The Beginning of the End: France, May 1968

Italian TV scriptwriter Quattrocchi and Edinburgh, Scotland-based teacher and political writer Nairn have written two entirely different essays for the 30th anniversary of the French student riots, and combined to make this very short book about a very challenging subject. Nairn's flat prose about the political motivations is not original but at least is readable, although marred by cliched chapter headings like ""The Last Comedy of Capitalism"" and ""A New Subjectivity."" But this book errs badly in printing Quattrocchi's ""contemporary fable"" titled ""What Happened,"" which reads like a combination of a hokey ""atmospheric"" radio script and John Berger after too many Camparis. Quattrocchi offers a myopic view of the events of the student revolution, with so many arcane references and French terms that only a reader thoroughly familiar with the 1968 revolution will have any idea of what he is getting at, and even then, what he adds in the way of perspectives and comments are not exactly illuminating. Parts sound like a bad translation of Genet: ""The mass copulation with fear has left behind its sportcars hooting obscenities. Young puppets tenderly nursed by midwife flics."" Readers truly interested in ideas about political revolution will want to read theorists like Hannah Arendt, Leo Strauss, Raymond Aron, among others, as an antidote to this curious, unhelpful production. (May)