Greater Journey, The by David McCullough ~July Book Club Online

[JoanP]

The Book Club Online is  the oldest  book club on the Internet, begun in 1996, open to everyone.  We offer cordial discussions of one book a month,  24/7 and  enjoy the company of readers from all over the world.  Everyone is welcome.

July Book Club Online

The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris
by David McCullough

"Magnifique! I should have known--McCullough is one of my favorite history writers, and he's writing about nineteenth-century Paris, one of my favorite places to read/think/dream about.  When I was young I always wanted to go to Paris--but not Francois Mitterand's Paris. No, I wanted Degas' Paris, Balzac's Paris, Toulouse-Lautrec's Paris. Well, this was an extended visit to that same Paris but through fresh eyes."  Goodreads review "In The Greater Journey, David McCullough tells the enthralling, inspiring—and until now, untold—story of the adventurous American artists, writers, doctors, politicians, and others who set off for Paris in the years between 1830 and 1900, hungry to learn and to excel in their work. What they achieved would profoundly alter American history." Amazon review                                    Discussion Schedule: Week 1 - July 14 - 20 ~ Part I/ Chapters 1 & 2 Week 2 - July 21 - 27 ~ Part I/ Chapters 3 & 4   Week 3 - July 28 - Aug. 3 ~ Part II/ Chapters 5 & 6 Week 4 - Aug. 4 - 10 ~ Part II/ Chapters 7 & 8 Week 5 - Aug. 11 - 17 ~ Part III/ Chapters 9, 10, 11 Week 6-  Aug. 18 - 24 ~ Part III/ Chapters 12,13,14

Relevant Links

David McCullough-Brian Lamb  Intervew (Books TV)  ; David McCullough-Charlie Rose;  Biography - David McCullough; Morse's Interactive Gallery of the Louvre

Some Topics for Discussion
July 21 -  27

Part I ~  Chapter 3 ~ Morse at the Louvre

1.   Willis said in a crowd he could always recognize an American. Why and how, do you think?

2.  As Americans abroad, they felt that their behavior was even more important, as reflecting on their country. Do you agree?.

3.  "The nose is too short - the eye too small'.  Have you ever dealt with a kibitzer like Cooper was to Morse?  How did you handle it?

4.  If you were painting a painting like Morse's and could chose any paintings in the world, what would you chose?

5.  What do you think of the type of painting Morse did?  Was it valuable? Is such a painting still valuable?

6.  Can you imagine a scene like that at the Louvre in an American gallery? How does the Louvre differ from a modern American art gallery?



Part I ~ Chapter 4.   The Medicals

1.  Does the condition of medical education at the time shock you? How much useful knowledge do you think the doctors actually had to impart to their students?

2.  What does the difference between attitudes toward examination of female students and dissection of corpses say about the two societies?

3.  Do you think surgeons ever still operate with the aim of performing the operation, rather than saving the patient? Are there still doctors who treat their patients with distain?

4.  What instances do we see where exposure to a new culture caused major shifts in the world view of one of our characters? Is that what travel does? Can you find such instances in your own life?

5.  What does this chapter say about the interplay between scientific and artistic thinking? Which do DM portray more vividly: the artists or the scientist/medicals?

6.  The political changes in France don't seem to have affected our characters'  lives at all. How much do you suppose this generation was affected by the revolutionary ideas of the generation before?

Discussion Leaders:   JoanP,  PatH  Barb,  JoanK,   Marci

[JoanK]

Yes, it seems that the attitude toward the food is as important as the food itself. I'm sure if I ate slowly and savored each bite, I would enjoy my food twice as much, and lose weight.

And change a lot of my food choices, too. When you really taste your food, you realize some of it isn't so great.

Except for the one description of a restaurant, DM doesn't tell us much about our friends' reaction to the food. It must have been quite different from what they were used to!

[salan]

Europeans do much more walking than we do in the U.S.  When my sisters & I  were in Paris & trying to decide whether to take the metro or other forms of transportation, we were always told that wherever we wanted to go was only a 15 min walk.  45 minutes later & we still weren't at our destination.  After the third experience like that we decided that either they walked extremely fast, or 15 minutes just meant within walking distance to the French.  We quit asking how far anything was!

