to get lost in our own mindset and views that we lose sight of the fact that everything is so much more complicated than we think. I think literature and travel overlap in the ways they help people step out of their own perspectives. They are some of the rare ways to see the world in a new light, and I hope to take advantage of the opportunity and how it challenges my own perspectives.

Forays into Parisian Cuisine

For my blog post about London, I fit in the spectacular food scene with my discussions about the culture and experience of the city. The Parisian food scene, however, deserves its own post. It is impossible to come here and not feel the deep love and appreciation Parisians have for their country. The flâneur is a word created solely to describe just strolling through Paris and enjoying the city. Another very common activity is popping in at one of the many cafes and sitting outside to people-watch. No city has this much appreciation for itself. This idea extends to the food. Parisians hold deep regard for their food, and it shows. I have never had a disappointing meal, and most meals have been fantastic. The quality of the food speaks for itself. At every patisserie or boulangerie, you can see an artful display of bread and pastries. Everything looks so appetizing, and you can tell the owner/workers deeply respect what they are doing and do not take it lightly. Finding a disappointing coffee or croissant in the United States is easy. Everything in France is made with the most care and attention to detail. Food is such a substantial portion of the culture that even something as small as a croissant is treated as important.

Food is a central part of Parisian culture, and this shows in the quality of French food as well as the way meals are treated. I have visited Paris before, so this part was not new to me. Meals are treated as a whole event. It is so common in the US to skip breakfast, work through lunch, and snag a quick takeout dinner on the way home. We are a culture centered around productivity and work. France is far different. Meals are often several hours in length and often consist of multiple courses. Breakfast may consist of a small croissant or pastry, but it is still regularly eaten at a cafe while people-watching. Lunch is a larger meal usually accompanied by drinks and hours of talking. Dinner is somehow bigger. I commonly see people sitting outside a restaurant and ordering several rounds of drinks, eating, ordering more drinks, and maybe a coffee or dessert at the end. This takes hours and lasts well into the night. I love this because it makes eating feel so communal. It is a place to get together and enjoy each other’s company. I think we have lost this in the US, so it is pleasant to see a country appreciate how food can bring people together. It is so fun to participate with my friends as we step into this culture and style of consumption. Taking a step away from the suffocating air of productivity in the US has been a good way to recharge and explore a new environment.

A lot of the importance of food also derives from the importance Parisians place on leisure. This again diverges from the US, which tends to demonize taking time for oneself. Parisians regularly engage in leisure activities and take time away from work. This shows in the massive skincare industry in France, as well as the way food is treated. It is treated as a space to get away from work and it lasts several hours (though I’m not sure how workers have the time to do so) and takes up a good portion of the day. Every street is lined with cafes and restaurants, usually filled with people lounging and drinking. Les Miserables conveys this Parisian attitude in subtle ways. The meeting of Cosette and Marius only happens when they are both taking long walks and strolling through the Luxembourg gardens. Cosette goes on this walk with her father every day. They stroll along and enjoy themselves and each other. Food is not at the forefront of Les Miserables (a lack of it plays a bigger role), but the cultural attitudes that affect the food scene can be seen. It is so hard to relate to this, but I can attempt to emulate this blasé attitude. I originally took this state of leisure as a mere cultural quirk, but a conversation we had in class changed my attitude about its roots.

During a discussion about the ending of A Tale of Two Cities, Professor Chater probed us about what the revolutionaries of 1789 were really fighting for. Liberty and equality? Revenge? Justice? He argued that they were fighting for the banal state of just enjoying life without worry. Many of us have come to look down on the sort of apple pie / white picket fence life. The revolutionaries were fighting for the freedom to live and make life as boring as you would like. This thought really struck me. The life of leisure that Parisians enjoy is hard-won and costly. Thousands died so that the Parisians were able to live without fear of the oppression that crushed the majority of the country for hundreds of years. The food culture in Paris is an extension of this, but the cultural attitudes toward leisure are something to be proud of. It speaks to the strength of the french in working toward what they want. Just being able to sit out and enjoy the beautiful city around you is exactly what the forefathers dreamed would come of France. I think this way of sitting in the moment and finding beauty in the mundane is all any of us can hope to achieve.

The Paradigm of Travel

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”

— Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad/Roughing It

Words cannot sum up the waves of elation and fear that I cycled through before coming to London. I experienced highs and lows that were tough to recover from. I knew to expect some degree of culture shock, but I also hoped the fact that I spoke the primary language would lessen this. Upon arriving at Bloomsbury after an extended plane ride, I was met with historic buildings lining every block and countless cafe and eateries. Underneath these gothic and baroque buildings was a lively and cosmopolitan city. Reading A Tale of Two Cities shaped my expectations going into this experience. I foresaw the pretentious nature embodied by Stryver, the deep emotional repression characterized by Carton and Mr Lorry, and the heated loyalty comically portrayed with Miss Pross. As with all stereotypes, these were grossly overstated and simplified. At every restaurant and street corner, I found some genuinely kind and welcoming people. Coming from the midwest but going to school at USC, I have seen some of the best and worst people. What I have found in this city and its inhabitants is nothing but a genuine love for their country and an appreciation for the beautiful city they call home. One look inside Fortnum & Mason did confirm the poshness, but I’ve learned it derives more from an appreciation for culture and history than anything else.

