Casanova - The World of a Seductive Genius

Laurence Bergreen

Simon Schuster

2016

544 páginas

18h 8m

ISBN-13: 9781476716497

Today, Casanova is a synonym for “great lover,” yet the real story of this remarkable figure is little known. A figure straight out of a Henry Fielding novel, Giacomo Casanova was erotic, brilliant, impulsive, and desperate for recognition; a self-destructive genius. Over the course of his lifetime, he claimed to have seduced more than one hundred women, among them married women, young women in convents, girls just barely in their teens, women of high and low birth alike.

Abandoned by his mother, an actress and courtesan, Casanova was raised by his illiterate grandmother, coming of age in a Venice filled with spies and political intrigue. He was intellectually curious and read forbidden books, for which he was jailed. He staged a dramatic escape from Venice’s notorious prison, I Piombi, the only person known to have done so. He then fled to France, ingratiated himself at the royal court, and invented the national lottery that still exists to this day. He crisscrossed Europe, landing for a while in St. Petersburg, where he was admitted to the court of Catherine the Great. He corresponded with Voltaire and met Mozart and Lorenzo da Ponte—assisting them as they composed the timeless opera Don Giovanni. And he wrote what many consider the greatest memoir of the era, the twelve-volume Story of My Life.

Laurence Bergreen’s Casanova recounts this astonishing life in rich, intimate detail, and at the same time, paints a dazzling portrait of eighteenth-century Europe, filled with a cast characters from serving girls to kings and courtiers, “great fun for any history lover”. — Kirkus Reviews

Resenhas (1)

4 (Muito bom)

O sedutor primordial?

"Digna ou não, minha vida é meu tema, e meu tema é minha vida"

Casanova teve uma vida digna de muitos romances rocambolescos: seus diversos casos amorosos sui generis, sua fulga cinematográfica da inquisição veneziana, seus golpes e aventuras pela Europa inteira, seu pioneirismo ao criar a loteria francesa etc - no entanto, sua vida também teve momentos mais cotidianos e foi interessante aprender um pouco sobre a Veneza do século XVIII (seus bailes, seu carnaval e sua hipocrisia).

Porém, confesso que ler sobre todos os casos da celebre personagem as vezes tornou-se enfadonho - dentre os muitos affairs de Giacomo Casanova, muitas vezes senti uma sensação de repetição, o que é natural devido a grande quantidades de "amores". Mas talvez se o autor tivesse tentado recuperar um pouco da individualidade e história dessas mulheres, essa relações não teriam me parecido tão repetitivas?