Telling stories

As an historian I just tell little stories. Or, as Carmen puts it, "You just make crap up!" Actually, I don't have to make stuff up. The story of real people is so improbable that I don't need to.

Here is a Canadian-born French author talking about stories, and explaining a lot about French intellectual history in the late 20th century:

“After the war French writers rejected the idea of narrative because Hitler and Stalin were storytellers, and it seemed naïve to believe in stories. So instead they turned more and more to theory, to the absurd. The French declined even to tell stories about their own history, including the war in Algeria, which like all history can’t really be digested until it is turned into great literature. Francophone literature doesn’t come out of that background. It still tells stories.”

You can find the whole article, which is about the French language and how it has burst the narrow bounds of France and true 'Frenchiness.'

suddenly I have the strangest desire to get back to reading "La Reine Margot."