A tale of passion and politics

Besides the unrequited love and sadness, irony and the comedy of human existence are given equal, and perhaps more weight in this epic romance.

There are few novels in the western canon that proclaim romance with a capital R than Stendhal’s The Charterhouse of Parma. It was praised by every grandee of French literature from the time of its publication — Balzac was a fan and in the last century, Andre Gide named it one of the best French novels ever written.

The book, which Stendhal legendarily finished writing in an intense seven-week writing session during which he left instructions not to be disturbed, is a ripping read — propelled with the same forward momentum with which it was written. In his review of the Richard Howard translation that was published in 1999, Daniel Mendelsohn wrote that “At first glance, the bare bones of Stendhal’s story suggest not so much a literary masterpiece as a historical soap opera.” And really, you can’t argue with that description. This is not some experimental narrative that Stendhal had written — as Gide described it, the “whole book was written for pleasure.”

Stendhal — whose actual name was Mari-Henri Beyle — was a lifelong diplomat in service of France but his true passion and love was Italy. His occupation prevented him from writing under his own name — he apparently had over 200 pseudonyms. He eventually returned to France and died in Paris in 1842 at the age of 59.

The bare bones of The Charterhouse of Parma, as Mendelsohn would have it, is this: there’s a young nobleman named Fabrice del Dongo (a delicious name for a feckless youth) growing up in stifling, conventional Lombardy in the early 19th century. He has a hot aunt — Gina, Duchess of Sanseverina. The hot aunt has a lover, Count Mosca, who is the Prime Minister. Their unconventional relationship is the way it is because Mosca is a married man. When the story begins, Gina is not yet the Duchess — she marries the Duke of Sanseverina on Mosca’s instigation so that they can both ingratiate themselves in the court at Parma and gain political power. Fabrice, fed up with the restraints of life with his bore of a father, runs off to join the man who is leading a revolution: Napoleon Bonaparte. There are messy battles and Fabrice, to put it politely, is not meant to be a soldier. He misses out on Waterloo and returns home.

At home, an aunt-nephew romance threatens to break out between Gina and Fabrice (clearly George RR Martin must have read Stendhal at some point, one thinks). Thankfully neither of them verbalises their feelings and instead, Gina and Mosca together decide to mould Fabrice into a political instrument, sending him off to study for the Church in the hopes of him becoming a high enough functionary in that institution, if not the actual pope.

This being a French novel, there’s no happy ending. There are inconvenient passions that crop up to stymie Fabrice and murders and prison escapes and illegitimate children and of course, that great adversary who can never be defeated, Death. So, like Mendelsohn said, soap opera-ish. But there’s such verve and life in the way Stendhal narrates this tale that it never feels too pulpy nor too dark. Besides the unrequited love and sadness, irony and the comedy of human existence are given equal, and perhaps more weight and it is this, undoubtedly, that cements its place as one of the great works of European fiction.

The author is a Bengaluru-based writer and communications professional with many published short stories and essays to her credit.

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