Casanova's Women: The Great Seducer And The Women He Loved (2006) - Plot & Excerpts
What a horribly, intricately detailed swamp of a book! After wading through the disgustingly delicious story of Giacomo Girolamo Casanova de Siengalt--gambler, debaucher, pervert, swindler, rapist, pedophile, con man--I feel as though I need a shower...or perhaps a series of extra-strength antiobiotics.Despite the fact that this is a man whom no one should hold up as a example to aspire to, it was fascinating to read about the many fortuitous situations Casanova managed to eel himself into--and even more fascinating to discover how he extricated himself from those situations when they (inevitably) turned sour. He had skills at which even Houdini would've marveled. And even though he was not a good man--he could become petty, jealous, violent, and cruel on a whim--he had the admirable characteristic of actually listening to the women he wooed, bolstering their esteem and seeing their value as a person. Granted, this was merely to get underneath their petticoats, but he was the first to really treat his lovers as people, not objects.This is definitely a book to be read in small bites, as it can become overwhelming with the amount of detail provided. For a man who has become more myth than reality, whose true exploits and character have become obscured by the mists of romanticizing authors and glamorizing moviemakers, Judith Summers has done a fantastic job of bringing the real Casanova to life, warts (and I do mean warts--full-blown toad warts) and all.I think it should be noted that this is more of a speculative biography than strict historical recounting. The author inserts thoughts and actions which, had Casanova himself been there to witness them, he would've never put in his memoirs, nor would any other biographer, as they are merely narrative devices. However, personally, I don't mind this kind of speculation; it helps move the story along and keeps the book from being a dry-as-dust life history with as much readability as the latest set of tax laws. We can be sure that the people inhabiting Casanova's life were quite colorful, so it doesn't seem inappropriate for the author to ascribe certain behaviors to these personages in private moments which were never meant to be recorded for posterity.
What do You think about Casanova's Women: The Great Seducer And The Women He Loved (2006)?