We decided that we were going to eat at one really fine restaurant.  It was really quite an experience.  We had 4 waiters and several courses & wine with each course.  We had a wide array of cutlery.  We knew what most of it was, but there was one spoon we couldn't figure out. It was between the size of a tsp & a tbs and had a v shaped notch cut in the side of the spoon. I decided that rather than leave there not knowing what it was for; so I would simply ask one of the waiters.  It was a spoon for pouring sauce on the entree.  Interesting!  Dining there was one of the highlights of our trip & worth the money.  I just considered it my souvenir of Paris!
Sally

 

[Ella Gibbons]

The chapter on medicine in Paris was fascinating to read, although parts of it horrifying also.  But one can understand why young men wanting to become doctors would go to Paris  where they could get an education in medicine; whereas in America at the time most doctors never attended a medical school but learned by apprenticehip.  

The largest and the oldest hospital, five stories high, was the Hotel Dieu where patients were treated free of charge:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%B4tel-Dieu_de_Paris

Two advantages in medical education in Paris were (1) physicians could examine women as well as men, not so in America, and (2) the supply of cadavers for study.  In America there were many laws prohibiting dissection of bodies.

"Modern scientific medicine" had its rise in France in the early days of this century said one of the founders of Johns Hopkins Medical School; and many of those who had trained in Paris later taught in American medical schools - thus we probably benefited greatly from these early pioneers in medicine who went to Paris to learn.

Who would ever hae thought it??

[Ella Gibbons]

In reading over the article in Wikipedia I noticed something about "artificial pancreas" - I have never heard of that, has any one?  Does that mean, possibly, if one has cancer of the pancreas it could be removed and an artificial one put in its place?

[pedln]

Ella, I think it has more to do with the treatment of type 1 diabetes, and seems to be a device that goes further than the insulin pump.

Artificial pancreas

[Ella Gibbons]

Got it, PEDLIN, thanks!   I didn't read carefully enough, teach me a lesson I hope.

[PatH]

Gee, I know people who qre glued to their smartphones, but that would really do it.

[Jonathan]

'Approximately seventy of those who had trained in Paris in the 1830s, or one out of three, later taught in American medical schools, and several ranked among the leading physicians in the nation.' p133

And it wasn't too long before America was the place to go for state of the art medical training or treatment. And it's amazing to read something like this at the bottom of the Artificial Pancreas link:

'Edward R. Damiano, an associate professor of biomechanical engineering at Boston University, has a 15-year-old son with Type 1 diabetes. He said he was determined to get the new device working and approved in time for his son to go off to college carrying one.'

Aren't we rooting for him and all those who's lives will be saved by the rapid development of medical knowledge and technology.

And in the book we read James Jackson's letter home to his doctor father:

'We live indeed in darkness, and it costs more time to discover the falsity of pretended truth than it would perhaps to reach something truly valuable.' p125


The students worked so hard. While those lovers on the bridge, in a bright light, had no thought for a better life and wanted it to go on forever....Oh my gosh, Honey! I just threw the car keys into the river.

[JoanK]

when we were in France in the 60s, it was those days when the exchange rate meant that everything was dirt cheap for Americans. Poor student us ate dinner in three -four star restaurants almost every night. I still remember some of those meals vividly 50 years later.

[JoanK]

Sumner discovers that "negroes" are people like him and it changes his life. What other world-changing discoveries do our friends make? Does travel change our views of the world?

[BarbStAubrey]

Sally in the early chapters didn't they say something about how the Americans were astonished at being told something was a few steps away and they walked and walked. I was delighted when i read how, was it Cooper and his friend walked encircling Paris in about 4 hours plus was it another 2 hours to either back to the quarters or to a way of transporting themselves back to their quarters. Now that is seeing Paris. Today the city spreads and spreads like so many of our major cities.

[BarbStAubrey]

Ok found this - and yes we are reading about the Paris hospital

Paris (France) and Vienna were the two leading medical centers on the Continent in the era 1750–1914.

In 1770s-1850s Paris became a world center of medical research and teaching. The "Paris School" emphasized that teaching and research should be based in large hospitals and promoted the professionalization of the medical profession and the emphasis on sanitation and public health.

However, what is said about the hospital in Vienna has me curious about how Napoleon affected the study of medicine in Paris.

The First Viennese School of Medicine, 1750–1800, was led by the Dutchman Gerard van Swieten (1700–1772), who aimed to put medicine on new scientific foundations - promoting unprejudiced clinical observation, botanical and chemical research, and introducing simple but powerful remedies. When the Vienna General Hospital opened in 1784, it at once became the world's largest hospital and physicians acquired a facility that gradually developed into the most important research center. Progress ended with the Napoleonic wars and the government shutdown in 1819 of all liberal journals and schools; this caused a general return to traditionalism and eclecticism in medicine.

[JoanK]

That's very interesting, BARB. I don't usually think of politics influencing science, but of course it does.

The walking was true in London, as well, when I visited it. When we asked directions, they would always tell us how to walk, and say it wasn't far.