A Tale of Two Cities presents London in a somewhat negative light. Dickens describes it as “old-fashioned..very small, very dark, very ugly, very incommodious” (55). I can see hints of what would bring about this description, but on the whole London is not this at all. Visiting old buildings gave me a far better idea of what it would have been like for the characters of A Tale of Two Cities to venture about and live their life. Some of these buildings appeared smaller and packed in tightly with other buildings. Despite this, there is much beauty to be found in these locations. On Friday, we explored a highly realistic portrayal of a London house from this era. The house (Dennis Severs’ House in Spitalfields) was remarkably well kept and accurate to the age, and it conveyed a true sense of the era. From the rumpled sheets to the freshly buttered bread on the table, there was a deep sense that someone had just been there and lived this life. The house was gorgeous, with plush chairs, vanity mirrors, and four poster beds. I can imagine there was a significant variance in the houses of the time, but even this modest house was a place you could call home. I can easily see Lucie Mannette lounging in the reading room and sitting with her husband, or Doctor Mannette seeing patients in the house. Houses like these have long disappeared from London in the face of modernization, but many old buildings still remain. The original city of London still holds the bones of centuries past. The great fire has changed a lot, but just walking around, you can see the blend of old and new elements. There are gothic financial buildings seated next to towering high rises. The city has done a great deal to maintain the deep history it holds, while still embracing advancements. Every destination we walk, I try to picture the characters of A Tale of Two Cities sitting where I am. I imagine Mr Lorry walking out of Tellsons to the bar, or Carton sitting in a pub and drowning his pain. Dickens does a fantastic job of creating well developed characters, but his location ability to craft a sense of the culture and style of London deserves recognition. Bookpacking has brought his words and characters to life by bringing us to the setting.

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Another expectation I went into London with concerned weather. I have seen lovely photos of an overcast sky and drizzle, and I’ve heard many complaints about the unrelenting rain. What we were greeted with instead was a heat wave with two record-setting days that plunged into the 100s. Coming from a state where reaching 100 was an average summer, I was surprised by how unprepared London was for the heat. Metro stations shut down, museums closed, and national weather advisories were announced. I will admit weakness (against my proud Chicago blood) and say that it felt HOT. The usual layer of clouds was nowhere to be found, so there was no break from the heat except to seek shelter for lunch in a historic pub known as Ye Olde Cherschire Cheese (pictured to the right). We all enjoyed some truly British food in the pub and mentally recreated the many nights Carton and the other characters would have spent here. We fought through the heat for the sake of our daily walks and explorations, but it became difficult. The gloomy and ominous setting of A Tale of Two Cities is mirrored by the brewing anger of the people. In one section, the heavy rain is directly compared to the masses rising up and taking to the streets. Every character in the book knows that a storm is coming. The revolutionaries are building up their numbers, and this will all come to a head in 1789. I was hoping to channel this angst with dark clouds and intermittent rain but was met with a much different landscape. The heat eventually cleared and we were treated to a cool and overcast day on Thursday. Everyone in London seemed much more at home with this melancholic weather, and we were able to walk in relatitive ease with the temperature drop.

It’s difficult to travel to any foreign country and neglect to discuss food. London food has always had the reputation of being bland, overcooked, and certainly nothing to write home about. I did engage in my fair share of truly British food (meat pie, peas, etc.). It was well made but compared to the fantastically tasteful home dishes of other countries, it was unremarkable. This isn’t to hate on London, as the food scene is stellar. There are countless food markets offering cuisines from every country in the world. During our stop at the Borough food market, I had a Chinese bao and Indian Chana masala. Both were incredible and highly representative of the variety of food offered. There is an entire Chinese district in Soho, Brick Lane in the east end is known for its celebration of Bangladeshi culture and food, and there are countless multicultural food markets like the Upmarket which are devoted to offering cuisine from around the globe. The food scene in London left nothing to be desired, and it speaks to how far the city has come in terms of diversity. I never expected to be introduced to some of my new favorite dishes in London. The city described in A Tale of Two Cities was old and unwelcome to foreigners. The London I found was far different, and was filled to the brim with diverse restaurants and stores representing every corner of the globe. Every city is known for areas that represent other cuisines. Chicago has Chinatown, Detroit has Greektown, and Little Toko and Koreatown are well-known areas of Los Angeles. London extends beyond this. Though there are specific areas representing different cultures, it is harder to find an area that DOESN’T have restaurants catering to every country. The popularity and quality of these casual and sit-down dining options speak to the diversity of the area. It is difficult to picture the characters of A Tale of Two Cities faring in a city with such a diverse and well-rounded food scene and population. I never had a dissapointing meal, and it was a highlight of my trip that I wasn’t expecting. Thankfully, Paris is also a food capital and so my foodie heart has something to look forward to there as well.

It is dangerously easy to filter every new city and country we visit through the frame of reference of our own. This often creates a bigger emphasis on what is lacking. When first arriving at London, I was dissappointed by the lack of ice and the consistent absence of air conditioning. I do miss these, but keeping an open mind is key to discovering all the uniqueness found in each new country. London was an absolute adventure. I love the rich culture that can be found in the many museums or even just walking along a street. I love the many food markets which introduced me to countless new dishes I hope to find back home as well. Most of all, I love the creativity and dynamism that you can feel pulsing through the city. Where else would our group stumble upon a streetwide salsa dance class and be offered an entire bottle of wine? I have a great appreciation for the US, and this appreciation has only grown from the week I have spent in London. The world is big, and I hope to spend my life exploring every corner.