Classics: Stendahl

One advantage of Kindle is that a lot of old classics are available free. I found a list of the 100 greatest books weighted toward older stuff and got a few celebrated oldies. One of the first I read was The Charterhouse of Parma by Stendahl (an alias of Marie-Henri Behle). For some reason, the title always had a grip on me.

Our hero is a charming and rather feckless younger son of a wealthy Italian noble, who manages to offend his father, elder brother, and the Austrian government by trying to enlist in Napoleon's cause - just barely in time to make it to Waterloo. With the help of his beautiful and talented Aunt, he manages to scramble from scrape to success to more drastic scrape all the while making his way by charm, enthusiasm and general stupidity.

One thing our author is good at, and that is keeping some ironic distance from his characters. Consequently, I think, they are not as real or as engaging as such heroes and heroines as Tom Jones, Pyotr and Natasha, or Jane Eyre.

There is a lot of human nature in this book, and especially of the psychology and politics of a small absolute principality of 200 years ago. The guy does know how to write. I'm afraid he disappointed me with his anti-climatic ending, though, reminiscent of that great shaggy dog story of American literature, Gravity's Rainbow.

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