Talk:La Reine Margot (novel)

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First comments (Aug 2002)

Somehow I don't think the poster of Isabelle Adjani counts as a picture of Queen Margot, and it's probably copyrighted...JHK

It's not a picture of Queen Margot, it's a picture of the Dumas novel and the movie made from it. The photo may be copyrighted, but the cover as a whole is fair use, just as the covers of the tapes are. -- isis

Pardon me for barging in, but shouldn't the article, "Queen Margot", deal only with the book and film, whereas the details of her life should come under another article entitled, "Margot of Navarre" (or whatever her correct title is under the wikipedia rules)? --Deb

Or the book might be better on the Dumas page. -- isis

Actually, I think Deb is right -- the article needs to be written so that it's specifically about La Reine Margot, the book and later the movie. This can then include some very appropriate commentary on the use of literature as historical source. I think that, if the picture is to be used, it should be clearly labeled "Poster from the xxx version of the Film starring Isabelle Adjani" JHK

It's not a poster -- it's the front cover of the paperback book. -- isis

What does a book and a movie have to do with recording in an encyclopedia a person who has historical significance? I don't undewrstand the deleting of the important information on her role as the Queen.... DW

We don't want to delete the information, we want to move to the page with the correct title under our naming convetions, which is "Margot of Navarre". --LDC

Done, under her given name of Marguerite! JHK

Very careless bookkeeping here! We now have two articles, Marguerite and Marguerite de Valois, identical except that one of them also mentions daisies.

Neither one of them references this article, nor does this article reference either one of them, so someone has turned what was an informative paragraph at the bottom of an article about a Queen into a completely uninformative stub.

Shall I put this all back together the way I think it should be, or will whoever got all lost here find their way back to fix this? This is a great movie and historically accurate as such things go and as such belongs in the main article. This wouldn't have happened if people hadn't gotten all bent out of shape about the book cover. Ortolan88 18:46 Aug 26, 2002 (PDT)

You have laid your finger on the crux of the matter: The question is whether the novel (and movie of it) merit a separate article (like The Lion in Winter} or a note at the bottom of a substantive entry (like that for Becket in Thomas a Becket). If the latter, then the question is whether that note belongs on the page for the queen it's about or the author who wrote it.

Your point that the novel is historically accurate is well taken, but I'd still prefer to see the bit about the novel on the Dumas page and have a note on the bottom of the queen's page saying that novel was an accurate account and linking to the Dumas page. -- isis

There really isn't much to say in any article, Marguerite de Valois, Alexandre Dumas, or Queen Margot, but I will take care of the linking and maybe next time I watch the movie or if I read the novel (or someone else does) there will be more to say. Ortolan88

I started to read it, which is why I had the copy to take a picture of, but I didn't get more than a third thru its 542 pages before deciding life is too short for me to spend on anything that wasn't a lot more fun that reading it. -- isis

The movie is ripping fun, starts at a gallop and never stops. You don't need to have any idea what it's all about (it is truly "hugger mugger at the Louvre") to enjoy it, and the sex scenes and slaughter should have made it a much bigger hit in the US. Thanks to all who cleaned up the confusion. Ortolan88

Dammit! I thought somebody would have noticed I created a new article with the appropriate name. I'm fixing Marguerite into a disambiguation page, because I can't imagine that somebody really thought there might not be nother important person named Marguerite... JHK

The problem was that when you created the new page, you didn't make any link to it -- you left the links that should have gone to it on the Queen Margot page, so the historical links went to the page for the novel, and nothing linked to the historical page for the queen. You shouldn't fault them for losing the papertrail when you didn't leave one for them. -- isis

Gee, excuse me for not cleaning up what was badly done by someone else in the first place. Oddly enough, I expect that people will actually do a search for a subject and look at recent changes before making major changes, since that's the most sensible way to make sure pages aren't duplicated. And since there are actually naming conventions, conventions that would never suggest someone name an encyclopedia article by a person's first name only, I hardly think it too much to expect that people familiarize themselves with them before they decide to make that kind of change.

As for "historical links" it hadn't occurred to me to think that the error was so pernicious at that point.

JHK

Is this the first time it's been brought to your attention that everyone in the Wikipedia world is not as scholarly and as careful as you and I are about making changes? -- isis

Nope, but it doesn't make me any happier for being criticized for not cleaning up someone else's mess ;-)

BTW, I'm not sure at all about the historical accuracy of the book or the movie. Yes, they're both based on real events, and yes, lots of the things that happen in the film happened in real life -- Coligny was assassinated, the St Bartholomew's day massacre was real... but I'd like to see something by an historian that actually says how accurate the film is, before we say so. After all, lots of people think Braveheart was accurate, when it SO wasn't -- and the guy who wrote it actually said in an interview, "I never let facts get in the way of the 'true story'." dumas is one of my favourite novelists, but of the 4 or 5 books I've read by him, I can hardly say any is accurate! JHK

Ooh -- I like that! JHK

Talk

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