Book Review: A Fire Beneath the World, by Jas Treadwell

Demons and castles and the French Revolution

A few years ago, I wrote approvingly of Jas Treadwell’s most excellent novel The Infernal Riddle of Thomas Peach. The best part, I reported, was the delightful, opinionated, quarrelsome narrator, who lost no opportunity to make the most of the tools available to him, be they typographical—footnotes, capitalization, emphatic formatting—or more structural explorations of post-Aristotelian non-unities of time and place. Now, in the equally excellent sequel, A Fire Beneath the World, our narrator returns, and he is not alone.

Where Thomas Peach was set entirely in England, this tale turns its eye to revolutionary France. It splits its focus between English characters, familiar to us already from Thomas Peach, and a new set of French faces. Our friend the English narrator (as I call him in my head) handles the former, and the much more straightforward French narrator (as I call them in my head) handles the latter.

This split in narrators is a structural mirror of one of the more charming themes of the book: the attempt to split people into one of two types. Our English narrator ruminates upon this at some length, quickly dismissing the easy binary of men vs. women as utterly uninteresting and unfit for purpose, and instead landing upon (he asserts) a far more foundational, undeniable, and universal division—namely, whether or not a person supports the French monarchy or the French revolutionaries. Obviously. Clearly. I see no problems with this fundamental universal binary.

The English portion of the tale does its best to support this philosophy. On the one hand we have Miss Arabella Farthingay, a pro-revolutionary poet who is invited to appear in front of the National Assembly in Paris to declaim her verses in their honour. Orbiting around her is a mysterious swashbuckling rescuer of persecuted French aristocrats, known as Forget-Me-Not, a hero lauded across English society with appalling doggerel, in a way that will be familiar to anyone who has seen the 1934 adaptation of The Scarlet Pimpernel, starring Leslie Howard and Merle Oberon.

As our English narrator relates Miss Farthingay's story, the action eventually shifts to France, and our English narrator is not happy about that. You see, he does not speak French very well, and so unless the French people speak slowly and clearly, he has difficulty following a lot of conversations. And furthermore, he doesn’t much care for the French, actually. French druids, for example, built their stone monuments in straight lines rather than circles like Stonehenge, which is obviously very bad and inferior to English druids, who well understood the principle of the curved line. Modern French people are just as bad, inexplicably devoted to the swearing and keeping of oaths as a matter of honour. Good solid Englishmen know that a serviceable lie is an indispensable component of an orderly nation’s government and commerce. (I don’t quite know why this anti-French bigotry is so funny to me. Is it because it’s based on such absurd pettiness? Is it because it’s over two centuries out of date, and so its teeth are drawn? Is it even possible to draw the teeth of bigotry? Evidently yes. This was hilarious.)

The other half of the tale focuses on French characters, and for that we get a French narrator. This narrator has a great deal less personality than our English narrator, but does, at least, speak French, and so we can understand all the French conversations spoken by the French people. (The French narrator does not, however, speak English, so some degree of linguistic confusion is an unavoidable component no matter who’s telling the story.) We follow here the (mis)adventures of three adventurers: a young woman, who seeks to leave her small town and see the world; a scoundrel, who follows demonic guidance in return for escape from prison; and an ex-valet, whose previous employer was also not averse to more than a little demonic shenanigans of his own.

Our French characters both support and contradict the English narrator’s claims about the Great Division of people. In support: they defy traditional gender divisions. The young woman is so large and strong that she can believably threaten to squash the skulls of men who betray her. The ex-valet is so dainty and beautiful that he is frequently mistaken for a woman; and looming throughout the narrative is a mysteriously powerful government official who is addressed both as Monsieur and Madame in different circumstances. Clearly, the distinction between men and women is pretty useless as a way of splitting the world in two, exactly as our English narrator has asserted.

But in contradiction to the second half of the English narrator’s Great Division, we find that—in France at least—a great many of the French people do not actually care much one way or the other about the state of the revolutionary government. For some, the sheer weight of living crushes out any political opinions: denouncements and disappearances weaken the labour force; but the availability of labour to bring in the harvest is a moot point, because the endless rain is rotting grain in the fields. In the teeth of starvation, what does it matter who writes the laws and collects taxes you can’t pay?

