In Lucia's Eyes [Paperback]

Arthur Japin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 2006

In Amsterdam, in 1758, a man is artfully seducing a woman. He is, to all appearances, Monsieur le Chevalier de Seingalt, she is a courtesan, well-known in Amsterdam for the fact that she never removes her veil. He sets her a challenge: if she can find a woman who has suffered after falling in love with him, she is entitled to resist his charms; if not, she should play his game. What Seingalt doesn't know is that he has already met the veiled woman many years ago, in another life. What Lucia doesn't know is that Seingalt will go down in history as one of the world's greatest lovers, Casanova. A deliciously entertaining and moving story of innocence and experience, love and sacrifice, "In Lucia's Eyes" takes the reader on an entrancing journey from the canals of Amsterdam to those of Venice, painting a glorious portrait of the eighteenth century.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Set in the mid-18th century, Dutch author Japin's elegant second novel (after The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi) richly imagines the plight of Casanova's first youthful heartbreak. Lucia is 14 and a servant girl in a noble house in Pasiano, Italy, when she first meets the young seminarian visitor Giacomo Casanova, who is as virginal as she. They fall into a frolicsome love affair until Lucia contracts the dreaded smallpox. Horribly disfigured from the disease, she concocts a story to turn Giacomo away and flees her home to embrace adventures across Europe, in turn working as a servant, a secretary to an enlightened woman philosopher, and a prostitute, who "learned to accept what other women found intolerable." Years later, having reinvented herself as Galathee, a well-heeled madam in Amsterdam, she finds a mysterious liberation in the use of a veil to attract her clients and meets Casanova again, now the practiced seducer le Chevalier de Seingalt. Their mature affair is conducted in the form of a cynical wager, and they dance rhetorically around the tender feelings of their youth. Despite the awkward conceit of the prostitute's veil and the sometimes stilted language of this translation, Japin has incorporated Casanova's Story of My Life to beguiling effect. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Bookmarks Magazine

Japin (The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi) offers an intriguing story about love, deceit, betrayal, identity, and self-sacrifice. Presented from Lucia's perspective, the story rests on one detail from Casanova's Histoire de ma vie but makes good use of its larger context. Critics agree that Japin's rich historical material, including Lucia's involvement in the era's intellectual, artistic, and philosophical currents, makes the 18th century come alive. They disagree, however, about Lucia: Is she a flesh-and-blood woman or cardboard cutout? In pitting reason against emotion, Japin also creates a heavy-handed morality play. It's "high-brow chick lit in Masterpiece Theatre drag," says Newsday—but in the end, the book is also a compelling piece of historical fiction.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Vintage Books; New edition edition (July 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0099479036
• ISBN-13: 978-0099479031
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.7 x 7.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,477,448 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars fascinating historical tale, November 28, 2005

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
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This review is from: In Lucia's Eyes (Hardcover)

In Pasiano, Italy fourteen years old virginal servant Lucia works in a noble house. There she meets seventeen years old just as virginal seminarian student Giacomo Casanova. The youngsters fall in love until she Lucia catches smallpox that scars her face terribly. Unable to face her lover, she runs off Giacomo before fleeing across Europe.

She earns her way doing various jobs especially as a prostitute to those every other fallen woman rejected. Eventually she becomes Madam Galathee de Pompignac running a popular brothel in Amsterdam and using a sexy veil to hide her visage while also making her mysterious to her clients. Casanova, renowned as the seducer le Chevalier de Seingalt, meets his first love and they wager a war of words, wit, and a challenge to determine whose gender is the stronger.

This fascinating historical tale provides a different look at Casanova through the eyes of his first love. Her trials and tribulations turn her into a strong intelligent woman during an era when females were not expected to show any wit. The period is vividly described, though at times the window into the mid eighteenth century overwhelms the battle of the sexes. Still Arthur Japin provides a solid gender war that humanizes the legendary lover as he competes in a fierce skirmish of the mind and the body against his greatest opponent, his first love.

Harriet Klausner

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tracy Chevalier, move over, February 16, 2006

By 

Jane, reading groupie (Houston, TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: In Lucia's Eyes (Hardcover)

I love stories that steep you in the sounds, the sights even the smells of history. The Girl With the Pearl Earring is a book I adored. But that book now seems a beginner's effort to bring the past to life. Japin writes so believably as an 18th century courtesan, the book is like a found manuscript. The language is period pitch-perfect. And this is that rare book with something for both the mind and the heart. For the mind, a subtle and fascinating meditation on sense versus sensibility (yes, I recommend this to fans of Jane Austen), reason versus feeling. For the heart, there is a irresistibly developed love story, both suspenseful and poignant. You rarely find a contemporary author with these classical skills of story telling. Bravo!

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lush, rich, excellent, August 5, 2006

By 

Konrad Baumeister - See all my reviews
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This review is from: In Lucia's Eyes (Hardcover)

Japin's second novel is a beautiful work of historical fiction. His descriptions of the times, the places, the clothes and fashions and thoughts and activities - perfect. The dialogue, the attitudes, the games his people play - all dead right. Even Japin's weaving together the fictional and nonfictional source material (mostly Casanova's autobiography) is done most skillfully and believably. It is a beautiful work. I enjoyed every page of the book.