TITLE: Casanova in Bolzano
AUTHOR: Sandor Marai
STARTED: March 14, 2011
FINISHED: March 23, 2011
PAGES: 294
GENRE: Fiction
FIRST SENTENCE: It was at Mestre he stopped thinking; the dissolute friar, Balbi, had very nearly let the police get wind of him, because he had looked for him in vain as the mail coach set off, and only found hum after a diligent search, in a coffeehouse, where he was blithely sipping a cup of chocolate and flirting with the waitress.
SUMMARY: [From Amazon.com
] In 1756 Giacomo Casanova escapes from a Venetian prison and resurfaces in the Italian village of Bolzano. Here he receives an unwelcome visitor: the aging but still fearsome duke of Parma, who years before had defeated Casanova in a duel over a ravishing girl named Francesca and spared his life on condition that he never see her again. Now the duke has taken Francesca as his wife - and intercepted a love letter from her to his old rival. Rather than kill Casanova on the spot, he makes him a startling offer, one that is logical, perverse, and irresistible. THOUGHTS: I was expecting this book to be vastly different from what it turned out to be. I believe I purchased this after seeing Heath Ledger in the 2005 film Casanova. For some reason, I was expecting a fast-paced and/or romantic novel. Instead, Marai's book is more of a study in thought and word-craft. The story moves slowly, like a leisurely stroll that takes on far from the expected path. This book is all about the writing, the plot is merely a device for the author to craft gorgeous sentences.
Marai writes pages and pages of dialog in this book. Authors are often told to show and not tell their story. This book goes against that - most of the pages are a character in soliloquy or speech. The action of this story occurs when the characters talk and not when they act. I thought I would that structure to be dull or staid, but it works. Marai is a beautiful writer and he crafts the most wonderful monologues for his characters to speak. The tone of the novel is contemplative and leisurely. The vocabulary is seductive. One could almost picture Casanova creating a seduction of words instead of lust. It's, at times, intoxicating.
While I love words and lyrical descriptions, I found that I could not fall into this book. It didn't grab me in any particular way. While I was in love with the sound of the words, I didn't care about the story or plot at all. I was apathetic about the conflict and resolution which made my reading experience feel flat.
RATING: 7/10 [Very Good]
Comments