Adventures of Casanova by Giacomo Casanova
The Folio Society edition that I read is a mere 301 pages – a small selection of the adventures laid down in Casanova's 12 volumes of memoir, so it's little more than a taster, but a fascinating taster it is.
Casanova was a contemporary of the Marquis de Sade and, like the Frenchman, he has given his name to a form of sexual behaviour. In this case, as a womaniser and seducer.
But as well as being a lover, he was also a traveller, a thinker and poet; he knew the likes of Goethe and Mozart and Voltaire, although unfortunately only an account of his meetings with the latter is considered worthy of inclusion in this selection (it also includes a detailed account of his escape from prison in Venice).
What is clear from this selection of his memoirs is that, instead of being a misogynist, as he has been traditionally portrayed, he genuinely liked women. More than that, he liked intelligent and strong women with whom he could have a real conversation – could properly engage with. This was an observation that Dr Who writer Russell T Davies made in an interview when his three-part series about Casanova was screened a few years ago (and he'd apparently read all the memoirs).
And perhaps this is why his name had to be sullied and used as a way of describing behaviour that society wanted to decry – indeed, according to the Concise Oxford Dictionary, his name only became used as a byword for immorality and bad treatment of women as late as the 20th century.
So was his 'crime' that he liked women and treated them as equals intellectually and sexually?
That brings me back to Sade again – he too espoused an approach to sex that was absolutely egalitarian; his women were allowed to be just as much libertines as his men, to get what they wanted sexually and to enjoy it.
Women being intellectually equal? Women enjoying sex? Women not being virginal and women actually having sexual relationships outside of marriage? In the context of how western society has often treated such matters – and in some cases, still does – it's perhaps no surprise at all that this fascinating figure was so misunderstood or had to be portrayed in such a way. In English culture, for instance, the respectable Englishwoman is essentially asexual – think of 'the English Rose', of Celia Johnson in Brief Encounter etc – arguably a Protestant, semi-secular Madonna. And if you wish to maintain an idea of women as the madonna, you can't allow the whore to intervene.
A fascinating book selection indeed – enough to whet the appetite for further reading at a later date.
The Folio Society edition that I read is a mere 301 pages – a small selection of the adventures laid down in Casanova's 12 volumes of memoir, so it's little more than a taster, but a fascinating taster it is.
Casanova was a contemporary of the Marquis de Sade and, like the Frenchman, he has given his name to a form of sexual behaviour. In this case, as a womaniser and seducer.
But as well as being a lover, he was also a traveller, a thinker and poet; he knew the likes of Goethe and Mozart and Voltaire, although unfortunately only an account of his meetings with the latter is considered worthy of inclusion in this selection (it also includes a detailed account of his escape from prison in Venice).
What is clear from this selection of his memoirs is that, instead of being a misogynist, as he has been traditionally portrayed, he genuinely liked women. More than that, he liked intelligent and strong women with whom he could have a real conversation – could properly engage with. This was an observation that Dr Who writer Russell T Davies made in an interview when his three-part series about Casanova was screened a few years ago (and he'd apparently read all the memoirs).
And perhaps this is why his name had to be sullied and used as a way of describing behaviour that society wanted to decry – indeed, according to the Concise Oxford Dictionary, his name only became used as a byword for immorality and bad treatment of women as late as the 20th century.
So was his 'crime' that he liked women and treated them as equals intellectually and sexually?
That brings me back to Sade again – he too espoused an approach to sex that was absolutely egalitarian; his women were allowed to be just as much libertines as his men, to get what they wanted sexually and to enjoy it.
Women being intellectually equal? Women enjoying sex? Women not being virginal and women actually having sexual relationships outside of marriage? In the context of how western society has often treated such matters – and in some cases, still does – it's perhaps no surprise at all that this fascinating figure was so misunderstood or had to be portrayed in such a way. In English culture, for instance, the respectable Englishwoman is essentially asexual – think of 'the English Rose', of Celia Johnson in Brief Encounter etc – arguably a Protestant, semi-secular Madonna. And if you wish to maintain an idea of women as the madonna, you can't allow the whore to intervene.
A fascinating book selection indeed – enough to whet the appetite for further reading at a later date.