Customer Reviews

The Charterhouse of Parma (Modern Library)

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I'm a longtime fan of this wonderful novel which until recently almost no one seemed to read. There is nothing like it in the whole of literature, and the good reader is exhilirated and refreshed by the blast of Stendhal's sustained burst of inspiration: done in six and a half weeks and he lopped off the last 150 pages at the publisher's request (and realized his mistake but couldn't find the sheets: keep looking, folks). New readers are advised to plow through the first 50 pages, which are just as good as the rest of the book but from which it is very difficult to catch the book's unique tone; the great set-piece of the Battle of Waterloo will set you straight. I'm not sure that the vaunted new Richard Howard translation is better than the reliable old waddle of the Penguin, but that might just be my hankering for a familiar flavor. But what a book! Bliss to read it, and the Duchessa Sanseverina might well be the most magnificent woman in the whole of literature; she's certainly the only woman of such stature in 19th century fiction who doesn't have to pay the price for it by a suicide in the last chapter. Much of the book's inimitable energy derives from the enjambment of a whole range of incompatibles: a story out of renaissance Italy set in post-Napoleonic times; characters simultaneously seen from the perspective of great worldly experience and that of an enthusiastic adolescence conceiving them as larger than life (Mosca and the Duchessa primarily, but also demi-villains like the Prince and the hilarious Rassi); and so on. Fabrizio is a dashing cipher, is occasionally idiotic, the very archetype of impassioned inexperience. All right, Clelia Conti is irredeemably dull in a book suffused by the Duchessa's nearly superhuman radiance, but her stint as the bird-woman of the Farnese Tower raises to the pitch of inspired looniness Stendhal's sense of the world as a place in which all essential thought and emotion are sentenced to a fugitive life and an interminable series of codes and disguises. Fabrizio's terror of engaging with his auntie the Duchessa generates the subsequent phantasmagoria of prisons, intrigues, revolutions; and yet the tone is that of some crazed, inspired operetta, the characters speak in recitative, and the multiple ironies of character and tale serve not to distance us from life, as our modern irony usually does, but to embrace an astounding range of living contradictions. A last one such: notice that despite the utter scarcity of physical description, the sensory world comes to you crystal clear, vivid as can be. Major magic working here. The book is a source of joy for anyone who enters it whole, and nothing this side of Shakespeare is as bracing. I'm so glad it's being taken up and read again.

Can we make a better book today than The Charterhouse of Parma? No. Stendhal breaks rules right and left and is not always graceful, but the completeness of his fictional universe is staggering. Here is a man who could tell sweeping, epic stories in terms of minute personal expression, and tell them with humane wit. Funnier than James', unburrdened by Tolstoy's morality, more penetrating than Balzac's, and more approachable than Dostoyevsky's, Stendhal's literary universe is one of the most pleasing and evocative for the modern reader, and The Charterhouse of Parma is his masterpiece. Read this book, now!

Hard to say whether Charterhouse or Red & Black is better; lately I lean to Red & Black (get Catherine Slater's Oxford translation; shun the new B. Raffel paraphrase). The fun of reading Stendhal, I think, is his narration; one briefly feels as clever, as observant, as clear-headed, as the narrator.

The Modern Library has apparently decided that, with so many good Stendhal translations out there (Slater; Mauldin's Charterhouse; the NEW Penguin R & B; Lowell Bair's Charterhouse), it has a duty to provide bad ones. Richard Howard's translation has errors that even my schoolboy French can pick up. The New Criterion (which may have its own bones to pick w/ Mr. Howard, true) listed a great many flaws in his command of the French. And he's tone deaf to Stendhal in many of my favorite passages (not as bad as the old Shaw Penguins, but bad enough). If you read Howard's Stendhal & think you don't like him, try a better translation.

This will be mainly a note on translations--and a rather muddled one at that.

Years before I read "Charterhouse of Parma" I read "Red and Black," and one thing I noticed with that book, which I love, is what a tricky thing it is to translate Stendhal. I read the old Margaret Shaw translation in an old used Penguin--much maligned, just like her "Charterhouse" translation. But I found something odd: Shaw's very British failure to even try to approximate Stendhal's dash and offhand brio, his proto-modern style-of-no-style, actually worked well. Shaw concentrated only on faithfully conveying Stendhal's sense, and so in spite of her mid-twentieth century educated British English, Stendhal's authorial voice came through beautifully. She didn't get his literary style but she caught his thought on the wing, and in "Red & Black" that's what really matters.

But in "Charterhouse," literary style is really inseparable from the work. For this deconstructed medieval fairytale set among the reactionary, repressive, collapsing aristocracies of revolutionary Europe, Stendhal employed a self-consciously traditional tale-teller's style, yet laced through with his own ironic realism. That hybrid/clash of styles is crucial, since it embodies Stendhal's vision of a modern Europe groaningly aborning amid its contradictions: for example, say, in expressing the delicious mash-up of incongruities between that old staple of Euro-tales, the humble subject approaching the throne of the king for a favor, and the shockingly novel, psychologically and politically realistic use Stendhal makes of that received form here. This is the thrilling birth of modern literature, and the presentational voice really matters. And is really hard to get right, judging from the translation attempts I've tried.

