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Title: Casanova in Love by Andrew Miller ISBN: 0-15-600769-X Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 04 February, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.73 (11 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The masochistic gamble of unwanted love
Comment: In addition to being a gifted writer, Andrew Miller is an extraordinarily skilled observer of human nature. I found "Casanova in Love" to be a keenly insightful look at human vulnerability in the face of two overpowering forces: age and love.
"Casanova in Love" is not by any means a biography of the great seducer: rather, through Casanova Miller explores the darker side of relationships. It is 1763, and a jaded 38-year-old Casanova finds himself in London, wealthy, notorious, yet restless. He feels something is amiss with his life, or rather, that the life he has created for himself is no longer enough to satisfy him: "[E]ach day another pig-white hair to pluck from nose or eyebrow, and in [his heart] the knowledge that the vertex had already passed, that there was nothing now but twenty, thirty more years of being Casanova: a tedious, more grudging re-enactment of the done."
Already weakened by creeping self-doubt, the hunter becomes the hunted. Beautiful 17-year-old courtesan Marie Charpillon seems a veritable fountain of youth. For the rest of the book, in richly worded vignettes, some hilarious, some embarassing, Casanova's behavior is a catalog of the pathetic. He exemplifies the temporary blindness of those who try too hard to make someone else love them. After all, Charpillon herself had stated her goal as "making him fall in love with me, and then torturing him." Yet the mere sight of her deafens him to these words, and there seems to be no indignity he will not endure, always in the hope that this time, this one, will be rewarded with love in return.
There is no love in this story, of course. Not in her abuse of him, nor in his obsession with her. Yet compared to her calculated humiliation of him, Casanova's obsession seems at least the forgivable honest mistake of a man trying clumsily to do what he believes is right, in this case, to love. Gambling is a recurring theme in the book, a reminder of the high stakes and the chances we take when we let our defenses down to someone else. A simplistic writer's approach to this book would have been to portray Casanova's torment as his just desserts for the way he'd treated other women. Miller rises above this inadequate theme. Casanova's tale is a parable for a million other relationships. It is a beautifully written warning against trying too hard to be loved, a brutal cautionary look at how we expose ourselves to being used if we open ourselves up to the wrong person.
Rating: 3
Summary: not for Casanova-philes
Comment: I didn't enjoy this book as much as I had expected. Mostly because it isn't exactly true to Casanova's memoirs, which I was hoping it would be. But it's a good piece of fiction besides. Don't pick the book up planning to get a new perspective on his affair with La Charpillon. Even the hilarious parrot story is retold. If you're a fan of historical fiction, give it a read. It is an entertaining story.
Rating: 3
Summary: Good, but I'm not a great lover of this book...
Comment: I really like Casanova, and I've found his memoirs to be great reading. When I saw this book, I thought it would be an enjoyable, sensual period story. I was slightly disappointed, however; it is somewhat sensual, but not much. The story becomes kind of unbelievable at times, and by the end of the novel I didn't really care that it was over. The parts that are fun to read seem to be the parts based on Casanova's own writings.
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Title: Ingenious Pain by Andrew Miller ISBN: 0156006006 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 01 October, 1998 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Story of My Life (Penguin Classics) by Giacomo Casanova, Stephen Sartarelli, Sophie Hawkes, Gilberto Pizzamiglio, Giovanni Giacomo Casanova ISBN: 0140439153 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: May, 2001 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: History of My Life (Volumes I & II) by Giacomo Casanova, Willard R. Trask ISBN: 0801856620 Publisher: Johns Hopkins Univ Pr Pub. Date: May, 1997 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Buddha's Little Finger by Victor Pelevin, Andrew Bromfield ISBN: 0141002328 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 27 November, 2001 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Machiavellian's Guide to Womanizing by Nick Casanova ISBN: 0785810749 Publisher: Book Sales Pub. Date: April, 1999 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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