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The Merry Month of May
“The only one of my contemporaries who I felt had more talent than myself was James Jones. And he has also been the one writer of any time for whom I felt any love.”—Norman Mailer
Paris. May, 1968. This is the Paris of the barricaded boulevards of rebelling students’ strongholds, of the literati, the sexual anarchists, the leftists—written chillingly of a time in French history closely paralleling America in the late ’60s. The reader sees, feels, smells and fears all the turmoil of the frightening social quicksand of 1968.
James Jones (1921–1977) established himself as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century with his WWII trilogy, From Here to Eternity (National Book Award winner), The Thin Red Line and Whistle .
Paris. May, 1968. This is the Paris of the barricaded boulevards of rebelling students’ strongholds, of the literati, the sexual anarchists, the leftists—written chillingly of a time in French history closely paralleling America in the late ’60s. The reader sees, feels, smells and fears all the turmoil of the frightening social quicksand of 1968.
James Jones (1921–1977) established himself as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century with his WWII trilogy, From Here to Eternity (National Book Award winner), The Thin Red Line and Whistle .
286 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1971
18 people are currently reading
168 people want to read
About the author
James Jones
48 books252 followersJames Jones was an American novelist best known for his explorations of World War II and its aftermath. His debut novel, From Here to Eternity (1951), won the National Book Award and was adapted into an Academy Award-winning film. The novel, along with The Thin Red Line (1962) and Whistle (published posthumously in 1978), formed his acclaimed war trilogy, drawing from his personal experiences in the military.
Born and raised in Robinson, Illinois, Jones enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1939 and served in the 25th Infantry Division. He was stationed at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii, where he witnessed the attack on Pearl Harbor, and later fought in the Battle of Guadalcanal, where he was wounded. His military service deeply influenced his writing, shaping his unflinching portrayals of soldiers and war.
Following his discharge, Jones pursued writing and became involved with the Handy Writers' Colony in Illinois, a project led by his former mentor and lover, Lowney Handy. His second novel, Some Came Running (1957), was adapted into a film starring Frank Sinatra and Shirley MacLaine. Over the years, he experimented with different literary styles but remained committed to exploring themes of war, masculinity, and the American experience.
Jones later moved to France with his wife, actress Gloria Mosolino, before settling in the United States. He also worked as a journalist covering the Vietnam War and wrote several non-fiction works, including Viet Journal (1974). His final novel, Whistle, was completed based on his notes after his death. In later years, his daughter Kaylie Jones helped revive interest in his work, including publishing an uncensored edition of From Here to Eternity.
Jones passed away from congestive heart failure in 1977, leaving behind a body of work that remains influential in American war literature.
Born and raised in Robinson, Illinois, Jones enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1939 and served in the 25th Infantry Division. He was stationed at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii, where he witnessed the attack on Pearl Harbor, and later fought in the Battle of Guadalcanal, where he was wounded. His military service deeply influenced his writing, shaping his unflinching portrayals of soldiers and war.
Following his discharge, Jones pursued writing and became involved with the Handy Writers' Colony in Illinois, a project led by his former mentor and lover, Lowney Handy. His second novel, Some Came Running (1957), was adapted into a film starring Frank Sinatra and Shirley MacLaine. Over the years, he experimented with different literary styles but remained committed to exploring themes of war, masculinity, and the American experience.
Jones later moved to France with his wife, actress Gloria Mosolino, before settling in the United States. He also worked as a journalist covering the Vietnam War and wrote several non-fiction works, including Viet Journal (1974). His final novel, Whistle, was completed based on his notes after his death. In later years, his daughter Kaylie Jones helped revive interest in his work, including publishing an uncensored edition of From Here to Eternity.
