Casanova in Bohemia : A Novel (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "On the fifth of June, in the year 1798, a body believed to be that of Giacomo Casanova, self-styled Chevalier de Seingalt, was buried in..." (more)
Key Phrases: black rope, Count Waldstein, Chevalier de Seingalt, Laura Brock (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Poet, novelist, essayist and much-admired NPR commentator Codrescu (The Blood Countess) offers a ribald history of the final years of the infamous satyr. The novel imagines Giacomo Casanova the son of an Italian actor, who began his career as a lifelong seducer of women when he was kicked out of the seminary for dallying with the nuns in the twilight of a lifetime flamboyantly checkered by peccadillo and achievement. Scarcely a year after escaping prison and still in his early 30s, he made and lost a fortune when he introduced the lottery in Paris. At the age of 60, under the nom de plume Chevalier de Seingalt, he assumes the post of librarian for Count Waldstein at Dux Castle in the kingdom of Bohemia. Arranged around an outline of European history from 1785 to the year of Casanova's death in 1798, his reminiscences evolve in a sequence of nightly visits by an intelligent, precocious and sexually agreeable maidservant, Laura Brock, and her younger protege, Libussa Moldau. Codrescu evokes (and takes liberties with) the historical events of the French Revolution and unblushingly drops the names of such icons as Franklin, Goethe, Mozart and Marie Antoinette into the mix. They are put to good, kinky use: Casanova so excites Laura with a story about an argument that he once had with Voltaire about poetry that she begins to lactate. Codrescu fans will enjoy this tongue-in-cheek patchwork of bawdy escapades.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

As in his earlier novel, The Blood Countess, Codrescu here brings to life a historical character, depicting Casanova the man, the myth, and his times. In the 1790s, Giacomo Casanova is an old man living at the castle of Count Waldstein at Dux near Prague and working as a cataloging librarian in the count's library. In conversations with a young woman servant he has befriended, he relates episodes from his past life as he finishes work on a fantasy novel titled Icosameron and begins writing his mammoth memoirs. Although Casanova is past his prime, sexual activity of various styles and combinations still seems to occur whenever he is around. Codrescu presents Casanova as representative of an old world order that is slipping away, as the ideas that gave rise to the American and French revolutions are radically changing the political, social, and cultural landscape of Europe. Though factually based, the novel also incorporates almost dreamlike meetings and philosophical discussions between Casanova and Goethe, Hegel, and even Sartre. Casanova is portrayed as a weakening but still forceful old man, full of warmth, humor, and intelligence. Very entertaining and well written, this novel is recommended for all libraries. Jim Coan, SUNY at Oneonta
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Free Press; First Edition first Printing edition (March 5, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684868008
• ISBN-13: 978-0684868004
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,568,258 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Depressingly, Dolefully Decadent, September 7, 2002

By	Louis N. Gruber "Author of Jay" (Lexington, SC United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Giacomo Casanova, 1725-1798, was a real person, an adventurer, a man-about-Europe, a celebrity, a sociopath, rarely worked, attached himself to famous people and institutions, spent time in prison, and had a number of notorious romantic affairs. If he had lived today he would undoubtedly be a frequent guest on talk shows. Now after many years of obscurity, Casanova has had a revival of sorts, and a following of scholars known as "casanovists."

Andrei Codrescu's book, based loosely on the facts of Casanova's life, details the declining years of Casanova, against the backdrop of European history. It is a time of spectacular decadence, the last days of a crumbling feudal aristocracy, the shock waves of the French revolution, and the personal decline of the once notorious Casanova, a man who has had many romantic escapades but has never formed a lasting relationship with a woman. Now he is lonely, disillusioned, desperately trying to achieve immortality through his writings. And in a way, as the author shows, he does.

I love listening to Andrei Codrescu on National Public Radio, but Casanova in Bohemia was something of a letdown. This book will be of interest to casanovists and also to codrescuites, but it is not for everyone. If you enjoy reading about the sexual preoccupations and embarrassing orgies of a lonely old man you might enjoy it.

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars to be there in the lion's den! Delight!, March 2, 2002

By	Larissa Kent (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews

I dragged this book home like a lion a fresh-killed antelope & set myself down at an unforgettable feast. It's Borges, Eco, and Vonnegut, but hip, new, American -- and beautifully illuminist. As a woman, subject to chills of wonder and amusement, I thought this was first rate entertainment and great literature, too.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars casanova is back!, March 27, 2002

By	carmen firan (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

Casanova in Bohemia is a brilliant and absorbing work, gifted with intellectual wit, historical facts, tenderness, humor, magic - a combine Codrescu's recipe of success. He has created from a legend a vivid character, from the cliché of libertine an intriguing destiny of a visionary intellectual. Conquer and victim, seducer and seduced, a strong temperament with deliberated weaknesses, Casanova appears in his complexity, as a fiction writer, play writer, philosopher, translator of Italian

classics into French, the collaborator with Mozart on Don
Giovanni.
Codrescu gives back to Giacomo Casanova the gift to be ahead his time, in thought and action. A remarkable book, wonderful written.

Carmen Firan
Writer and journalist, New York