11/11/2023 0 Comments Gifted book yaleWith only two or three of his many partners-and he names over a hundred-was Casanova really what most people consider “in love.” What he calls “love” usually began with excited infatuation, and sometimes it developed into passion, but it always burned out fast. And although he occasionally considered marriage, or claims he did, he made sure that it never happened. Not until very late in life did he live with a woman for more than a brief time. But the balance of power was always unequal, and every one of his relationships was short-lived-sometimes only a single encounter, and never lasting more than a couple of months. At other times he convincingly describes experiences of deep mutual enjoyment.Ĭasanova did value his partners’ individuality, and he genuinely wanted to share mutual pleasure with them. Sometimes his behavior was abusive in ways that are not just disturbing today, but would have seemed disturbing to many people in his own day. Proud of being a bad boy, Casanova was self-serving in every aspect of his life, not just the sexual, but the erotic encounters in the Histoire vary greatly. In describing a dozen of his relationships over the years, she emphasizes his interest in the individuality of his partners: “Just as Casanova the lover once kissed their dewy skin with breathless abandon, Casanova the writer breathes life into their shadows.” But at one point she calls him, almost in passing, “a seducer who, if he was operating today, might well be in prison for breach of promise, incest, fraud, pedophilia, grievous bodily harm, and rape.” That shocking catalogue is entirely true, and will be addressed frankly throughout this book. ![]() In 2006 Judith Summers published a book entitled Casanova’s Women: The Great Seducer and the Women He Loved. In fiction such a character might be a charming rogue, but in real life Casanova’s behavior was often far from charming, and this is evident even when all we have to go on is his own narrative. Some have betrayed a vicarious investment in his tales of seduction, just as many readers clearly have it’s interesting that men with great political power, such as Winston Churchill and François Mitterrand, have been especially warm admirers of Casanova. ![]() Previous biographers have tended to retell it as he told it, adopting his own point of view with only occasional queries. The word histoire can mean “story” as well as “history,” and a story it certainly is. Fluent in French, he wrote in that language since unlike Italian it was understood throughout Europe. ![]() He was the first to tell his own story, in a massive autobiography entitled Histoire de Ma Vie. There have been a number of biographies of Casanova, but the time is overdue for a biography of a different kind. Casanova aspired to a life of freedom from restraints-but freedom at whose expense? It challenges any reader today, and still more it challenges a biographer. His career as a seducer, already notorious in his own time, is often disturbing and sometimes very dark. But although he was more than his myth, the myth is grounded in truth. ![]() He was Giacomo Casanova, a gifted and complicated Venetian who lived from 1725 to 1798, and his story is a fascinating one. He belongs to that rare company of mortals whose personal names have floated free from history, and we know what a Casanova is even if we know nothing about the man who bore that name. Everyone knows that Casanova was a seducer.
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