Jones passed away from congestive heart failure in 1977, leaving behind a body of work that remains influential in American war literature.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
July 26, 2012
This is a mean-spirited book by the author of the iconic World War II novel, From Here to Eternity. James Jones observes the 1968 May Revolution from the lofty perspective his protagonist - a middle-aged intellectual, grumpy and self-righteous. One description tells all about his viewpoint: “...uniform of the Revolution: blue jeans, flannel shirt, running shoes (i.e., tennis shoes), and a large bandanna knotted loosely around the throat.” (page 62). This would, possibly, describe a “uniform” from San Francisco in the 1970s, but what I remember from 1968, and particularly in Europe, is corroborated by a book called Protest in Paris 1968: Photographs by Serge Hambourg published by Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College (2006) [see my Goodreads list for this 5-start book] and photos from the Fall 1968 issue of CAW (Students for a Democratic Society) [archival and rare - I own it, but won't put it on my list]. What you see are slacks, ties and sports jackets, turtle necks and sports jackets, leather shoes, and sweaters and overcoats (Paris was cold and rainy, after all, even in May!). And for the girls, skirts and dresses! flats and low heels! There were some in slacks, but almost no blue jeans. And always, sweaters and wool coats. The image of the rowdy hippies was nowhere to be seen. Jones made up a stereotype of unrespectable “kids” to score political points and to paint an entire generation with a broad brush as grubby, spoiled, worthless and anarchical.
August 4, 2021
طى سه روز بعد، من دائما با هری در رم در تماس بودم. حالا که همهی کارکنان پست به سر کارهاشان برگشته بودند تماس گرفتن آسان شده بود. هری در تصمیمش پا برجا مانده بود. به پاریس برنمیگشت مگر اینکه لویزا بمیرد. تازه در آن صورت هم قطعى نبود.
ظاهرا از بابت او هیچ دغدغهاى به خودش راه نمىداد. با این همه باید اعتراف کنم که چندین بار به من گفت دلش براى او مىسوزد. به ظاهر از او متنفر بود و از شبى که او را در آن حال با سامانتا دیده بود، دیگر هیچ احساسى نسبت به او نداشت.
روز پنجشنبه لویزا یا در واقع جسم لویزا به نظرم خیلى بهتر آمد. یا دستکم از نظر جسمانى، ضربان قلب، فشار خون، درجهی حرارت، تنفس، همه کم و بیش طبیعى شده بود. ولى همچنان در اغما بود.
روز جمعه بالاخره به هوش آمد و دچار بحران عصبى شدیدى شد. از جا برخاست به همه طرف چرخید و موفق شد یکى از بازوهایش را آزاد کند و سوزنى را که با آن سرم به او تزریق مىشد از بدنش بیرون بکشد. خوشبختانه پیش از اینکه بتواند لولههایى را که در بینىاش بود خارج کند، موضوعى که مىتوانست پىآمدهاى وخیمى داشته باشد، پرستارها موفق شدند او را مهار کنند. پس از این واقعه، او را با چند تسمهی محکم به تختخواب بستند.
پس از زد و خوردهاى سهشنبه شب طى دو روز واقعهی مهمى پیش نیامد و آرامشى نسبى بر همه جا حکمفرما شد. در عین حال روزنامهها دو یا سه خبر جالب توجه را منتشر کردند.
ظاهرا از بابت او هیچ دغدغهاى به خودش راه نمىداد. با این همه باید اعتراف کنم که چندین بار به من گفت دلش براى او مىسوزد. به ظاهر از او متنفر بود و از شبى که او را در آن حال با سامانتا دیده بود، دیگر هیچ احساسى نسبت به او نداشت.
روز پنجشنبه لویزا یا در واقع جسم لویزا به نظرم خیلى بهتر آمد. یا دستکم از نظر جسمانى، ضربان قلب، فشار خون، درجهی حرارت، تنفس، همه کم و بیش طبیعى شده بود. ولى همچنان در اغما بود.
روز جمعه بالاخره به هوش آمد و دچار بحران عصبى شدیدى شد. از جا برخاست به همه طرف چرخید و موفق شد یکى از بازوهایش را آزاد کند و سوزنى را که با آن سرم به او تزریق مىشد از بدنش بیرون بکشد. خوشبختانه پیش از اینکه بتواند لولههایى را که در بینىاش بود خارج کند، موضوعى که مىتوانست پىآمدهاى وخیمى داشته باشد، پرستارها موفق شدند او را مهار کنند. پس از این واقعه، او را با چند تسمهی محکم به تختخواب بستند.
پس از زد و خوردهاى سهشنبه شب طى دو روز واقعهی مهمى پیش نیامد و آرامشى نسبى بر همه جا حکمفرما شد. در عین حال روزنامهها دو یا سه خبر جالب توجه را منتشر کردند.