Even among those who can manage the luxury of political identities, many adhere not to the monarchy, or to the revolutionaries way off in Paris, but to their own Breton brethren on the coast of France. Our English narrator’s great division of mankind falls apart utterly when it is put to the test in the country to which it applies most directly.

Knowing the English narrator’s opinion of the French, I suspect he would probably dismiss this failure to adhere to his principles as even more evidence of the deficiencies of French character. However, since he does not speak French well enough to ask the French people themselves about their political opinions, he remains blissfully ignorant of this counterexample. As, in fact, he remains ignorant of all of the French components of the plot. In the climactic pages of the book, revelation after revelation emerges that he lacks the background to understand, leaving him spouting indignant protestations of bafflement into (he imagines) our sympathetic, equally baffled ear.

But we are not baffled. Our view of the tale has not been divided—not by gender, not by language, not by political opinion, not by nationality. We have seen all of it, and the result is a delight. I can think of no better words to end this review with than our English narrator’s own footnote. It refers to the previous book, The Infernal Riddle of Thomas Peach, in its original place in the text, but it applies equally well here:

You must take matters into your own hands. Seek out the book-sellers and the circulating libraries—hunt high and low—And find [this] volume for yourself.—Find it, and read it. We dare say, the effort will reward the toil.

Nerd coefficient: 9/10. Very high quality/standout in its category.

Highlights:

• Two narrators, both alike in dignity (well, not really)
• French Revolution
• Demons

Reference: Treadwell, Jas. A Fire Beneath the World [Hodder and Stoughton, 2024].

CLARA COHEN lives in Scotland in a creaky old building with pipes for gas lighting still lurking under her floorboards. She is an experimental linguist by profession, and calligrapher and Islamic geometric artist by vocation. During figure skating season she does blather on a bit about figure skating. She is on Mastodon at wandering.shop/@ergative.

Review: Napoleon

Ridley Scott's historical epic is wildly weird, ribald, and absolutely breathtaking at times

Director Ridley Scott — 85 years old! — is known for his far-ranging career in sci-fi and historical epics: Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator, The Martian, The Last Duel, House of Gucci.

Adding to his pantheon is Napoleon, which isn't a biopic in the traditional sense, isn't saccharinely grandiose and inspiring, and isn't necessarily all accurate. Does this take away from how enjoyable it is? Absolutely not.

Scott spares no expense in his grand set pieces occupying locations from the French Revolution to Egypt to Russia, and he sweeps thousands of soldiers (both real and CGI) across the plains of Europe like so many chessmen on a board. He's a master of his craft, and when I heard the first whispers that this movie was coming out, I knew I'd be there with (tri-color) bells on.

A brief detour to my love of all things French

Before we get started, I'd like to tell you a little about myself and my interest in the Little Corporal. (I found myself in the theatre wondering why every other person in the theatre was so interested in a three-hour movie about a 19th-century French general). I know why I was there, why is that grandma!?!

I have always been a history buff, and I have a degree in French literature. One thing about me—if there's a period piece set in Paris, I'm gonna see it. I've also been slowly reading the epic 900-page doorstop of a biography Napoleon: A Life by Andrew Roberts.

Our general wrote tens of thousands of letters during his life, and though I'm only 200-ish pages in, it became immediately apparent that this man was wild. More emotional than I ever imagined, brilliant, capable, and utterly obsessed with his empress, Josephine. He was, in a word, emo.

Ridley Scott has stated that he didn't have to read a book like this—that it was the poor scriptwriter's job to condense the life of one of the most famous men in history into a few short hours. The Napoleon that Scott chooses to bring to life is fascinating and weird, and the film itself has a wildly strange tone that I guarantee no one will see coming.

For this post, I'm going to structure my discussion in 5 exclamations/short phrases, along with the caveat that it's a movie worth seeing. It's just not that movie you may be expecting.