So, to cases: I started out with Richard Howard, having heard his was a great new translation. (This was the late '90s.) Ouch! I found him unreadable. Howard was unwise enough to try what Shaw had foregone, a writerly re-creation in English. But he seems not to have gotten Stendhal at all, or was arrogant enough to think he could just re-write the book. Stay away! No Stendhal here. I put "Charterhouse" down for five years.

But I really wanted to read it, so I went back--to trusty Margaret Shaw. But I soon recognized what I noted above: what had worked for "Red and Black" wasn't working for "Charterhouse." Here there WAS a strong if elusive literary style, and Shaw wasn't getting it across.

So I picked up Margaret Mauldon's Oxford translation (I'd read her "Madame Bovary" and liked it, and was thinking Flaubert>Stendhal, that might work)--and that was more like it. Mauldon gets Stendhal, she's very close to his style. And yet...this was more the Stendhal of "Red and Black." Almost hard-boiled. Mauldon was missing a certain romantic warmth (very un-Stendhalian, I know, but there's a bittersweet sense of romance--ironic, satirized, yet almost desperate romance in "Charterhouse")...and so I actually found myself going back and forth between Shaw and Mauldon, sometimes able between them to catch what felt like the real Stendhal, often, not really. So finally, determined to get closer, during the last 100 pages (!), I tried the new Penguin Sturrock.

I think it's the best I found--more like Mauldon than Shaw, but less cool than Mauldon. Sturrock is sure-footed, and gets something fairly close, one feels, to Stendhal's tone and rhythms. Fairly close...

So, finally, I think I'd recommend Sturrock. But is it...the true "Charterhouse"? No, I don't think so. Maybe you should go to the library and check out several versions, if you can, and read twenty-five pages of each. See which reads right(est) for you.

"Charterhouse" is a fascinatingly elusive beast, and in the end the truth may be that it's just untranslatable. But well worth reading!

Learn French?

Once in a while -- if you are lucky -- you encounter a book that makes you think "This is how life is." Charterhouse of Parma is such a book.

This book will surprise anyone who sits down expecting a typical historical romance or swashbuckler. This novel is full of suprises, all good. I don't mean "plot twists." Stendhal manages to change the direction of the entire book -- not just the plot -- several times, without betrating the reader's trust.

The characters are unreal -- like noone you've ever encountered -- yet entirely credible. I've read this book twice already and I don't think it will ever leave my "must read" list.

I came late to Charterhouse of Parma. I read it once when I was younger (in Paris, where you think I might have caught the spark), but my mind was on other things and I finished it more out of duty than pleasure. Years later, I gave it a second shot, and I must say I'm glad I did: I suppose today I might rank it as my favorite novel.

I think what the reader needs - what I needed - was a feel for the context. Stendhal stands at the crossroads of so much that is interesting in the modern world. He's a Frenchman who is in love with Italy. He's the small town boy who yearns for Paris - but then is shocked to find it has no mountains. He's the soldier who rode with Napoleon - but the wrong way, having accompanied the great man on the retreat from Moscow. Most of all, he is the ultimate romantic and the ultimate anti-romantic-the great enthusiast with a deadly eye for the absurdity of his own enthusiasm. I think I needed to have some sense of all these dimensions before I could catch the ironies and cross-currents that give the book so much of its drive. But lately, I don't know how many times I've found myself reading some later novel or some bit of more recent history and hearing Stendhal's worldly chuckle at my shoulder. It's the mellow wisdom of a life not always well lived, but for that reason perhaps more tangy and flavorful than a duller counterpart.

One of the many charms of the experience to me is to reflect that Stendhal himself was - okay, say it, a loser. He reminds me a bit of the Fusco Brothers in the Sunday funnies: not fat, exactly, maybe a size 40 in a pair of size 38 pants, the guy who never quite gets the girl (don't believe all his stories). All this stuff about how they would appreciate him in 100 years: look, that's bravado, and forget about the fact that it also happened to be true. One giveaway is the almost pitiful display of gratitude he fell into when he learned that he had been discovered by the great Balzac.

Other reviewers have complained about translations, and here is a suggestion: at least on second reading (it deserves a second reading), try it in French. My own French is marginal, but Stendhal's is pretty straightforward. He said he used to practice by reading the French civil code: I think that was a joke, but the fact is that at least in the passages of pure narrative, you can pretty much move along. Also: one of the more attractive aspects of French nationalism is that they are pretty good at buffing up their certified celebs. It is easy to get good intelligent (French) "study guides" and such. I got a nice one, by Philippe Berthier, on the Boule Miche, but with the magic of Amazon-France, you ought to be able to get one with a few clicks of the mouse key. But don't deprive yourself of this delight any longer.