Even in New York, it seemed that people walked far more than they did in the suburbs where I had lived. Maybe it's a characteristic of large cities, where transportation is a mess that people walk.

[PatH]

Well, also, in the suburbs, you have to walk a long way to get to anything except more houses.

[PatH]

The Pont Neuf may not have lover's locks, but it has something better.  Under the parapets there are sculptured faces, each one different.

[BarbStAubrey]

And the best we can do today is wrap the whole thing - oh well maybe it is acknowledging the great was accomplished and so it is honored by wrapping it as presenting a birthday gift.

[JoanP]

How old is the Pont Neuf?  (Sounds like a corny riddle, doesn't it?  How old is the New Bridge? )
Those faces remind me of all the gargoyles on the magnificent churches you see when walking the streets of Paris.  You have to remember to look up or you'll miss them.  Or you could stay in a hotel with windows facing directly on them as we did a few times looking onto St. Roch's.  I have a story about St. Roch's but it ties in to a later chapter, so will save it till then.

[JoanP]

Does the condition of medical education at the time shock you?

I've been thinking of your question, JoanK, but especially when reading the treatment of diseases - cholera, TB...and wondered  about those Americans in Paris.  Why did they stay?  Did they think they were immune or maybe they thought they'd be one of the lucky ones?  Surely they knew of the dangers?

The Cholera epidemic reminds me of the Ebola virus taking its toll in West Africa. No known cure.  Will there be one someday?  My son's girlfreind had applied for an assignment to Freetown in Sierra Leone.  Someone else got that one.  That person is living for two years in Sierra Leone...one of the hardest hit ebola sites in Africa.  She did get an assignment in Zambia, in South Africa.  THere is no ebola there - yet.

Ella told of a mother who died of TB, leaving small children behind.  You could have been writing of my mother, Ella.  She died from TB at the age of 35 in 1945, leaving the five of us.
Ironic - the following year there was something called penicillin...

I'm really into these Medicals ...though was surprised to find them in Paris learning the art of medicine...
Interesting stuff on the "Paris School" of Medicine, Barb!

[pedln]

Some of those sculptured faces look familiar PatH.  Does anyone know who they are?

It's almost overwhelming -- the irony of James Jackson, Jr -- to have studied so hard and learned so much to bring back to this country, only to have died within a year of his return.  I'm glad McCullough wrote so much about him, extolling so many positive things.

[JoanP]

Couldn't find anything, Pedln...except this - for what it's worth-

"The Pont Neuf bridge is also covered with faces…lots of strange faces.  They are each unique and individual, and one could spend some time just marveling at them.  I have read on the internet that the faces on the Pont Neuf Bridge are there to ward off evil spirits.
 
Our tour guide on our walking tour in Paris told us that they were friends of Henry IV (who was responsible for building the bridge) in the 16th century -  and were put there as a joke after a night of drunken revelry

[PatH]

Henri IV must have had some peculiar friends, then.  The third one from the right in my picture is a faun or satyr--notice the ear and the horn.

My SIL told me that only one of all the faces is a woman.

My Google search says the bridge was started in 1578 and opened in 1603.

[BarbStAubrey]

Their Sunday night visits to Trois Frères Provençaux included Onion Soup and this wonder of Cotelettes d'agneau à la provençale



While back home here is the fare listed in a cookbook published in 1832

http://www.foodtimeline.org/1832.html

[BarbStAubrey]

Two observations that hit me reading about Doctoring in the Paris Hospital as compared to medicine in American - two issues that have been with us - Doctors were considered gods - in their demeanor they established themselves as gods as part of a hierarchy where surgeons are still on the top of the totem pole and the average new doctor and nurse much less the average patient is supposed to look up to their crowned glory so their prognosis and directions are followed with few to no question and for a nurse they must follow quickly with few to no questions.

The other, if left to the French maybe women's medicine would not have taken so long to match the needs and physicality of a women. Until very recently all meds and treatment was based on doctors knowledge of a man's body that it was assumed women had the same symptoms, reactions to disease and of course would be helped by the same cures as men. Example how differently women experience a heart attack only became public knowledge in the last 20 years. Looks like all this folklore was established during the early days of modern medicine.  

[marcie]

In the ART section, it was amazing to me that Morse not only copied the original master paintings that he selected (and copied some of them while on a 10-12 foot scaffold!) but then he changed perspective for some (or all) of them as he placed them in his own imagined setting on his canvas, with some along the side of the "room."  He was driven and really wanted to make his mark and do something that no American had done before.

