Palais-Royal

by Richard Sennett

A series of letters, diary entries, and essays reveal the inner lives of Frederick and Charles Courtland, two brothers who arrive in Paris in the early nineteenth century

Genres: Fiction

273 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Richard Sennett has explored how individuals and groups make social and cultural sense of material facts -- about the cities in which they live and about the labour they do. He focuses on how people can become competent interpreters of their own experience, despite the obstacles society may put in their way. His research entails ethnography, history, and social theory. As a social analyst, Mr. Sennett continues the pragmatist tradition begun by William James and John Dewey.

His first book, The Uses of Disorder, [1970] looked at how personal identity takes form in the modern city. He then studied how working-class identities are shaped in modern society, in The Hidden Injuries of Class, written with Jonathan Cobb. [1972] A study of the public realm of cities, The Fall of Public Man, appeared in 1977; at the end of this decade of writing, Mr. Sennett sought to account the philosophic implications of this work in Authority [1980].

At this point he took a break from sociology, composing three novels: The Frog who Dared to Croak [1982], An Evening of Brahms [1984] and Palais Royal [1987]. He then returned to urban studies with two books, The Conscience of the Eye, [1990], a work focusing on urban design, and Flesh and Stone [1992], a general historical study of how bodily experience has been shaped by the evolution of cities.

In the mid 1990s, as the work-world of modern capitalism began to alter quickly and radically, Mr. Sennett began a project charting its personal consequences for workers, a project which has carried him up to the present day. The first of these studies, The Corrosion of Character, [1998] is an ethnographic account of how middle-level employees make sense of the “new economy.” The second in the series, Respect in a World of Inequality, [2002} charts the effects of new ways of working on the welfare state; a third, The Culture of the New Capitalism, [2006] provides an over-view of change. Most recently, Mr. Sennett has explored more positive aspects of labor in The Craftsman [2008], and in Together: The Rituals, Pleasures and Politics of Cooperation [2012].

Reviews

[Yooperprof · Rating 2 out of 5]

I knew I was in for it when I saw that the author Richard Sennett dedicated this book to the memory of Michel Foucault.

It really does seem as if this were meant to be a series of lectures on Anglo-French cultural history in the 1830s and 1840s, focusing upon architectural and theatrical taste in Paris and London. Sennett is superbly qualified to offer such a tome.

What he doesn't seem capable of providing is an approachable or interesting historical novel.

Palais-Royal does have its moments of interest. And it's better than the recently published novel I finished most recently, Ian McEwan's Lessons. But like Lessons I have to rate Palais-Royal a 2 on a five point scale.

[James Henderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

An epistolary vision of 19th century in Paris and London, Sennett's novel is dedicated, fittingly, to the memory of Michel Foucault. The book may seem pedantic to some but appealed to me due to its enormous appetite for intellectual synthesis and illustration. The story concerns a pair of English brothers, the Courtlands: Fredrick, an architect of daring vision yet true aesthetic tact; and Charles, once a country curate who, humbled by the avidity of faith of someone like John Henry Newman, finds his own vocation wavering and instead follows his brother to France, where he establishes himself as a journalist, a kind of English Goncourt. There are also the letters and journal entries of a young woman, Adele Mercure, whose family connections to the Courtlands (her mother is Fredrick's mistress) leave her all the more hungry for their heady intellectual integrities. But it's the social lists and names (Gautier, Liszt, Balzac), and the architectural/cultural implications of the Paris arcades (Fredrick's project, and that which so involved Walter Benjamin)--it's these and asides about theater and Cardinal Newman and scandalous journalism that make up the bulk of the novel. The author plays with time and the use of letters is sometimes difficult to follow. However, in spite of this the novel is impressive in its intellectual breadth. Certainly worth the journey for those interested in ideas.

[kathryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Richard Sennet is coming to give a public lecture at school (April 11 2011 if you are in NYC) so Michael is having us read at least one of his books (seems reasonable)

Too bad Richard Sennet's talk was lame and condescending.