Persian Letters by Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu is an epistolary novel that presents a wide range of themes discussed by a couple of Persian visitors to France. From one letter to the next Usbek and Rica shares their impressions from being in France, making the work in part a travel guide, in part a political satire and often a mere narrative of domestic life inside a seraglio. Being written in the eighteenth century the Persian Letters remain interesting to the contemporary reader due to the topics covered and, I believe, the manner in which the author managed to do it. I chose the 24th letter from the collection to demonstrate the peculiarities of the author’s style that contributed significantly to the book’s unfading success.
Letter 24 is Rica’s recount on their staying in Paris. The traveler shares his thoughts that the European capital evoked in him. With extreme lightness that cannot but attract the reader’s attention Montesquieu renders Rica’s views on different aspects of every day life. Rica admits that the life Europeans live is much more complicated if compared to the Asian way of living. Citizens of Paris are always in a hurry to somewhere, slow Asian carriages and the regular pace of the camels will never suit them. The author resorts to brilliant metaphors when he discusses the rapid tempo of Parisians’ life: “There are no people in the world who get so much out of their carcasses as the French: they run; they fly.” (Montesquieu Letter 24) The metaphor “they fly” is extremely interesting, as one can hardly imagine flying in its common sense in the eighteenth century. I should also admit that the use of asyndeton helps the author to create some kind of tension in Rica’s narrative. This seeming tension makes the reader anticipate some interesting denouement in Rica’s story, but the traveler, instead, radically changes the theme of his narrative.
Now Rica comes to discuss the King Louis XIV: because of his interpreting the things Rica sees him as a “great magician”: “He exercises his empire over the very minds of his subjects and makes them think as he likes.” (Montesquieu Letter 24) The paragraph where Rica describes the king’s strength and magnificence is one of examples of how the author resorts to the device of innocent eyes which the whole work is full of. This device helps the author to satirize European social, political, religious, and literary customs throughout the work.
The author’s opinion in this very letter is that “the same earth “carries European and Asian worlds but people living there are quite different (Montesquieu Letter 24). Though his character confesses that he is not empowered to speak seriously of European usages and customs, as he only has a faint idea of them himself, the reader willingly believes the descriptions suggested by the author and does not want to check their reliability. I believe that this happens due to the lightness of Montesquieu’s narration. The authors of the letters directly address their readers and this creates an atmosphere of confidence that cannot but involve us into reading of the novel.
The 24th letter ends with the author’s promise to continue his description of the differences between the two worlds thus making the reader turn on a new page of the letters collection. Realizing that the two worlds do differ, the reader finds a lot of bright examples of this difference from the narrator’s point of view. I believe that the elements of the author’s style I talked of above worked and, as a result, the author managed to create a collection of really effective essays that will never stop teaching and fascinating their readers.
Works Cited
Montesquieu. Persian Letters. Web.