The Short Reign of Pippin IV: A Fabrication
by John Steinbeck
On This Page
Description
In "The Short Reign of Pippin IV," John Steinbeck turns the French Revolution upside down as amateur astronomer Pippin Hristal is drafted to rule the unruly French. Steinbeck creates around the infamous Pippin the most hilarious royal court ever: Pippins wife, Queen Marie, who might have taken her place at the bar of a very good restaurant; his uncle, a man of dubious virtue; his glamour-struck daughter and her beau, the son of the so-called egg king of Petaluma, California; and a motley show more crew of courtiers and politicians, guards and gardeners. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Reviews
Light-hearted political satire is perhaps not what one expects from Steinbeck, but this was a late work and the late works can be characterised as attempting not to be what one expects from Steinbeck...yet the style seems all Steinbeck.
Witty and funny at first, more typically melancholic in the middle the reader is left guessing whether it will end in tragedy or not until very near the end - though my guess was correct.
Throughout there are more or less subtle and amusing observations at they way countries are ruled, the way corporations are ruled and what happens to people who are thrust into positions of power against their will.
The characters are drawn clearly and I quickly held them in affection just as i now hold this book in show more affection. A quirky but successful experiment from Steinbeck. show less
Witty and funny at first, more typically melancholic in the middle the reader is left guessing whether it will end in tragedy or not until very near the end - though my guess was correct.
Throughout there are more or less subtle and amusing observations at they way countries are ruled, the way corporations are ruled and what happens to people who are thrust into positions of power against their will.
The characters are drawn clearly and I quickly held them in affection just as i now hold this book in show more affection. A quirky but successful experiment from Steinbeck. show less
A weird little political fantasy about France restoring their monarchy in the 1950s and choosing an unprepared little nebbish who'd rather play with his backyard telescope as their king. Not really that good, but you can see Steinbeck was having fun with it, and even if he was way out in right field with his little fable, he still manages to pack in his usual keen insights about politics and humanity. Especially this long quote:
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9921806-i-ve-never-understood-america-said-the-...
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9921806-i-ve-never-understood-america-said-the-...
The Short Reign of Pippin IV was good. I do wonder how much of it readers would get without a background understanding of politics or political science, cause I know I would not have found some parts as funny before I did my political science degree, but I think most people would still enjoy this one.
Pippin Heristal, distant descendant of Charlemagne, is placed on the resurected French throne after the country’s politicians give up on making a coherent government themselves. Their new king was not consulted prior to being chosen, and has to figure out how to approach his new role as a puppet king and proxy for the real government that still hopes to control France.
At about 150pgs, this is a good fast read for anyone looking to read show more something light and fast that is focused on a topic other than romance. show less
Pippin Heristal, distant descendant of Charlemagne, is placed on the resurected French throne after the country’s politicians give up on making a coherent government themselves. Their new king was not consulted prior to being chosen, and has to figure out how to approach his new role as a puppet king and proxy for the real government that still hopes to control France.
At about 150pgs, this is a good fast read for anyone looking to read show more something light and fast that is focused on a topic other than romance. show less
In this short piece of political satire, the French government decides to bring the monarchy back. They settle on Pippin Heristal, an amateur astronomer who lives on the income from some vineyards. As a constitutional monarch, there isn’t really much useful he can do, and he finds himself obliged to live uncomfortably in a palace, and put up with an infinite number of hangers-on, all who have inherited positions that suddenly are providing them with money. He just wishes to go back to his old life. His practical wife, Marie, figures that running a country should be like running a household, and her best friend, a nun who was formerly a show girl, gives sage advice. As does an old man who lives by a lake, who Pippin meets on one of his show more escapes from the palace, which he manages disguised as a common man, riding a motor scooter. It goes to his feminist, politically active daughter’s head and she instantly turns into a Disney princess.