[PatH]

Thanks for pointing that out to me, Marcie.  It's quite a feat, especially keeping the ones on the left wall convincing--they're the most squashed.  McCulloch suggests Morse used a camera obscura to project images of the paintings on his canvas, but that wouldn't be enough.  I'm sure that without the artist's vision and skill, you would just get a mess, and that certainly wouldn't produce the faithfulness to each individual artist's style.  It's not cheating to use a camera obscura; lots of good artists did.  For example there is some evidence that Vermeer used it.

And we mustn't forget that whenever he used scaffolding, he was also lugging that 6 by 9 foot canvas up it, and propping it securely.  Or else he was making sketches on smaller canvases and re-copying.

[marcie]

Yes, just moving and climbing up and down the scaffold! And sitting or laying on it can't have been comfortable. What stamina he had to paint every single day (was it from 9am to 4 pm?)! McCulloch says there is no evidence that he missed a day.  

When he completed the painting in America it seems that the public wasn't as interested in viewing it as he had hoped. But at least he received the critical acclaim he wanted and some other American painters got to see, for the first time, some of the master works of the "Old World." It's interesting to think that there were very few reproductions of the masters and no "art books" so that people who had not visited Europe had no access to the art world of the past.

[bellamarie]

BarbStAubrey, 

Two observations that hit me reading about Doctoring in the Paris Hospital as compared to medicine in American - two issues that have been with us - Doctors were considered gods - in their demeanor they established themselves as gods as part of a hierarchy where surgeons are still on the top of the totem pole and the average new doctor and nurse much less the average patient is supposed to look up to their crowned glory so their prognosis and directions are followed with few to no question and for a nurse followed quickly with few to no questions.

I have to agree with you on the doctors thinking they were God, and patients would hang on their every word without question.  Today, not so much.  When I had my hysterectomy ten years ago, I had researched so much prior, that I think I stunned my female and male ob/gyn.  I told her how I wanted the incision made, (bikini cut) and I told her how I would do my hormone replacement therapy.  She was not very familiar with the natural progesterone cream that could eliminate women from using synthetic estrogen replacement which is carcinogenic.  The day the male doctor entered my room after my surgery and told me he had prescribed my estrogen patch I saw his Godlike image deflate when I said, No, that is not the route I have chosen.  He tried the almighty, I know best for your care, and I asked if he was even familiar with Dr. John R. Lee's book about how to treat women after this surgery.  Of course he hadn't, and I pray he was intelligent enough to learn about other ways.  I think I shocked my older sisters and friends at how I was not following the norm of the doctors.  We have to debunk that Godlike image, and be proactive in our care.  Question, research and speak up!  America is so far behind in female medicine and treatments.

I love learning about the faces under the bridge.  What a hoot!!!

Ciao for now~

[Jonathan]

Good for you, Bellamarie, for making yourself so knowledgable about your own health problems.

I was lucky. My doctor was very honest with me, years ago, when I went to him with a serious health problem. I'm not God. Don't expect any miracles. But I'll swear I owe him the last twenty-five years of my life.

It is interesting to speculate about those heads on the bridge. Some may well have been Henry's friends. My first impression was that most looked a bit hung over. Maybe it's just the things they seen over the years.

It gets interesting with the huge painting on the left in Morse's Louvre Gallery. The one he, himself, is facing while looking over the shoulder of the student copying it. Veronese's Marriage of Cana. Can someone bring it up? An old book on Paris says this about it:

'This picture, by the way, has a double interest....It is full of portraits. The bride at the end of the table is Eleanor of Austria; at her side is King Francis I. (who found his way into many pictures as most men); next to him, in yellow, is Mary of England. The Sultan Suliman I. and the Emperor Charles V. are not absent. The musicians are the artist and his friends - Veronese himself playing the 'cello, Tintoretto the piccolo, Titian the bass viol, and Bassanio the flute. The lady with a toothpick is (alas!) Vittoria Colonna.'

Why alas? Who is Vittoria Colonna?  The author of my book, written a hundred years ago, goes on to say:

'A newspaper paragraph lying before me states that the authorities of the Louvre have five hundred unfinished copies on their hands, abandoned by their authors so thoroughly as never to be inquired for again.'

Perhaps, after working diligently for hours, for days, some stranger walks up with his camera, snaps his picture, and is gone.

[JoanK]

Yes, we've come a long way in getting doctors to consult seriously with patients, but we're not there yet, especially we woman.

BARB: I couldn't resist your food site. Had to learn what some of the strange names were. Although this scared me off!

Noyau
 Take "Two gallons of gin ....."

Okaaay. Doesn't much matter what else is in it.

