Abundance
Author: Sena Jeter Naslund
Rating: â 4/5
Date Read: 2014/03/17
Pages: 545
My weird obsession with Marie Antoinette started (as all weird obsessions do) in college. I canât place it perfectly, but Iâm pretty sure it was sometime after the Belle and Sebastian days and somewhat before I started watching French New Wave films. However, Iâm definitely sure it was well before I read metaphysical poetry almost exclusively. Whenever it was, I got really into Marie Antoinette: I read biographies, watched the film over and over again, and even had an ill-fated desire to decorate my apartment like Versailles (note: this doesnât work so well when youâve got an entry-level job. Trust me.).
Anyway, I bought this during the Marie Antoinette phase and just never got around to reading it, which is too bad because it ended up being a well-written and well-researced work of historical fiction that I wish I would have read sooner. Yeah, you know how it ends (and, if youâre anything like me, you know the whole plot), but Sena Jeter Naslund does a good job of making you not care. The novel is narrated in the first person perspective, and a few times Toinette herself makes unknowing comments that allude to her eventual demise (note: this is what is meant by the word irony, or dramatic irony if you want to get pedantic. Just wanted to clarify, in case you still thought that irony means pretending you donât like *Nsync. Because you know you do.).
The only somewhat awkward thing about this novel is that it has a few too many parallels with the Sofia Coppola film. They both came out at about the same time, so itâs hard for me to call shenanigans, but Iâm still going to call it. But really, who cares. This was pure fun (except for the decapitation bit), and I would recommend it if youâre into this sort of thing.