April 9, 2021
The 1968 Paris student “revolution” is closely mirrored by a sexual revolution occurring within an American ex-pat family. Communism, anarchy, free love and the establishment collide. In the end, was anything gained? Was it worth the costs and consequences?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 12, 2020
I’m sure this book had a point. I am either too dumb to figure it out or too annoyed that a book with such beautiful writing felt so pointless.
June 18, 2017
Bottom Line First:The Merry Month May
James Jones is at his best describing the military aspects of the failed student revolution in May 1968 Paris. His place descriptions read like he is seeing them as a military man laying it out for defense.
This revolution serves as a backdrop the action described, but not influenced by his main character. This could have been a better novel. There are several related themes but a lack of cohesion. Characters can be sympathetic only to become pathetic and vice versa. There is a reveal at the end that almost ruins the entire novel. Over all I can recommend The Mary Month of May. I cannot enthuse about it. It is a novel that can be read for serious entertainment, barely and it has enough depth if you care to delve deeper.
The Mary Month of May introduces us to Jack Hartley a American Ex-Pat living in Paris and editing a Literary Review. He has become close to a well off family the Gallaghers. He makes it clear this will not be a warm hearted story with a happy ending.
The politics throughout are leftist with everyone sympathetic to the Student Revolt. Why they should be is never clear. What exactly is being revolted against is never made clear. To ask the question is to label yourself as too old. Even so young and old will take side with the students. Jack is also a leftist, but he never seems to like anyone associated with the movement, esp if they are in a position of leadership.
In fact the politics and the student revolt are backdrop. But some folks will want to reject or embrace the book just on its superficial politics. While we address reasons to like or dislike the book, there is a fair amount of rougher language and much casual discussion of sex. There are no explicit descriptions of sex and only a few on page sexual encounters. The topic of sex is a driving theme.
Between the 50's and 60's a reoccurring theme in American literature was an apparent belief that some people, male or female knew some particular secret. Either they had mastered a particular movement or they had an ability to achieve and grant access to some magical level of sexual fulfillment. Those who had this secret had special powers over otherwise sane, grounded people and so forth. This notion is also a major theme in Mary Month of May.
Returning to Jack. He is an observer. He is supposed t know people well and seems like a principled man. Yet is seems to be surprised by all of the important things he should know about his closest friends. As for principal he fails outright in one early situation. He fails his revolutionary friends and mostly prove incapable of either using information or of effecting people who most need it.
Vladimir Nabokov writes that one has to understand the geography of a novel- Evan to the point of making or buying maps. Jones uses the geography of left bank Paris constantly. Jones's use of geography is sometimes better than his ability to write about people. The Mary Month of May is a case in point that proves Nabokov's. Given the tracking of historic events as a parallel to the main story line, Mary Month of May could benefit from full annotation.
James Jones is at his best describing the military aspects of the failed student revolution in May 1968 Paris. His place descriptions read like he is seeing them as a military man laying it out for defense.
This revolution serves as a backdrop the action described, but not influenced by his main character. This could have been a better novel. There are several related themes but a lack of cohesion. Characters can be sympathetic only to become pathetic and vice versa. There is a reveal at the end that almost ruins the entire novel. Over all I can recommend The Mary Month of May. I cannot enthuse about it. It is a novel that can be read for serious entertainment, barely and it has enough depth if you care to delve deeper.
The Mary Month of May introduces us to Jack Hartley a American Ex-Pat living in Paris and editing a Literary Review. He has become close to a well off family the Gallaghers. He makes it clear this will not be a warm hearted story with a happy ending.
The politics throughout are leftist with everyone sympathetic to the Student Revolt. Why they should be is never clear. What exactly is being revolted against is never made clear. To ask the question is to label yourself as too old. Even so young and old will take side with the students. Jack is also a leftist, but he never seems to like anyone associated with the movement, esp if they are in a position of leadership.
In fact the politics and the student revolt are backdrop. But some folks will want to reject or embrace the book just on its superficial politics. While we address reasons to like or dislike the book, there is a fair amount of rougher language and much casual discussion of sex. There are no explicit descriptions of sex and only a few on page sexual encounters. The topic of sex is a driving theme.
