Synopsis
This epic novel, set in Parma, Italy, during the early 1800's, is about a young aristocrat named Fabrice del Dongo and his attempts to find his place in life. A classic of French literature, written in seven manic weeks, it was revered by Proust, envied by Gide, and deemed "perfection" by Balzac.
| Details | | Publication Date: | 1997-04-01 | | Series: | World's Classics Series |
| Size | | Length: | 520 pages | | Height: | 7.3 in | | Width: | 4.8 in | | Thickness: | 1.0 in | | Weight: | 10.4 oz |
Publisher's Note
"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.
The Charterhouse of Parma (1839) is a compelling novel of passion and daring, of prisons and heroic escape, of political chicanery and sublime personal courage. Set at the beginning of the nineteenth century, amidst the golden landscapes of northern Italy, it traces the joyous but ill-starred amorous exploits of a handsome young aristocrat called Fabrice del Dongo, and of his incomparable aunt Gina, her suitor Prime Minister Mosca, and Clelia, a heroine of ethereal beauty and earthly passion. The great achievement of The Charterhouse of Parma is to conjure up the excitement and romance of youth while never losing sight of the harsh realities which beset the pursuit of happiness, nor the humour and patient irony with which these must be viewed. This new translation captures Stendhal's narrative verve, while the Introduction explores the novel's reception and the reasons for its enduring popularity and power.
Industry Reviews
"Written by an old man for old people, one has to be over forty before one can understand it. Then one sees that this book, bare even of artistic illusions, almost bare of adjectives, nostalgic, ironic, self-possessed and gentle, is the summit of all world fiction."
other - Giuseppe T. Di Lampedusa
"How many young people will be smitten right from the opening pages, and will be instantly convinced that this has to be the best novel ever written, recognizing it as the novel they had always wanted to read and which will act as the benchmark for all the other novels they will read in later life."
Calvino
"The quick pace of the narrative and the vividness of the characters are balanced throughout by a cooly sardonic assessment of human nature and, in particular, of politics....But the appeal of CHARTERHOUSE is more than jut a matter of its urgent, even impatient style...; it lies, too, in its vibrant characters, who are prey to unruly emotions that will be familiar to contemporary readers.
Zacharek
"Stendahl's greatest strength is the manner in which he keeps us wondering about how to take him. With dickens or George Eliot, say, even with Henry James or Jane Austen, we can be much more confident about their limitations and shortcomings. No such confidence is possible with Stendahl. He has the knack of keeping the reader guessing, partly by his modes of ironisation....But what was so rapidly written can also be slow and laborious to read. Indeed, as he trudges along through so many...pages..., the reader might be forgiven for wondering why it took the author so long."
London Review of Books - John Bayley (02/17/2000)
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