While written in 1957, a good lot of the satire is still relatable today. People and politics really haven’t changed much. The book pokes fun at America just as much as at France, and it’s a quick, sort of fun read if you’re a Steinbeck fan- although it’s very different from any of his other books. Four stars. show less
While written in 1957, a good lot of the satire is still relatable today. People and politics really haven’t changed much. The book pokes fun at America just as much as at France, and it’s a quick, sort of fun read if you’re a Steinbeck fan- although it’s very different from any of his other books. Four stars. show less
A quirky political satire by Steinbeck. Its funny reading a lot of reviews saying how this doesn't 'feel like Steinbeck' or 'read like Steinbeck' or similar things, but as I fully read it, it absolutely did. And thinking back over it, there is a lot of his Travels with Charlie in this short little book; in the writing style, the humor, and the asides.
A quirky political satire by Steinbeck. Its funny reading a lot of reviews saying how this doesn't 'feel like Steinbeck' or 'read like Steinbeck' or similar things, but as I fully read it, it absolutely did. And thinking back over it, there is a lot of his Travels with Charlie in this short little book; in the writing style, the humor, and the asides.
No one I've talked to has ever heard of this Steinbeck short novel, but my friend Steve read it recently and knew I'd like it, so he sent me his copy. He was right. I loved it. Those of you who only know Steinbeck from Of Mice and Men or The Grapes of Wrath really owe it to yourselves to try this book or Cannery Row or Sweet Thursday just to get a taste of his lighter side. The cover copy on this one says, "John Steinbeck's Hilarious and Affectionate Spoof on French Politics, Texas Millionaires, Teen-Age Girl Novelists, Sex, and Other Human Frailties." It's as good a summation as any I could give you.
There's a scene in this book that made me think of Monty Python's Life of Brian. Remember when they had the Judean People's Front, the show more Popular People's Front, the People's Front of Judea, etc.? Well, there's one in here where they have the Christian Communists, the Christian Christians, the Christian Atheists, etc. Made me laugh out loud.
And any book that contains the sentence, "Luxembourg mobilized," is worth reading. show less
There's a scene in this book that made me think of Monty Python's Life of Brian. Remember when they had the Judean People's Front, the show more Popular People's Front, the People's Front of Judea, etc.? Well, there's one in here where they have the Christian Communists, the Christian Christians, the Christian Atheists, etc. Made me laugh out loud.
And any book that contains the sentence, "Luxembourg mobilized," is worth reading. show less
Members
- Recently Added By
Lists
20th Century Literature
1,161 works; 55 members
1950s
340 works; 22 members
Books Read in 2005
175 works; 7 members
Nifty Fifties
129 works; 13 members
American Lit for Eng 11 Research Project
368 works; 6 members
Global Reads: Books Set in Western Europe
186 works; 10 members
Reading LIst
648 works; 1 member
Author Information
In recent years Steinbeck has been elevated to a more prominent status among American writers of his generation. If not quite at the world-class artistic level of a Hemingway or a Faulkner, he is nonetheless read very widely throughout the world by readers of all ages who consider him one of the most "American" of writers. Born in Salinas County, show more California on February 27, 1902, Steinbeck was of German-Irish parentage. After four years as a special student at Stanford University, he went to New York, where he worked as a reporter and as a hod carrier. Returning to California, he devoted himself to writing, with little success; his first three books sold fewer than 3,000 copies. Tortilla Flat (1935), dealing with the paisanos, California Mexicans whose ancestors settled in the country 200 years ago, established his reputation. In Dubious Battle (1936), a labor novel of a strike and strike-breaking, won the gold medal of the Commonwealth Club of California. Of Mice and Men (1937), a long short story that turns upon a melodramatic incident in the tragic friendship of two farm hands, written almost entirely in dialogue, was an experiment and was dramatized in the year of its publication, winning the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. It brought him fame. Out of a series of articles that he wrote about the transient labor camps in California came the inspiration for his greatest book, The Grapes of Wrath (1939), the odyssey of the Joad family, dispossessed of their farm in the Dust Bowl and seeking a new home, only to be driven on from camp to camp. The fiction is punctuated at intervals by the author's voice explaining this new sociological problem of homelessness, unemployment, and displacement. As the American novel "of the season, probably the year, possibly the decade," it