Annette Vallon: a novel of the French Revolution by James Tipton

It seems I have been reading quite a lot of historical fiction lately. Unlike the books I recommended a few days ago, Annette Vallon is not an historical mystery but a straightforward historical novel – a work of fiction that evokes or recreates the past. Quite often these fictional works take for their characters real people who actually lived at the time. Sometimes a novelist takes for the main character a notable historical figure and puts words into their mouths and motives into their heads. Since these kinds of historical novels are usually based on meticulous historical research, it could be argued that this kind of reanimation of people who have lived and died and can no longer defend themselves is as legitimate as the work of a biographer. Another approach to historical fiction is to create the main character from imagination and to set him or her among minor characters who actually lived. A compromise is to make your main character a minor figure from the past about whom little is known, as is the case with Annette Vallon.

History records that Annette Vallon (1766-1841) met English poet William Wordsworth when he spent a year in France on the eve of the French Revolution. Annette became his lover and muse and bore him a daughter, Caroline (1792). Wordworth left France as the Revolution became more repressive and violent, returning to see his daughter years later, even after having proposed marriage to an Englishwoman.

In this fictional account, Annette is a headstrong, spoiled, and convention-breaking daughter of a rich doctor who has the temerity to enter into an unconventional “marriage” with William. When William’s foreign status and outspoken politics place him in danger, Annette risks her life to assist him in escaping the Loire region where she lives. In this region there is much popular resistance to the Jacobins, who are Paris-based and are stripping the country of food and conscripts for the army. Annette becomes a legendary resistance leader and helps many refugees from the civil war. The bulk of the second part of the book is about this resistance. I found it exciting reading. There was a lot to think about in the way the ideals of the Revolution degenerated into tyranny, bigotry, fear, and violence.

Conversation Starters
“Tipton's descriptions, à la Tracy Chevalier, of how masterpieces are created alternate with the spirited heroine's adventures, making for an uneasy balance…”
“Annette—and those who help her along the way—are believable in their struggles through the best and the worst of times.”
One reviewer called the book “vibrant and alluring.” Would you agree?
Annette refuses to be married unless it is for passion. She says she has been spoiled by the novels of Rousseau. Find out about Rousseau.
The novel is narrated in hind-sight by the 50-year-old Annette. Did you like this device?
What did you think of Annette’s mother?
Do you think it is fair to take a real person’s life and fictionalize it?

This is a very good review from the Philadelphia Inquirer http://www.popmatters.com/pm/books/reviews/53082/annette-vallon-a-novel-of-the-french-revolution-by-james-tipton/

Further Reading
Wordsworth: the Poetic Life by John L. Mahoney
Other novels on the artist life by Tracy Chevalier and Sarah Dunant