Between the 50's and 60's a reoccurring theme in American literature was an apparent belief that some people, male or female knew some particular secret. Either they had mastered a particular movement or they had an ability to achieve and grant access to some magical level of sexual fulfillment. Those who had this secret had special powers over otherwise sane, grounded people and so forth. This notion is also a major theme in Mary Month of May.
Returning to Jack. He is an observer. He is supposed t know people well and seems like a principled man. Yet is seems to be surprised by all of the important things he should know about his closest friends. As for principal he fails outright in one early situation. He fails his revolutionary friends and mostly prove incapable of either using information or of effecting people who most need it.
Vladimir Nabokov writes that one has to understand the geography of a novel- Evan to the point of making or buying maps. Jones uses the geography of left bank Paris constantly. Jones's use of geography is sometimes better than his ability to write about people. The Mary Month of May is a case in point that proves Nabokov's. Given the tracking of historic events as a parallel to the main story line, Mary Month of May could benefit from full annotation.
December 31, 2014
This book is only ostensibly about the Left Bank movement, more concerned as it is with sexual fantasies and escapades of its characters.
more here:
http://inkquilletc.blogspot.in/2014/1...
more here:
http://inkquilletc.blogspot.in/2014/1...
February 22, 2011
Much like The Unbearable Lightness of Being, this tale of revolution gets sidetracked by boring tales of older men having sex with younger women.
February 17, 2021
Am not going to finish what has taken several days to read 100 pages; a third of the book. There was an interesting (am tempted to say "titilating" in the affected pretentious style of the author) literary discourse in its introduction, comparing James Jones to Hemingway, and the parallels between "The Sun Also Rises" (also set in Paris) with Jones's supposedly-best (?) historic fiction on the May Revolt in Paris of 1968 which brought the city and country to a standstill. Jones assumes the first-person narrative of American expatriot Jonathan James Hartley III, friends call him Jack, founder of a literary review who, despite his connections to various enlightened social circles known for their intellectual and artistic standing, their cocktail parties and considerable glamorous lifestyle, admits he is a failed poet, a failed novelist, humbly (though not really) offering his considerably diminished talents as a commentator, instead. By his own admission, he is of the "Drunk Generation" not the "Lost" Generation of literary elites Faulkner, Fitzgerald and Hemingway. "All nervously itching to take the credit, and jealously yelling 'We did it first!' " The theme that enfolds, throughout, are the generational gaps that not only create obstacles to trust, but the breakdown of previous long-standing relationships; a deliberate and passionate alienation to facilitate moving the old out of the way for a new social order that challenges the status quo. This, of course, includes the sexual revolution in that time where Jones tends to expend more than an inordinate share of fantasy born of frustration. Among his other failings, he can not look beyond the newly liberated objectivity of women as sexual playthings, he is unable to commit to love and marriage and meaningful interpersonal relationships; ever-the-commentor, a passive observer physically and mentally and spiritually removing himself from the events and people closest to him. The worst thing, apart from his pompous self-conceit, is the fact that his character projects not the slightest inkling of a sense of humor. He even admits this, inasmuch also, going so far as to make it sound like a boast. Sadly, if there were neurotic or self-deprecating counterpoints afforded say in the inner-voiced fashion of Woody Allen who reigned in the Renaissance of the free love hippie period and its wholesale rejection of "hang-ups, Man," the author might win the affection of readers. But no. The overt, insensitive, stereotypical racial and gender references and graphic sexual conquests are demeaning and, by extension, I would think an embarrassment to anyone who really knows the author. If not his publicist. His fixations, as such, distracts from the narrative. As do the details of endlessly babbling about specific geography of the city as would be suitable, one would imagine, to including a map if they're so important. The same goes for his curious myopic obsession with baroque decor in the Louis XIII-style. What he lovingly calls "Louis Treize". There's a drinking game here. Every time he dangles the always-affected italicized tidbit for style points, you need to take a sip of Remy Martin cognac. It's all just too much--would that I could, at least, get a "Drunk Generation" buzz from the attempt. But, alas, I am sober and bored. And, worse, underwhelmed. So much name-dropping and pretentious posturing about an episodic event of Revolutionary discord, does not a novel make. Not, in this reader's opinion, a good one at any rate.
