Customer Reviews

Passion: A Novel

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Fosca is a sick woman, living in XIXth Italy she is considered a Hysteric. But Fosca is not only sick she is ugly. And there is nothing worse for a woman being ugly. So one day arrives Giorgio, a handsome officer, who just left his lover, a married woman back in Milan. To Fosca is love at first sight, but for Giorgo is not. He tries to be kind because she is ill. But her desperate love is more than he can endure.

The PASSION she feels for him is agressive even in the physical sense of the word. Fosca wants him so desperately that you can do nothing but understand her and also feel what she feels. Unrequited love here is a powerful force out of control.
The darkness in his relation with Fosca has its reverse with the clarity in his relation with Clara. She is beautiful, sensual. The "usual" object for a man's affection. But through the novel this oposition is changing in a subtile way. Because finally what Fosca offers is pure love. With total surrender, yes, but giving everything in exchange.

I always recomend to read the book in Italian, but this translation is a good one. And if you want to make this reading a memorable experience listen Stephen sondheim's musical "Passion". His adaptation is perfect.
If you like Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre this book wil be one of your favourites

This book is one of the most sensual pieces of literature out there. I cannot think of another book that reads so much like an operatic aria. It is not so much a meditation on love as on all-consuming attraction, obsession, and eroticism. The story takes you into the mind of Giorgio, who is torn between two women who could hardly be more opposite. Clara is beautiful, healthy...and married. Fosca is sickly, desperate...and alluring. The two best things I can say about reading this book are:

1) It challenges each of us to get in touch with the light and dark sides of human sexuality.

2) The translation is absolutely outstanding. For readers who appreciate masterful translation work, or for those who study literature in translation, this is a must-read!

This book, later the film, is what inspired Stephen Sondheim's musical "Passion". Having seen, loved and bought the musical on DVD, I wanted to go to the source.

The book is small compared to it's offspring, but I am glad I read it. It only proves that to a master craftsman, the germ of an idea is enough to inspire a masterpiece.

Beautiful and sentimental, Passion, is full of those 19th C. romantic pleasures like being all-consumed by love and driven to madness when it is taken away.