Customer Reviews

Monsieur de Saint-George: "The American"

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I have not read the English translation of this book, originally issued in France, but for starts the Saint-Georges scholars know he was not born on Christmas Day of 1739, but in 1745. The author is a passionate supporter of this composer's music, but he bases his information on fiction and is not either a disciplined musician or scholar. The only published source for any informantion on Saint-Georges is the magnificent work of Gabriel Banat, a virtuosic musicologist who bases his splendid book on primary documents.

Joseph Bologne, also known as Monsieur de Saint-George, could do it all. This brother was a master of fencing, connoisseur of women, hunting, riding, and dancing, political activist and patriot, a renowned violinist, and a prolific composer affectionately dubbed the "black Mozart." Saint-George was at home among kings and queens and became the first black colonel in the French army. His regiment consisted of a thousand men of color and became known as the Legion of Saint-George. Saint-George became so popular in his lifetime that he was mentioned in the letters and memoirs of other great men of that era, including John Adams and Alexandre Dumas.

Alain Guédé, a French journalist and one of the foremost experts on Saint-George, has accumulated two decades of research on the popular chevalier (knight) and produced a biography replete with minute details of this gifted man's life. At times, the book reads like a Hedda Hopper gossip column as Guédé shares tidbits that are undoubtedly fact, but so sensational that they border on the incredible.

Guédé used his extensive research to share the story of Saint-George from his semi-privileged beginnings as the son of a slave and a French nobleman on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe to his place at the height of Parisian society. This minutiae makes for many shifts in the timeline and becomes rather confusing, necessitating frequent re-reads to regain proper perspective. Although keeping up with the generations of aristocratic families and their various political and social machinations that affect Saint-George's fortunes becomes overwhelming and dry at times, the attention to detail is to be commended in re-introducing the world to a true renaissance man. (RAW Rating: 3.5)

Reviewed by Kim Anderson Ray
of The RAWSISTAZ™ Reviewers