March 24, 2025
Goddammit, James Jones! Why did you have to sully your great talent with some of the stupidest and most ridiculous sex scenes ever written in 20th century literature? Now I'm certainly no prude. But I do have a bone to pick with awful writing. THE MERRY MONTH OF MAY has many thoughtful considerations of how the generational divide led to the May 1968 protests in Paris. There are many beautiful moments, such as Jones describing how different the sunlight is in Paris and many evocative descriptions of Parisian life. But this is all undercut by his truly awful (and unintentionally hilarious) considerations of sex. Passages such as this:
"Cunt-struck, Harry was continuing, incognizant of my red ears, cunt-oriented: those were the key words to remember. When the true history of his generation came to be written, it might go well in posterity as the Cunt-struck Generation. By extension they could then be called Cuntniks, as Kerouac, Ginsberg and company, a few years younger, were Beatniks."
Such violet-tinged stupidity pops up frequently like great eyesores. And ask yourself two questions: (1) Where the fuck was James Jones's editor? (2) James Jones, why didn't you rub one out before you wrote this?
Jones certainly got to the root of sexual angst in FROM HERE TO ETERNITY and, to a less successful extent, in SOME CAME RUNNING. Hell, I'll even pardon GO TO THE WIDOW-MAKER's Carol Abernathy to some extent. But THE MERRY MONTH OF MAY sees James Jones writing about sex in the most awkward, cringey, and thoughtless of ways. And that's ultimately what sinks this novel. I can see why so many people hated it upon publication. And this is why Jones's non-war novels have been forgotten. It's simply a waste of Jones's talent.
"Cunt-struck, Harry was continuing, incognizant of my red ears, cunt-oriented: those were the key words to remember. When the true history of his generation came to be written, it might go well in posterity as the Cunt-struck Generation. By extension they could then be called Cuntniks, as Kerouac, Ginsberg and company, a few years younger, were Beatniks."
Such violet-tinged stupidity pops up frequently like great eyesores. And ask yourself two questions: (1) Where the fuck was James Jones's editor? (2) James Jones, why didn't you rub one out before you wrote this?
Jones certainly got to the root of sexual angst in FROM HERE TO ETERNITY and, to a less successful extent, in SOME CAME RUNNING. Hell, I'll even pardon GO TO THE WIDOW-MAKER's Carol Abernathy to some extent. But THE MERRY MONTH OF MAY sees James Jones writing about sex in the most awkward, cringey, and thoughtless of ways. And that's ultimately what sinks this novel. I can see why so many people hated it upon publication. And this is why Jones's non-war novels have been forgotten. It's simply a waste of Jones's talent.
November 26, 2018
باورنکردنیه ولی من با کتاب آشتی کردم؛
کتاب در مورد انقلاب دانشجویی در فرانسه در دوران حکومت دوگل هست و در کنار این انقلاب زندگی آمریکایی های مقیم فرانسه رو هم به تصویر میکشه... خوب کتاب خوبیه در کل و پیشنهاد می کنم خوندنش رو
کتاب در مورد انقلاب دانشجویی در فرانسه در دوران حکومت دوگل هست و در کنار این انقلاب زندگی آمریکایی های مقیم فرانسه رو هم به تصویر میکشه... خوب کتاب خوبیه در کل و پیشنهاد می کنم خوندنش رو
February 2, 2024
Nej den här var inget tidigare. Svarar på mina frågeställningar och det var väl tur. Sexistisk mest.
May 6, 2024
Horrible, amateurish book by an author capable of good writing. How did this get published?
May 17, 2010
This is how this book came to be on the currently-reading shelf:
One of my groups posted a May challenge -- any book with a loose connection to May.
I posted this to the group's thread on this May related challenge:
I found a book which fits the criteria and have taken it from the shelf today and begun reading. The Merry Month of May This is not the physical book which I have -- mine is a pre ISBN numbers hardback from 1970 beautifully bound in black cloth with the author's signature in gold script on the front cover and gold lettering title and author on the spine. The relationship of this period in Paris with the 1960's era in the USA and the fact that the Kent State shootings of May 4, 1970 took place barely two years after the time of the setting of this book add up to a set of significant reasons this is my choice for this reading. This, on the heels of discovery of "There Goes My Baby" a very affecting film set in the mid-1960's as the Vietnam War protests began to take shape. I seem to be revisiting my college years and looking in at them through many different sets of eyes -- it's rather interesting.