Horny

Napoleon is really two movies: The first, about a Corsican general's successes and failures on the battlefield. The other is a psycho-sexual drama between Napoleon and Josephine. 

The relationship is ribald and coarse and full of machinations à la Dangerous Liaisons. The movie follows this schema literally, too—you'll see an epic battle, then it'll cut to Nap & Jo on a couch, having a weird and tense conversation about how she never writes. 4 years will pass, another battle, another couch, rinse and repeat. There are awkward, stilted love scenes, and it's never quite clear if Josephine actually likes her emperor, though she definitely plays his games. Unfortunately, they didn't include my favorite bit of Napoleon trivia: in a letter to her, he once said, "Will arrive in 3 days. Don't wash." Man was into some pheromones!

SO interesting

Despite the weird tone of this movie, it's nearly impossible to take your eyes off the screen. I found myself waiting nearly two hours to sneak away and use the bathroom because I didn't want to miss anything. The highlight of the film is the Battle of Austerlitz, in which Napoleon beats the Austrian army with surprise tactics and then uses artillery to chase them off the ice of the frozen lake. 

The scenes where men and horses fall into the water are brilliant and artistic. There are things in Napoleon that I definitely have never seen before, and that's wild considering director Scott is nearing 90. There is also absolutely brutal gore that makes Saving Private Ryan seem like Hogan's Heroes.

Spectacular costumes

Is there anything cooler than the wild colors and extravagant tailoring of a French general? Methinks not, and this movie was a visual feast for folks like me. Ther are even impeccable small details, like the tricolor sashes wrapped around the waists of soldiers, signifying their loyalty to the republic. 

The women's dresses are equally as stunning; there's just (surprise) not as many women in the film. By the ending, Napoleon has switched to a khaki-colored overcoat that looks for all the world like the one Inspector Gadget wears. It works.

Empty, in a weird way, especially for a grandiose epic

Joaquin Phoenix was a strange choice for this role, and I'm not sure where he got his direction to play Napoleon like he does. One would assume Scott, but who knows? His portrayal is cold, weird, and surprisingly lacking in any sort of emotion. The real Napoleon suffered not from a Napoleon complex (he was actually of normal height) but from a Corsican complex: his family was Corsican, not French, and he didn't come from lofty riches. We get none of this in the movie, only his obsession with Josephine—which is definitely true, but this movie makes it seem nearly completely one-sided.

Also missing from this depiction of Napoleon is what made him a cult of personality. We see a brief glimpse of him charming his soldiers (including when he returns from exile), but that's about it. He doesn't seem like a leader, in the George Washington / Horatio Nelson / Alexander the Great type way.

Finally, I know a movie can only contain so much, but Napoleon speaks only to his success on the battlefield. In reality, he was also a keen civil organizer who introduced incredible public works, an entire civil code that would go on to influence law all across the globe, and wide-ranging and surprisingly liberal religious & educational reform.

Funnier than anyone will expect it to be

Most movies have moments of comic relief. Napoleon has yawning chasms of absurdity that crack open a scene, taking you out of the history and into a different place. I found myself laughing out loud at least a dozen times—sometimes I was the only one, though. There's one scene where he's rebuffed by the English foreign minister and Napoleon, in a fit of rage, screams something akin to "You think you're so great because you HAVE BOATS!!" It's true, the French navy was nothing compared to the ocean-ruling power of the English navy, but the way he spits out his frustration is nothing but funny.

On top of the strange one-liners ("Destiny has led me to this lamp chop"), Phoenix's performance is just so wildly weird that you can't help laugh every now and again. He's very serious, and he does a good job; you just have to wonder for the entire movie what he was trying to convey. 

Lots have been said about how the film was trimmed down. Speaking for myself, I can't wait for the director's cut that will tip it into 4-hour territory.

POSTED BY: Haley Zapal, NoaF contributor and lawyer-turned-copywriter living in Atlanta, Georgia. A co-host of Hugo Award-winning podcast Hugo, Girl!, she posts on Instagram as @cestlahaley. She is an avid Francophile and once had to announce a moratorium on gifts featuring the Eiffel Tower or art featuring croissants because her family was going overboard.