[Jonathan]

Wouldn't it be funny, if Morse had put some of his own friends into the picture. Would that have been an infringement of someone's rights? Wouldn't that be glorious, to find yourself a wedding guest on that occasion?

[JoanK]

Jonathan: your wish is my command! Here is Veronese "The Wedding Feast at Cana"

http://rannabella.wordpress.com/2012/03/31/the-wedding-feast-at-cana/

Looks to me it has more historical than artistic importance (but what do I know?). Fun, painting a miniature version foreshortened. No wonder Morse took forever.

PAT: I love the pictures on the bridge and the story behind them. Hmm, would being carved on the bridge be considered an honor or an insult?

[BarbStAubrey]

This web site has a link to every painting in the Morse, Gallery of the Louvre - just point and click and the painting comes up in a separate window.

http://faculty.washington.edu/dillon/Morse_Gallery/

[bellamarie]

JoanK.,  Thank you for the link to the pic.  I have always seen "The Wedding Feast at Cana"s" as biblical, since it is one of the miracles Jesus performed, turning the water into wine.  As you can see the artist has placed Jesus at the very center of the table, rather than the bride & groom.  It's a magnificent painting.

Jonathan, I am glad to hear your doctor was of good sense, and honesty to say he is not God, and don't expect miracles.  More so, I am glad he was able to heal you to be here with us some twenty-five years later. 

Ciao for now~

[marcie]

Thanks for that link, Barbara. Morse's painting is so colorful.

[Jonathan]

Yes, and thanks, JoanK, for the link to the 'wedding' picture itself. You are right. It has great historical interest, but little artistic value. There is much to marvel over since it represents an artistic  impression of Jesus' first miracle. Jesus looks so thoughtful. He senses the gloomy atmosphere. Not a smile to be seen. The bride looks the least happy of them all. What one can't read into that picture!

I seem to remember reading that artists then made good commissions painting the rich and powerful into biblical or legendary scenes. I don't doubt that this picture got Veronese into heaven.

[JoanK]

Earlier, we get paintings of "Saint so and so with donor", the donor being a smaller figure kneeling in a corner. At least, the artist earned a living!

Rembrandt was the painter who painted himself into many of the crowd scenes he did. It's fun to try and find him (he looks like the actor Gene Wilder). Kind of an historical "where's Waldo?"

In this version of "The Night Watch", if you click on the circle below the two top circles, you'll see him.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/11/world/europe/rijksmuseum-rembrandt-nightwatch-interactive/

[JoanP]

 Louis Philippe was toasted on the Fourth of July in 1832.  We need to watch  Louis.  He's been king of France for two years now...very popular with the Americans at home and abroad.  At this time, S. Morse was  hurrying to finish his "Gallery of the Louvre" *   I love identifying his friends and family - and himself in the painting, too. But why  the hurry?

"Nor did he provide the least sign or hint of the deadly scourge then raging outside the museum (cholera, I presume?) -  or the inner torment of the of the figure at center stage." (?)

 

So that's Morse in the center leaning over his student's shoulder.  But why does McCullough refer to Morse's "inner torment"?* The link to this painting was placed in the heading for EASY REFERENCE.  My guess is that McCullough will be returning to this painting again and again.

[PatH]

One reason Morse was in a hurry was that the Louvre was going to close for the summer.  He would then have to wait for months before resuming.  He doesn't seem to feel he has infinite time to waste.

[mabel1015j]

Thank you for all the links and the explanations about the paintings. That's one of the best thing about our discussions - we mention something, or have a question, and BEHOLD there is the picture, or the answer, or an addendum, on the web!

Going back over the chapters as a review - Willis saying he recognizes "the American face,.......The distinguishing feature, he decided, was the 'the independent, self-possessed bearing of a man unused to look up to anyone as his superior in rank, united to the inquisitive, sensitive, communicative expression which is the index to our national character."

Has the rest of the world caught up with that attitude, and therefore, the American less identifiable? Was the rest of the world so bowed down at the time that Americans less class- consciousness stands out? I think that's probably so.

Don't you love the use of words, the picture he "paints" with words, in Morse's toast to Lafayette? ".......he stands there now. The winds have swept by him, the waves dashed around him, the snows of winter have lighted upon him, but still he is there......."  (Pg 95)

I am amazed at how many times we have been given the image, in paintings, or words, of people in the past who are reading and walking at the same time (pg 121) "Bowditch......walked mornings and evenings, often reading Virgil." Can any of you do that? Did the same mishaps occur as today with people "walking while texting"; bumping into people, falling into fountains, walking into something? I can't imagine trying to walk and read a book, but it is said often enough in historic accounts, that it must have happened frequently.