won the Pulitzer Prize in 1940. It roused America and won a broad readership by the unusual simplicity and tenderness with which Steinbeck treated social questions. Even today, The Grapes of Wrath remains alive as a vivid account of believable human characters seen in symbolic and universal terms as well as in geographically and historically specific ones. Ma Joad is one of the most memorable characters in twentieth-century American fiction. It is her courage that sustains the family. Steinbeck's best and most ambitious novel after The Grapes of Wrath is East of Eden (1952), a saga of two American families in California from before the Civil War through World War I. Cannery Row (1945), The Wayward Bus (1947), and Sweet Thursday (1955) are lighter works that find Steinbeck returning to the lighthearted tone of Tortilla Flat as he recounts picaresque adventures of modern-day picaros. The Winter of Our Discontent (1961) struck some reviewers as being appropriately titled because of its despairing treatment of humanity's fall from grace in a wasteland world where money is king. Steinbeck also wrote important nonfiction, including Russian Journal (1948) in collaboration with the photographer Robert Capa; Once There Was a War (1958) and America and Americans (1966), which features pictures by 55 leading photographers and a 70-page essay by Steinbeck. His interest in marine biology led to two books primarily about sea life, Sea of Cortez (1941) (with Edward F. Ricketts) and The Log from the Sea of Cortez (1951). Travels with Charley (1962) is an engaging account of his journey of rediscovery of America, which took him through approximately 40 states. Steinbeck was married three times and died in New York City on December 20, 1968 of heart disease and congestive heart failure. He was 66, and had been a life-long smoker. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Some Editions
Awards and Honors
Distinctions
Notable Lists
Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
Work Relationships
Is contained in
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title*
- Laßt uns König spielen. Ein fabriziertes Märchen.
- Original title
- The Short Reign of Pippin IV
- Original publication date
- 1957
- People/Characters
- Pippin Arnulf Héristal (King Pippin IV); Marie Héristal; Clotilde Héristal; Louis Armstrong; Charles "Uncle Charlie" Martel; Charles Martel (show all 21); Sister Hyacinth (Suzanne Lescault); Suzanne Lescault (Sister Hyacinth); M. Douxpied; M. Deuxcloches; Duc des Troisfronts; Jean Flosse; Tod Johnson; Georges de Marine; H.W. Johnson; Jean Veauvache (comte des Quatre Chats); Sergeant Vautin; Capitaine Pasmouches; Carolus Martellus (Charles Martel); Pepin the Short (Pepin III); Charlemagne
- Important places
- Paris, France; Versailles, Île-de-France, France
- Important events
- French Revolution; French Fourth Republic
- Dedication
- To my sister Esther
- First words
- Number One Avenue de Marigny in Paris is a large, square house of dark and venerable appearance.
- Quotations
- "I've never understood America,"said the king.
"Neither do we, sir. You might say we have two governments, kind of overlapping. First we have the elected government. It's Democratic or Republican, doesn't make much differe... (show all)nce, and then there's corporation government."
"They get along together, these governments?"
"Sometimes," said Tod. "I don't understand it myself. You see, the elected government pretends to be democratic, and actually it is autocratic. The corporation governments pretend to be autocratic and they're all the time accusing the others of socialism. They hate socialism."
"So I have heard," said Pippin.
"Well, here's the funny thing, sir. You take a big corporation in America, say like General Motors or Du Pont or U.S. Steel. The thing they're most afraid of is socialism, and at the same time they themselves are socialist states."
The king sat bolt upright. "Please?" he said.
"Well, just look at it, sir. They've got medical care for employees and their families and accident insurance and retirement pensions, paid vacations -- even vacation places -- and they're beginning to get guaranteed pay over the year. The employees have representation in pretty nearly everything, even the color they paint the factories. As a matter of fact, they've got socialism that makes the USSR look silly. Our corporations make the U.S. Government seem like an absolute monarchy. Why, if the U.S. government tried to do one-tenth of what General Motors does, General Motors would go into armed revolt. It's what you might call a paradox sir. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)He took off his crash helmet and brushed back his hair with his finger—and finally he laid his finger on the ivory button of the bell.
- Original language
- English
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 1,082
- Popularity
- 23,643
- Reviews
- 19
- Rating
- (3.65)
- Languages
- 11 — Catalan, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 32
- ASINs
- 48