An epic tale -- but the best aspect is the insight it provides into life in the princedoms in Italy before nationhood. The beloved nephew who is advised to become a priest not for religious conviction but for expediency, politics in the court of the Prince of Parma, successful marriages of convenience in which money is traded for a title, the necessity of passports to enter or leave any city, the actual experience of a Napoleonic soldier at battle . . . and much, much more. A good story, but even more powerful as a social document capturing a time and place not familiar to most 20th century readers.

The Charterhouse of Parma is an unforgettable mess, half operatic melodrama, half micro-analysis of Europe's petty absolutist courts on the eve of democracy. In Fabrizio del Dongo, Stendhal hits every Romantic cliche with gusto: by turns passionate, melancholic, amorous, indifferent, spiritual and carnal, he ultimately struck me as no one at all, a cipher Stendhal uses to expose the pettiness of the venal world that succeeded Napoleon's defeat. With Conte Mosca, brilliant Prime Minister to the fearful Prince of Parma, Stendhal poured his own long experience of diplomacy and court politics into a sympathetic portrait of an admirable man condemned by circumstance to a life of toadying and intrigue at a tiny provincial court. The real hero of the book for me though was its heroine, the Duchessa de Sanseverina, who has to be one of the most unforgettable female characters in European literature. Part Machiavelli, part Lana Turner, the Duchessa blends romance and Realpolitik with a verve that makes the silly plot twists almost worthwhile.

There's a part of me that wonders if the special brilliance of this novel, which has the feel of a B-movie or potboiler, was in Stendhal's ability to turn his disregard for the plot into an expression of his disdain for a Europe devoid of Napoleon, crippled by reaction and venality and head-in-the-sand consumption that feels a lot like now. The story reads like a bad opera because that's how Europe looked to Stendhal c. 1839--he knows the class he's writing about is about to disappear; their intrigues don't matter much any more; the old noble families are dying out and the new world belongs to the new wealth of a middle class he didn't especially love or understand. What seems to matter most to Stendhal is passion, a quality hard to come by in a world where there's no longer much to be passionate about. It's a strange combination of romantic longing and hard-headed cynicism that for all the improbable bumps, seemed especially right for these times.

What a disappointment! I ordered this item from the UK because it was available there many months prior to its publication in the US. The cost was high, but I had wanted to read this novel and the translations available seemed problematic.

Sturrock has a reputation for accurate and faithful translation. His Proust volume was a bit awkward, but wonderfully respectful of the original French.

Not the case here. Words are added; paraphrasing is common, and the translation of many individual words is questionable. And the "Britishisms" rankle.

So, which translation to read? I compared the first chapter of all against each other and against the original French.

Moncrieff is somewhat archaic but usually accurate and he writes extremely well. A new edition that corrects his occasional errors would be very valuable.

The Howard translation caused something of a scandal on publication. The editing (if there was any) is extremely careless. Grammatical and typographical errors are common and there are mistranslations. Once again, a scholarly revision of this translation would be useful.

All in all, for a contemporary American, the Howard still seems the best bet. It's a fluent read. Just keep your French dictionary and an editing pencil handy.


2010 Postscript: There is also a OP Bantam translation by Lowell Bair from 1960. It seems respectably accurate, free of British slang, and like all of his translations, is a very fluent read.

This is an unconventional novel by the very unconventional Stendhal. Many have commented on the unusual structure of the narrative, the frequent and apparently random plot twists, and the frivolous nature of the principal character. Stendhal reportedly dictated this novel in the period of a few weeks, presumptive evidence of mania, and the brief period of composition is an often cited explanation for the sprawling nature of the narrative. This is only partially correct. The structure of narrative and the twists of the plot reflect a design aimed at making a clear point. The story begins with the broadest canvas possible, the Battle of Waterloo, and concludes with an covert and adulterous love affair and the hero's retirement to a monastery. This progression is a metaphor for Stendhal's view of Europe in the throes of Reaction against Napoleon and the ideas of the Enlightenment. Almost verything in this book is a description and indictment of Reaction. The provincial Italian society depicted by Stendhal is hermetically sealed against any novel or dissenting ideas. This is done in the interest of preserving Christian religion and the virtues of traditional society, including the rule of the aristocracy. The consequences demonstrated by Stendhal are almost the exactly the opposite of these intentions. Marriage is a hypocritical sham, religion exists either as a form of superstition for the masses or to provide careers for the aristocracy, politics is a cynical game of preferment and personal feuds. The ignoble career of the hero, and lives of other main characters, are shown to be the result of the deliberate attempt to wall off the ideas of the Enlightenment. Stendhal also takes the opportunity to ridicule the Romantic movement in a very astute manner. The Charterhouse of Parma is long, has a plot worthy of a modern soap opera, and is written in a peculiar style. It is also witty, tremendously shrewd, and at times hilarious. A remarkable book.