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Carey understands that historical novels nowadays have to manage a high bodice- ripping quotient, which he does his best to supply; and he leaves out a great deal of intractable material, such as Tocqueville’s journeys to Canada and on the Mississippi. Instead, we get chapters on Parrot’s grim childhood experiences as a fugitive on Dartmoor and aboard a convict ship bound for Australia (in which thrilling passages I thought I detected the influence of Robert Louis Stevenson).
Yet, even so, Carey has, I think, unduly stinted on the blood-and-thunder. His intellectualism is the reason. He is really anxious to contribute to the debate on Tocquevillian themes, above all the viability of American democracy. For instance, his closing pages contain a dialogue between Parrot and Olivier about the future of painting under democracy, which could be read as a satire on the current New York art market; but the intellect gets in the way of the tale. I was reminded of Marie, ou l’esclavage, the novel written by Tocqueville’s actual companion, Gustave de Beaumont. And the tale gets in the way of the argument. Olivier is a poor creature; it is impossible to believe that he is the author of Democracy in America and the Système Pénitentiaire. He and his relatives are reactionary snobs, which was certainly not true of the Tocqueville family.
Carey’s vision of post-Napoleonic France seems stereotyped. His America is much better, but his account of it is in direct competition, not only with Tocqueville, but with writers such as Frances Trollope and Michel Chevalier. In short, he falls between several stools. Nor does the brilliance of his writing entirely compensate for his plot, the incidents of which are too contrived to be believable.
What a shame. But disappointed readers can still turn back to Democracy in America and Kidnapped; and my biography has just come out in paperback.
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