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Title: The Princesse De Cleves (Penguin Classics) by Madame De Lafayette, Walter J. Cobb, Madame de Lafayette, Madame De La Fayette, Madame De Lafayette ISBN: 0-14-044587-0 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: October, 1992 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.6 (5 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: 17th Century Modern
Comment: The most surprising thing one finds when reading The Princesse de Cleves is its unbelievable level of modernity. An interesting research study would be to draw parallels between the plot of this 17th century novel and the modern romantic dramas, as I believe the results would be quite surprising. The political and social dramas it raises seem much more at home in a more jaded modern story. The book also features a shockingly unconventional love story that must have raised quite a few eyebrows in the time of its author, Madame de Lafayette.
The plot takes place inside the closed world of the French elite, during the reign of Henry II. Although the novel starts out famously slow, once you get past that tedious interval the story gets much more interesting. We are introduced to the true powerbrokers of France, men and women absolutely possessed with the thirst for power. Those with some education of the French Revolution should find this section of the novel very enlightening, as it highlights their absolute isolation and ignorance of the body politik itself. Instead, the pampered court spends their time stabbing each other in the back and doing everything possible to get close to the king. To do this, they employ everything in the arsenal, including arranged marriages, family ties, and a lot of sex. If one wants a fictional but definitely reality based account of Machiavellian politics in the Renaissance, this is a great book to read.
Then of course, we come to the actual love story. In the beginning, the love between our Princesse and her suitor seems to be a familiar romance, one which numerous writers have regaled us with. A dashing young prince falls in love with a beautiful fair maden. However, this book quickly pulls away from such monotonous convention, and, in glorious French style, takes the reader on a descent into true human nature. That is the kind that harbors jealously and intrigue. The love story quickly becomes a fierce and tumultuous event, with the actual lovers stuck in the middle. A very progressive love story.
This book is definitely a classic, as it really represents a big development in the genesis of the novel. However, it does get very tedious at times, and often drifts into meaningless window dressing. Nevertheless, The Princesse de Cleves is on the whole a very engaging and complex love story that should satisfy any modern reader interested in the multitude of topics it covers.
Rating: 3
Summary: repression
Comment: I read this book because John Updike said it was one of the world's greatest novels of romance -- but I should have known from his other choices (Madame Bovary and The Scarlett Letter, among others) that he likes his romance bleak! The Princess of Cleves is certainly of considerable scholarly interest, being as it is a very early novel, and delving interestingly into the predicament of a woman trying to behave morally despite the frivolity, intrigue and pleasure-seeking of the 17th century French court. But the story is difficult and sad: young woman marries dutifully, then falls in love with a handsome duke, he feels similarly and pursues her passionately, but she struggles against her feelings, which wrecks havoc on everyone. The predicament is closely linked to the context and doesn't feel timeless or grand in theme; rather, the triviality of it stokes up thoughts of what caused the French revolution. Interested readers may prefer the Norton critical edition, which offers a number of essays as well as the text.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Landmark Work
Comment: "La Princesse de Cleves" is among the most scrupulously accurate historical fictions in literature. It is also arguably the first historical novel ever written and one of the earliest novels in any language.
But is a classic in Mark Twain's sense of the word, the sort of book everyone wants to have read but nobody actually wants to read?
I agree with another reviewer that this isn't beach blanket fare. Readers of early English literature will find it more palatable than Samuel Richardson's "Pamela" and better plotted than anything by Defoe. Although Mme. de Lafayette is not the first important female writer in French - Christine de Pizan comes to mind - this highly original work outdoes Aphra Behn, Fanny Burney, or any other English woman before Jane Austen.
If those comparisons bring a sparkle to your eye then prepare for a treat. The central figure is a sixteen-year-old girl fresh from a sheltered childhood in the countryside when her mother decides to deal for a prestigious son-in-law. Except for the fictional protagonist every figure in this late Renaissance setting is historically accurate. The jousts, the love affairs, the betrayals, and the shocking death of one pivotal figure all happened. De Lafayette presents the French royal court at its most glamorous, then peels away the facade to reveal ambitions that corrupt or destroy everyone who remains in their spell.
Women's fictions from this era were expected to be love stories. This one succeeds at that well enough to woo modern readers while it levels a scathing attack on the French aristocracy in the tradition of Moliere.
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Title: Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Oxford World's Classics) by Choderlos De Laclos, Douglas Parmee, Pierre Ambroise Francois Choderl Laclos ISBN: 0192838679 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: January, 1999 List Price(USD): $8.95 |
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Title: Jacques the Fatalist and His Master (Oxford World's Classics) by Denis Diderot, David Coward ISBN: 0192838741 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: July, 1999 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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Title: Rameau's Nephew and D'Alembert's Dream (Penguin Classics) by Denis Diderot, Leonard Tancock ISBN: 0140441735 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: October, 1976 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Manon Lescaut (Penguin Classics) by Abbe Prevost, Leonard Tancock, Antoine-Francoi Prevost, Jean Sgard ISBN: 0140445595 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: June, 1992 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
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Title: The Assault by Reinaldo Arenas, Andrew Hurley ISBN: 0140157182 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: June, 1995 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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