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The Affair of the Poisons by Anne Somerset was last month’s ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
bibliogoth book. I was very happy to get it and realise that it was actually a history book rather than a history novel. In the midst of my dissertation a nice light non-scholarly history book on a subject I knew nothing about sounded like perfect entertainment. It was also a successful book so by reading a popular history I hoped I’d be able to get some ideas for how to write one for my book about Empress Wu. Unfortunately The Affair of the Poisons was a bit of a disappointment. It was billed as “poison, infanticide and Satanism in the court of Louis XIV”. Unfortunately there was very little Satanism and only a few pages of infanticide. It was mostly a description of the King’s sex life. The biggest problem with the book was that she seemed to have no arguments, rather the work consisted of a bunch of names and dates, rather dull and dry history, particularly when dealing with a potentially interesting subject.
The book started with an interesting mini-view of one woman who was being executed for poisoning several family members. The fact that she had done the deeds was not questioned, unlike every other poisoning mentioned in the book, but Somerset’s reasons for assuming her guilt were never explained. It then moved on to a rather long discussion of the court, and Louis’ mistresses. Throughout these chapters Somerset made frequent references to, “these events will become very important during the Affair of the Poisons. Unfortunately they never did, or she was unable to tell it in such a way to make them relevant.
Halfway through the book the first arrests were made and the affair actually started. Unfortunately, there were no backgrounds given for the main people that were arrested, a woman who sold poison, and performed abortions, and a man who made his living as a “magician”. For me, as a social historian, it would have been nice to have a chapter looking at how these people fit in with society. What sort of lives they lived, how common they were, how they were able to interact with court and society while not being a part of it, what were the traditions behind magicians of the day, how did visiting a magician fit in with the religious life, what was the spiritual tradition behind these magicians? There were so many interesting avenues that could have been explored and none were. Instead we had the most boring of accounts of “so and so was tortured on this day and said this about this person” for about 100 pages. There was also no analysis of the information that was coming out of the interrogations, no discussion about the effects of torture on the individual and the effects of mass hysteria.
In the end names of the King’ mistresses were mentioned, but these names were never made public. They were only revealed in the 19th century when other documents, thought destroyed, came to light. This is unfortunate because her whole argument for including the chapter on the King’s sex life was that these mistresses were important and the scandal including them rocked the foundations of court and effected a mass outbreak of panic. Except, if no one knew about it, then it couldn’t have.
The book covered a potentially interesting topic, but unfortunately in a very uninteresting and uninformative way. At the end of the book I did know more about that period in French history than I had before so it wasn’t a total waste. I also knew a bit more about how Not to write a history book. But the book was definitely a disappointment.
bibliogoth book. I was very happy to get it and realise that it was actually a history book rather than a history novel. In the midst of my dissertation a nice light non-scholarly history book on a subject I knew nothing about sounded like perfect entertainment. It was also a successful book so by reading a popular history I hoped I’d be able to get some ideas for how to write one for my book about Empress Wu. Unfortunately The Affair of the Poisons was a bit of a disappointment. It was billed as “poison, infanticide and Satanism in the court of Louis XIV”. Unfortunately there was very little Satanism and only a few pages of infanticide. It was mostly a description of the King’s sex life. The biggest problem with the book was that she seemed to have no arguments, rather the work consisted of a bunch of names and dates, rather dull and dry history, particularly when dealing with a potentially interesting subject. The book started with an interesting mini-view of one woman who was being executed for poisoning several family members. The fact that she had done the deeds was not questioned, unlike every other poisoning mentioned in the book, but Somerset’s reasons for assuming her guilt were never explained. It then moved on to a rather long discussion of the court, and Louis’ mistresses. Throughout these chapters Somerset made frequent references to, “these events will become very important during the Affair of the Poisons. Unfortunately they never did, or she was unable to tell it in such a way to make them relevant.
Halfway through the book the first arrests were made and the affair actually started. Unfortunately, there were no backgrounds given for the main people that were arrested, a woman who sold poison, and performed abortions, and a man who made his living as a “magician”. For me, as a social historian, it would have been nice to have a chapter looking at how these people fit in with society. What sort of lives they lived, how common they were, how they were able to interact with court and society while not being a part of it, what were the traditions behind magicians of the day, how did visiting a magician fit in with the religious life, what was the spiritual tradition behind these magicians? There were so many interesting avenues that could have been explored and none were. Instead we had the most boring of accounts of “so and so was tortured on this day and said this about this person” for about 100 pages. There was also no analysis of the information that was coming out of the interrogations, no discussion about the effects of torture on the individual and the effects of mass hysteria.
In the end names of the King’ mistresses were mentioned, but these names were never made public. They were only revealed in the 19th century when other documents, thought destroyed, came to light. This is unfortunate because her whole argument for including the chapter on the King’s sex life was that these mistresses were important and the scandal including them rocked the foundations of court and effected a mass outbreak of panic. Except, if no one knew about it, then it couldn’t have.
The book covered a potentially interesting topic, but unfortunately in a very uninteresting and uninformative way. At the end of the book I did know more about that period in French history than I had before so it wasn’t a total waste. I also knew a bit more about how Not to write a history book. But the book was definitely a disappointment.