Well, the unfolding of the student revolt leading to a general strike across not only Paris but France and the handling of it by the de Gaulle government was interesting. As I said somewhere I'm sure all of this was on/in the news along with our own similar troubles in this coutnry but I was in high school and then college and too much of the good girl and good student to be out and seeing much of what started (though after the fact, I DID see it's beginnings as I walked by small knots of students around highly charged haranguing speakers with protest signs waving -- I recall skirting these or changing course in order to get to class on time without being drawn in). All of this of course mushroomed into the student rioting against the war -- not that the war was off my radar -- it loomed over us all. Who of our friends, relatives, etc. would be going? Who would be back whole or not? All of it was a part of our life one way or another. And eventually, it came home for me (after I was gone from home and married) by visiting my own alma mater's campus with the shots heard round the world as the students were killed at Kent State. It changed forever how I respond and what response I get when I tell someone where I graduated from college. It could have changed forever -- even further -- the dynamics of my relationship to my husband and his family -- his brother walked by the huge gathering only 15 minutes before the shooting began -- he could just as easily have walked by fifteen minutes into the melee and been shot.
The book proceeds very leisurely building toward the involvement of the young man in the family of the book with these events and outlining the differences among the adults and the younger crowd in general as well as those same divides within the family group. It seemed too slow at some p[oints. Then it takes a few turns and the end seemed somehow frustratingly distanced from the main flow of the story. Maybe I just haven't made the connection I need to have made between the main body of the story and the end point. At any rate -- slightly less satisfying overall than I had hoped earlier on. Definitely need to do some digging into the factual side of the event though and may do so before too long -- just to close my own loops on this period of unrest.
One of my groups posted a May challenge -- any book with a loose connection to May.
I posted this to the group's thread on this May related challenge:
I found a book which fits the criteria and have taken it from the shelf today and begun reading. The Merry Month of May This is not the physical book which I have -- mine is a pre ISBN numbers hardback from 1970 beautifully bound in black cloth with the author's signature in gold script on the front cover and gold lettering title and author on the spine. The relationship of this period in Paris with the 1960's era in the USA and the fact that the Kent State shootings of May 4, 1970 took place barely two years after the time of the setting of this book add up to a set of significant reasons this is my choice for this reading. This, on the heels of discovery of "There Goes My Baby" a very affecting film set in the mid-1960's as the Vietnam War protests began to take shape. I seem to be revisiting my college years and looking in at them through many different sets of eyes -- it's rather interesting.
Well, the unfolding of the student revolt leading to a general strike across not only Paris but France and the handling of it by the de Gaulle government was interesting. As I said somewhere I'm sure all of this was on/in the news along with our own similar troubles in this coutnry but I was in high school and then college and too much of the good girl and good student to be out and seeing much of what started (though after the fact, I DID see it's beginnings as I walked by small knots of students around highly charged haranguing speakers with protest signs waving -- I recall skirting these or changing course in order to get to class on time without being drawn in). All of this of course mushroomed into the student rioting against the war -- not that the war was off my radar -- it loomed over us all. Who of our friends, relatives, etc. would be going? Who would be back whole or not? All of it was a part of our life one way or another. And eventually, it came home for me (after I was gone from home and married) by visiting my own alma mater's campus with the shots heard round the world as the students were killed at Kent State. It changed forever how I respond and what response I get when I tell someone where I graduated from college. It could have changed forever -- even further -- the dynamics of my relationship to my husband and his family -- his brother walked by the huge gathering only 15 minutes before the shooting began -- he could just as easily have walked by fifteen minutes into the melee and been shot.
The book proceeds very leisurely building toward the involvement of the young man in the family of the book with these events and outlining the differences among the adults and the younger crowd in general as well as those same divides within the family group. It seemed too slow at some p[oints. Then it takes a few turns and the end seemed somehow frustratingly distanced from the main flow of the story. Maybe I just haven't made the connection I need to have made between the main body of the story and the end point. At any rate -- slightly less satisfying overall than I had hoped earlier on. Definitely need to do some digging into the factual side of the event though and may do so before too long -- just to close my own loops on this period of unrest.
