Product Description

The Charterhouse of Parma (1839) is a compelling novel of passion and daring. Set at the beginning of the 19th-century in northern Italy, it traces the joyous but ill-starred amorous exploits of a handsome young aristocrat called Fabrice del Dongo. The novel's great achievement is to conjure up the excitement and romance of youth while never losing sight of the harsh realities which beset the pursuit of happiness. This new translation captures Stendhal's narrative verse, while the Introduction explores the novel's reception and the reasons for its enduring popularity and power.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #79087 in Books
• Published on: 1999-12-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 560 pages

Review
A fine translation. Duncan Wu, The Independent

About the Author
Roger Pearson is Fellow and Praelector in French at The Queen's College, Oxford, and the author of Stendhal's Violin: A Novelist and his Reader (Clarendon Press, 1988), and The Fables of Reason: A Study of Voltaire's 'contes philosophiques' (Clarendon Press, 1990). He has translated and edited Voltaire, Candide and Other Stories (1988), and Zola, La Bete humaine (1996), and revised and edited Thomas Walton's translation of Zola's The Masterpiece (1993), all for World's Classics. Margaret Mauldon holds a doctorate in French from the University of Massachusetts. She has taught French at Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, and the University of Massachusetts. She has been working as a freelance translator since 1987, and her translation of Zola's L'Assommoir is published in World's Classics.

Customer Reviews

Model translation + introduction great tribute to Stendhal.
'Charterhouse' is seemingly a very different novel from Stendhal's previous masterpiece, 'the Red and the Black'. where the earlier book used the style of an Alexander Dumas adventure story to ironise its static hero, Fabrice del Dongo does go through some exciting adventures - fighting in Waterloo, embroiled in a grubby duel, escaping from an 'impossible' prison-fortress - not all of which are essentially ridiculous.

The dilemma, however, is the same - an anachronistic hero, dreaming of great, chivalric deeds, is forced to collude with a mundane, self-interested, materialistic, middle-class dominated society, and is ultimately compromised by it. But where Julien Sorel was the compelling dark centre of his novel, Fabrice is often absent from his, his fate being decided by the lengthy machinations of others (although the rare decisions he finally takes tend to smash through the most intricate Machiavellianism).

Whereas Julien was surrounded by a generally pallid supporting cast, 'Charterhouse' bursts with extraordinary, larger-than-life characters - the beatiful Gina, arguably the real hero of the novel, disastrously in love with her nephew; her middle-aged lover Mosca (the same age as Stendhal!), Prime minister of Parma, tyrannical politician and wonderful man; the Prince, spoilt, vain, paranoid, murderously capricious; as well as republican-poets, deformed actors and a gallery of unforgettable minor characters.

Stendhal is the most beloved of 19th century writers because he eschews pedantic detail and description in favour of narrative momentum and the provisional expression of feeling and responses to experience (it is easy to see why Proust loves him). The rush, the joy, the hyperbole, the unpredictability of plot and style all match Fabrice's headlong character, and yet there is an in-built melancholy and critique largely unavailable to the hero.

The brilliant translation captures the thrill and deceptive ease of Stendhal's art (especially compared to the stumbling Penguin one); while Roger Pearson's beautiful Introduction is quite simply the best I have ever read, alive to the serious profundity of the book, but ultimately affirming its transcendent power.

A French view of Italian immorality
If I were to describe the hero of "The Charterhouse of Parma" as a narcissistic, rakish young man who is always being rescued from his misadventures by his doting, clever aunt, it would sound like I was talking about a P.G. Wodehouse book. But set this story in early 19th Century northern Italy, build it on an opulent foundation of picaresque romance and political intrigue, add equal measures of comedy and tragedy, and you have Stendhal's exuberant, wonderful novel.

Stendhal portrays the towns and states of northern Italy, all of which are ruled (during the Napoleonic era) by princes and dukes of varying degrees of care and competence, as vibrant playgrounds of Shakespearean passions for the rich. It is among this aristocracy that the hero, Fabrice del Dongo, is born and raised. Selecting Napoleon as his own hero, he runs away to France to join his cavalry just in time for the Battle of Waterloo; however, his adventures end in disillusion and humiliation (things didn't go so well for Napoleon, either), and he returns to Milan where his malicious brother has gotten him into trouble with the law.

