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3.48 AVERAGE
3.48 AVERAGE
2.5 - this was a fun romp at times, very light and fluffy sentiment undercut with an ironical narrator and a punchy end, but it took me so very long to finish, and not because I had to return it to the library or lost my copy the book (my “currently reading” shelf is full of those casualties)
slow-paced
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
See my review here:
https://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2020/01/09/review-1459-the-charterhouse-of-parma/
https://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2020/01/09/review-1459-the-charterhouse-of-parma/
Couldn't finish. Guess French Romantic literature is beyond me. I've read 100 pages each of Proust, Mme Bovary, and the C of P b/c I didn't want to die without saying I'd tried them, but I don't see the point. When none of the characters is sympathetic, what keeps you going? Just shallow I guess.
I remember really loving Stendhal's other classic, "The Red and the Black," when I read it in a college class almost 20 years ago. But "Charterhouse" never really grabbed me like that earlier novel. The reason lies in the shifting narration and the overly byzantine cast of characters, so I never felt involved with (or cared for) any of them. There is some witty, Voltaire-like social commentary here, but very little of it seems to relate to the present day. A disappointment, especially at 500 pages.
slow-paced
“There's one convenience about absolute power, that it sanctifies everything in the eyes of the people.”
⟶ The Charterhouse of Parma can be seen as a blend of a social novel, a political novel, an adventure novel, a romantic thriller, and yet manages to oppose every single classification. Much like [b:War and Peace|656|War and Peace|Leo Tolstoy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1413215930l/656._SY75_.jpg|4912783] this novel is complex, long, and full of different plot devices; the topic range goes from the Napoleonic wars, the monarchy and court hierarchy along with the petty games of aristocrats, the spiritual leaders, astrologists, to imprisonment, the birth of new aristocracy, simony, etc…
“This man, whom great monarchies would have envied the prince of Parma, was known to have only one passion: of holding intimate conversations with great personages and currying favour by his buffoonery.”
⟶ It is a world of absolutely no order and no justice, where human emotions rule over an entire social group. This is a novel where there is no hero and where the villain is power and selfishness.
It’s a novel of duchess Sanseverina, one of the most striking female characters I have ever read about in pre-20th-century literature work. Strong, carried by a mixture of emotion and principle, intelligent but at the same time selfish, opportunistic and ambitious.
It is a novel about Fabrice/Fabrizio del Dongo, the unlikable main character who has absolutely no ambition and goes wherever his gut takes him, not caring about the consequences. It’s easy to be annoyed by him, but nonetheless, his actions capture the attention of readers, and like a catastrophe unfolding one can’t manage to look away and not care about what happens with this fickle man.
More importantly, it’s a novel of one whole time captured on paper. A world where adaptation, cunningness, and strategy were a must if one would conserve their status in a time on the cusp of change. Fabrice is not a soldier, he most surely isn’t a clerical figure either; Sanseverina isn’t a model figure of female empowerment; The eponymous Charterhouse of Parma isn’t even mentioned until the very last chapter and plays no big role; nothing is completely fixed and solid in this novel and that’s where the complexity lays.
⟶ I have read that the reason why Stendhal is harder to read is because of the rhythm , he never catches the reader’s attention on one specific detail and event rather the entire novel is one big stage where everything is set for the reader to decode and understand the meaning behind it.
That statement is especially true for this novel, needless to say, it’s definitely an atmospheric read worth checking out if one is interested in the finer work of French realism or French literature in general.
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More like 3,75/5, I am going to let this one sink in for a few days and then decide. Review to come.
What can I say? Red and The Black got me hooked. How could I ignore the one set in Italy? ....
Not quite as good as The Red and The Black. Dragged a little. The vapidness of some of the characters made it a little hard to, frankly, care what happened to them. Stendahl wrote...sorry, dictated.... this one rather quickly apparently. I would say it shows in the parts that drag and wander. The plot really loses its sense of momentum when the focus is on getting Fabrizio out of the prison, excpet he doesnt want to get out, then he does, then he doesn't, then his wacky aunt...then the Count...well, you get the picture.
Still, all in all I'd rather be in Parma.
Not quite as good as The Red and The Black. Dragged a little. The vapidness of some of the characters made it a little hard to, frankly, care what happened to them. Stendahl wrote...sorry, dictated.... this one rather quickly apparently. I would say it shows in the parts that drag and wander. The plot really loses its sense of momentum when the focus is on getting Fabrizio out of the prison, excpet he doesnt want to get out, then he does, then he doesn't, then his wacky aunt...then the Count...well, you get the picture.
Still, all in all I'd rather be in Parma.
I lost the thread sometime over the holiday, and the writing hasn’t been compelling enough to find it again.