October 27, 2015
Oversexed; I read it expecting a story about the May Revolutions, I ended up reading a story about the sex lives of the people in it.
The edition I read was split into two volumes, of which I only read the first because I didn't figure it was worth continuing.
Though it fails to tell you anything about the Revolution itself, which is what I wanted, James Jones does manage to capture its feel and ambience in itself, though the story itself suffers also from being told through the lens of a middle aged man, instead of the students directly involved.
Interesting, but decidedly not a most read. Still probably better than nothing if you want to be familiarized with the subject portrayed, considering the lack of novels on it, but you will be left feeling unsatiated.
The edition I read was split into two volumes, of which I only read the first because I didn't figure it was worth continuing.
Though it fails to tell you anything about the Revolution itself, which is what I wanted, James Jones does manage to capture its feel and ambience in itself, though the story itself suffers also from being told through the lens of a middle aged man, instead of the students directly involved.
Interesting, but decidedly not a most read. Still probably better than nothing if you want to be familiarized with the subject portrayed, considering the lack of novels on it, but you will be left feeling unsatiated.
June 1, 2016
I spent my May reading The Merry Month of May and it was probably the best decision how to spend my last student life spring reading a book about Parisian students in turmoil.
The story bring you back to 1960s when striking and my favorite city occurred to be a total mess. Btw, for those who watched The Dreamers with Eve Green, yep, it's exactly the same period. Spectator acclaims that Jones is the new Hemingway of our time. I would say that this comparison may be too exaggerating. But the fact that if you like the Hemingway's style, you will not be disappointed for sure.
Moreover, the ones who love Paris, especially Left Bank would find this book as an excellent guide and would probably feel some nostalgia while reading.
Definitely a good choice for vacations.
The story bring you back to 1960s when striking and my favorite city occurred to be a total mess. Btw, for those who watched The Dreamers with Eve Green, yep, it's exactly the same period. Spectator acclaims that Jones is the new Hemingway of our time. I would say that this comparison may be too exaggerating. But the fact that if you like the Hemingway's style, you will not be disappointed for sure.
Moreover, the ones who love Paris, especially Left Bank would find this book as an excellent guide and would probably feel some nostalgia while reading.
Definitely a good choice for vacations.
June 24, 2016
ماه دلانگیز مه، به روش هری گالاگر ، داستان مه 68 را در از نقطه نظر یک راوی به اصطلاح بیطرف محافظهار آمریکایی روایت میکند. دید انتقادی نویسنده در کنار همدلی گاه و بیگاه موید این نظر است. اما تصاویر و وقایعی که از انقلاب روایت کرده خوب از کار درآمده است.
اما نویسنده، همپای فیلمهای هری داستان،نتوانسته شاهکار خلق کند.
اما نویسنده، همپای فیلمهای هری داستان،نتوانسته شاهکار خلق کند.
November 24, 2014
The Merry Month of May by James Jones (Delacorte Press 1971) (Fiction). It is 1968 in Paris, and there is revolution in the air. The atmosphere in Paris mirrors that in the US at the time. This is the story of the changes wrought by the populace. DNF. My rating: 6/10, finished 11/24/14.
November 9, 2016
جنبش می 1968 از اون دست جنبش هاییست که شرکت کنندگان و معترضین – در اینجا دانشجویان و کارگران – میدونن چی نمیخوان ولی هیچکس دقیقاً نمیدونه چی میخواد و چی قراره جایگزین نظم حاکم بشه. به نظر میرسه این جنبش یا به تعبیر دقیق تر شورش ، حاصل ماجراجویی تعدادی دانشجوست که حوصله شون از وضع موجود سر رفته و به دنبال کمی تنوع و هیجان با چاشنی روشنفکری در زندگیشون بودن
May 3, 2011
Slightly interesting if you are interested in learning about Paris in the late 1960s. I love Paris, so I did enjoy it a bit. However, I'm not sure I could recommend the book. The storyline is not terribly compelling.
September 12, 2010
Good novel.
Read
October 29, 2013Simply couldn't get into it
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