Thus Fabrice seems destined to live his life on the run. His good looks and devilish persona make him irresistible to girls and loathsome to their jealous boyfriends, one of whom, named Giletti, Fabrice is compelled to kill in self-defense. For this act, he is imprisoned in a high tower in Parma, where the Governor's daughter, Clelia Conti, who lives in a palazzo adjoining the tower, attracts his romantic interest and tries to protect him from being poisoned by his enemies.

Fabrice's aunt, Gina del Dongo, is as central a character to the novel as her nephew. She uses her legendary beauty and charm to influence men to do her favors, such as helping Fabrice break out of prison. Her partner in crime is the equally ambitious Count Mosca, who schemes his way to becoming Prime Minister and loves Gina madly. Helping her help Fabrice out of his predicaments poses a dilemma for him, however; he actually considers the young man his romantic rival. And in some perverse way, he's right.

Despite the ribald nature of the events, this is a sad novel; it is about people who mistake passion for the end rather than the means and let it destroy their lives. And yet the novel is often very funny, particularly in Stendhal's satirical comparisons between the French and the Italian mentalities. He is aware that the French reader will find the plot absurd and the characters hopelessly immoral, but the point he is making is that even though this type of behavior -- adultery, bribery, simony, murderous revenge -- exists in every country, the Italians do it with a particular flair that makes it a unique cultural phenomenon.

An unforgettable journey
Having read all of the posted reviews I feel incapable to even attempt and surpass them in eloquence and analysis, especially as English is not my native language and literature is merely a way of discovering myself.
Having said that, I merely wish to deposit my humble opinion for a book which simply swept me away for its realistic description of an era full of corruption, vane ambition and senseless passion, masqueraded as pure love. Yes, I do believe that Stendhal provides us with a realistic depiction of courtizans, complex behaviours motivated by passion for glory, love, but most of all self-respect. Most of the reviewers have described the story-line and the main characters in an admirable way, despite some of them being over-critical of all or some of the heroes. It does not matter whether one likes the characters or not, what is essential is that we follow their lives, their inner thoughts and desires, their fears. Stendhal interchanges between prose and thoughts in such a way that I felt like I knew Fabrice, Gina, Count Mosca personally, like I was present, hidden in a corner, during all their (mis) adventures.
This was a period when passion was the dominant motive for all actions, when personal relationships were full of exaggeration, positive or negative. Gina loved Fabrice passionately, Fabrice sought love passionately, Mosca adored Gina passionately, Fabrice idolised Clelia passionately, even the Prince loved himself passionately. In an era (our present) when passion is so rare to be found and when most of us indulge into petty actions and thoughts in a mechanical way, the depiction of a period where everything was so full of emotions cannot but impress us. I repeat that you do not have to like the characters, nor appreciate their motives. I do not believe that Stendhal aimed at our sympathy, he simply, in a masterful way, wished us to see what happens when reason gives way to emotion, always within the unavoidable conventional constraints of that society and its ethics.
A corrupted,senseless,opulent era, too similar to our own, but for so many different reasons. I highly recommend this book, because it took me to a world where a man's life could be devoted to one thing only: a quest of happiness even if that meant personal torture. And as is well known, torture, is not inflicted only through physical means, eg. imprisonment, but equally through mental torment and suffering.
A great poet once wrote that we live, love, dream and die alone. Stendhal shows that we should all do this for the right reason and what is right is a personal matter. After finishing the book I discovered something, which perhaps my immaturity prevented me from seeing clearly up to then: seeking all the emotions that matter to me passionately.Stendhal is a psychologist of the highest calimbre and a great painter of human souls. For that reason alone, although there are so many more - and "meeting" the insuperable and sublime, in any conceivable way, divine Gina is one of them, this book should rank highly in everybody's reading list.