Reading 1001 discussion

Read 2016 This book written in the 19th century captures the intrigues and politics of the court and life of the aristocracy. The main character is a young man who is rather impulsive, running off to fight with Nepoleon without considering the decision, falling in love with every pretty girl he sees. The Duchess is his protector and also loves him though never consummates that love but also jealous of his various love affairs. This book, written by a French author about Italians. A little too long. The middle part could have been shortened as it seemed way to repetitive. It is considered a work of realism. It is a romance.

I ended up rating this book 3 stars as well despite being aware of its status as a classic and masterpiece. Between this one and Red and the Black, there is just something about Sttendhal's works that I just don't deeply connect with the way I do for author's like Victor Hugo who wrote at a similar time and about similar things.

Technically it's all fine, and not totally uninteresting, but it seems to be missing kind of revelatory truths that make it genius for me.

I did find the bits about Fabrice faking his way into Napoleon's army entertaining and I liked how historical warfare was infcorporated in to the plot.

I thoroughly enjoyed my second Stendahl, after The Scarlet and the Black, possibly because I listened to an Audible version narrated by Edoardo Ballerini, who rolled the Italian names so deliciously. Stendahl actually fought for Napolean himself, he was a survivor of the retreat from Moscow, and spent quite a bit of his life in northern Italy as a diplomat, which lends an authenticity to the accounts of court intrigues in Parma. The ostensible protagonist is a young nobleman, Fabrice del Dongo, who is exceptionally good looking and therefore able to get many women to do him favours without him becoming emotionally involved, but much of the book centres around his aunt Gina, his father‘s sister, and her intrigues in the court of Parma as well as her scandalous love for her nephew. It is a rollicking tale of intrigue and romance but it also contrasts the Italian and French temperaments rather amusingly. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

This is a French novel set in Italy in the first decades of the 19th century. Our “hero”, Fabrice del Dongo, is the younger son of a noble Italian family who first asserts his independence by rushing off to France under a fake ID to fight on Napoleon’s side at Waterloo. His experiences of this battle are mainly a question of avoiding capture by both sides while trying to hold on to a good horse. This brought out the confusion of war in a Catch-22 kind of way, and was my favourite part of the book.

When he returns to Italy, he is taken under the wing of his aunt Gina, the Duchess of Sanseverina, with whom he develops a very close relationship. Fabrice’s relationship with his aunt strongly reminded me of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s relationship with Mme de Warens in the early part of his Confessions, which I read recently.

I won’t tell the whole plot, but it involves Fabrice becoming a priest, addressed as “Monsignor”. So he would have taken vows of celibacy, but he had no compunction in breaking these vows. Nor was it suggested anywhere in the novel that he shouldn’t be having sex with women. The only thing he couldn’t do was to marry any of them.

Meanwhile the love of his life (not Gina) felt she must at all costs adhere to a vow she made to the Madonna. Lay women are bound by their vows, while priests are not? Maybe this double standard was realistic for the times, but it didn’t endear Fabrice to me.

The novel was interesting as a classic of literary history, but it left me cold because I couldn't empathise with Fabrice.

Funny occasionally, and easy to follow, but a rather rambling story and I am sure I missed a lot of references. I may reread this again after a decade or so and maybe read some history books covering this period in Europe first. Fabrice seems like a few other characters I've come across in classic literature that go off on adventures and get into new trouble every other chapter. The book that came to mind most often while reading this book this time was Don Quixote.
I gave this book 3.5 stars, rounded to 4.