On his travels he consulted many libraries and private archives. In 1833 he came across old manuscripts from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that fascinated him and inspired this book\u2014stories full of intrigue, love, revenge, and passion. And that is exactly what The Charterhouse of Parma<\/em> is. The book is a true adventure novel, with constant elements of suspense and everything that goes with it; in this it strongly reminded me of Alexandre Dumas\u2019s The Three Musketeers<\/em>.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Stendhal begins with a brief overview of the political situation in northern Italy. Fabrizio del Dongo, the story\u2019s protagonist, is the second-born son of a noble family, and it\u2019s a pleasure to read about the circumstances into which his family is entangled. His aunt, who champions and promotes him\u2014and adores him\u2014also plays a major role.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n The book bears autobiographical traits, and Fabrizio\u2019s adventure begins with the Napoleonic Wars and the French occupation of Milan. Fabrizio joins Napoleon, and here the novel offers a first, very exciting episode. He takes part in the Battle of Waterloo, but Stendhal tells it vividly, with a realistic look at war and the people who fight it. Beyle himself served in the army and was present at the occupation of Milan. His account of these war scenes earned him great admiration from Balzac as well as Tolstoy.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n This first period also marks the initial step in Fabrizio\u2019s development and ends with Italy, after the French withdrawal, becoming once again a patchwork of duchies. Most of the book is set between 1815 and 1830\u2014that is, in Stendhal\u2019s own era of the Restoration. The backdrop is the Duchy of Parma, but also the whole of northern Italy. It is, however, a fictional Parma, and Stendhal\u2019s choice to use that name for his composite duchy\u2014made up of many elements\u2014drew some criticism from Balzac. Here the book becomes truly gripping, and the mixture of adventure, intrigue, court society, and of course the search for and struggle over true love is highly entertaining. It has everything: disguises, anonymous letters, revenge, salon society, prison, poisonings, tense skirmishes, despotic rulers, escapes, beautiful duchesses in opulent palazzi\u2014practically everything you can imagine. Much like The Three Musketeers<\/em>, the book is composed of multiple set pieces which, though they fit very well as stages of Fabrizio\u2019s life, are also fairly distinct from one another. The thread is fairly loose, but it doesn\u2019t diminish the pleasure of reading. The primary themes are love, court intrigue, and Italy\u2014so much Italy. Everything is suffused with a whiff of old-fashioned monarchy and the sheen of bygone days.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n In terms of style I found The Charterhouse of Parma<\/em> surprisingly breezy and unpoetic. That, too, drew criticism from Balzac, who himself wrote in a truly beautiful prose. Stendhal dictated the book to a copyist in just 53 days, and you can sense that. It\u2019s a loose, punchy, easy-to-read style\u2014like spoken language or thoughts as they occur. Somehow spontaneous, unadorned, paired with a fast-moving story, the book is quite unlike what Balzac or especially Flaubert would write. The latter, for instance, labored for hours over his sentences to find the one perfect formulation. With Stendhal it\u2019s entirely different, and the novel almost feels like a contemporary work, with little of the heaviness of a classic. I\u2019m a bit torn here: on the one hand I found it very pleasant to read; on the other, I love the ornate, artful sentences you find in Balzac, Flaubert, or even Tolstoy.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Stendhal and Balzac had known each other personally since 1829; they met several times in salons but were more familiar with each other\u2019s works than with each other. Although Balzac was the younger of the two, it was his well-known review that really made Stendhal famous and championed him\u2014a curious thing, since you\u2019d expect it to be the other way around, but Balzac was simply more famous and better established as a writer. Stendhal, however, was not only a writer but a genuine adventurer, devoted to women and the arts, with a great many interests. Writing was one of them.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n This Hanser edition is again of outstanding quality\u2014truly generous in what it offers. Not only the usual high-quality production, but also the wealth of notes and supplements. Many of the details cited in this review are drawn from the very interesting, extensive afterword, which is well worth reading. There you learn, for example, that after publication Stendhal wanted to revise the book for a second edition. He had three author\u2019s copies printed with blank interleaves, which he then filled with notes for the revision. The story of these three copies could fill a book in itself: they passed through many hands, were lost for a time, and were eventually all found again. This edition presents the 1839 text without those annotations, since they remain unfinished and were never approved by Stendhal\u2014but the notes are included in translation. Also included are the letters between Stendhal and Balzac, as well as Balzac\u2019s famous review. Finally, you also get the Italian manuscripts from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that inspired Stendhal\u2019s story. Everything translated by Elisabeth Edl\u2014about whom I need say little, since she is well known and essentially a seal of quality for the finest translations available today.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Conclusion:<\/strong> Conceived as a Bildungsroman, the novel beautifully traces Fabrizio\u2019s development, and from the middle of the book the search for true love becomes a central theme. From that point on I truly fell in love with it. Here Stendhal hefts the big club of suspense with great skill. It has everything I want: thrilling fights, heaps of intrigue, lush love scenes, despotic rulers, beautiful duchesses in their palatial residences, disguises, escapes, murder\u2014practically everything. Readers are dragged through every high and low. Stendhal keeps a pleasant pace and chooses a simple but highly readable style that supports the flow. There isn\u2019t a dull stretch; a hundred pages pass as quickly as fifty elsewhere. At the same time, the characters suffer from the same weakness found in many of the authors named above: they are often exaggerated and heavily drawn. If someone is in love, they are completely headless and will-less; if someone is evil, then thoroughly so; if someone is a fawning courtier, then without a shred of backbone. It certainly drives the story and heightens the suspense, but you can\u2019t always fully buy it. This Hanser edition comes with an excellent afterword and many supplements\u2014letters, Balzac\u2019s review, timelines, plans for a revised edition, and notes on the translation and terms. A book I can recommend to everyone\u2014even to those who rarely read classics and prefer adventure novels.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Book information: <\/strong>The Charterhouse of Parma<\/em> \u2022 Stendhal \u2022 Hanser Verlag \u2022 1000 pages \u2022 ISBN 9783446209350<\/p>\r\n\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cThe novel about the two things that mattered most in Stendhal\u2019s life: Italy and love. Far from his adopted homeland, in Paris in 1839, he wrote in just 53 days the work that today counts among the greatest in world literature.\u201d That\u2019s as far as I got into the jacket copy before I ordered the … <\/p>\n![\"Die](\"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/die_kartause_von_parma-1.jpg\")
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