The sea rises

The sea rises. An illustration by Hablot Browne

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair… 
Charles Dickens, A tale of two cities (1859).


It's August 11, 2016 and my first post on this blog. We're living times of big news and fanatic views. Good times for books and poor times for open minds. So these are probably and again the best and the worst of times. There are places in the world where Xenophobia is closed to extinction, and others where tolerance is close to absent. There is xenophobia running for president and whole countries killing themselves because of religious intolerance.

So I write and research for this blog to ask if open minds come from reading more of the good stuff? and, what is the good stuff? or, is it too late? do we have to start when we are little? will children's book help people be more open minded to the other? are there books to cure fanatics? or maybe to learn not to be one?

The image included (The sea rises) is an illustration by Hablot Browne for Dickens' book A Tale of Two Cities. According to the Charles Dickens page, his illustrations were not well received and Browne, who had illustrated Dickens for 23 years, never worked with Dickens again. 

The Sea rises is a metaphor. The worst and best of times in Dickens' story are the times of the French Revolution. As in other of Dickens' stories, there is a bastard, a scoundrel called Foulon. A hated official who had dared to say that starving people could eat grass (sounds familiar?). There is also a woman in the story called Madame Defarges, a tricoteuse* who leads a mob to kill Foulon. She makes the sea rise and the mob seizes Foulon, stuffs his mouth with grass and then hangs him from a lamp post.

That brings us to a serious and difficult question: Should we get rid of Assholes? or should we read them a bedtime story? 

Joseph Foulon was a real person (and probably a real bastard). He was the Controller-General of finances under Louis XVI and unpopular on all sides. The rich resented his severity, and the poor his wealth. A rumor accused him of having said during a famine: "If those rascals have no bread, then let them eat hay". Funny enough, you can even get a keychain with his image at zazzle.com


* During the French Revolution,  tricoteuse was the nickname for the women who sat beside the guillotine during public executions in Paris, continuing to knit in between executions. Amongst the items they knitted was the famous liberty cap.