Casanova in Bohemia FROM THE PUBLISHER
"In his national bestseller The Blood Countess, Andrei Codrescu brought to life the bloodthirsty royal Elizabeth Bathory, who embodied nearly all the contradictions of the seventeenth century. Now he depicts the astonishing life of the legendary Casanova, as the old adventurer relives his life while writing his memoirs in a provincial Bohemian castle at the end of the eighteenth century. Far from being defeated by age, Casanova delights in the maidservants, reacts with intellectual vigor to the unfolding of the French Revolution, and collaborates with Mozart on Don Giovanni. Long considered the rhapsodist of an age of aristocratic mirth, scandal, and innumerable affairs, Casanova was also a first-rate intellect who corresponded and argued with Voltaire and Rousseau. His published work, besides the celebrated History of My Life, includes a multivolume fantasy fiction novel that predates and anticipates Jules Verne; translations of Italian classics into French; and a number of plays that were produced on the great stages of Europe." In Codrescu's retelling of the Casanova legend, readers are introduced to an age far less inhibited than our own, and far more interesting in its vices. At once a libertine, a defender of women, a reactionary, a revolutionary, a brilliant observer, and a visionary, Casanova was a man ahead of his time both in thought and in action. Finally, in this inventive and absorbing work, Casanova is given due credit for his writings, his philosophies, and, of course, for the amorous magic that has been made known to so many.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Poet, novelist, essayist and much-admired NPR commentator Codrescu (The Blood Countess) offers a ribald history of the final years of the infamous satyr. The novel imagines Giacomo Casanova the son of an Italian actor, who began his career as a lifelong seducer of women when he was kicked out of the seminary for dallying with the nuns in the twilight of a lifetime flamboyantly checkered by peccadillo and achievement. Scarcely a year after escaping prison and still in his early 30s, he made and lost a fortune when he introduced the lottery in Paris. At the age of 60, under the nom de plume Chevalier de Seingalt, he assumes the post of librarian for Count Waldstein at Dux Castle in the kingdom of Bohemia. Arranged around an outline of European history from 1785 to the year of Casanova's death in 1798, his reminiscences evolve in a sequence of nightly visits by an intelligent, precocious and sexually agreeable maidservant, Laura Brock, and her younger prot g , Libussa Moldau. Codrescu evokes (and takes liberties with) the historical events of the French Revolution and unblushingly drops the names of such icons as Franklin, Goethe, Mozart and Marie Antoinette into the mix. They are put to good, kinky use: Casanova so excites Laura with a story about an argument that he once had with Voltaire about poetry that she begins to lactate. Codrescu fans will enjoy this tongue-in-cheek patchwork of bawdy escapades. (Mar.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Library Journal
As in his earlier novel, The Blood Countess, Codrescu here brings to life a historical character, depicting Casanova the man, the myth, and his times. In the 1790s, Giacomo Casanova is an old man living at the castle of Count Waldstein at Dux near Prague and working as a cataloging librarian in the count's library. In conversations with a young woman servant he has befriended, he relates episodes from his past life as he finishes work on a fantasy novel titled Icosameron and begins writing his mammoth memoirs. Although Casanova is past his prime, sexual activity of various styles and combinations still seems to occur whenever he is around. Codrescu presents Casanova as representative of an old world order that is slipping away, as the ideas that gave rise to the American and French revolutions are radically changing the political, social, and cultural landscape of Europe. Though factually based, the novel also incorporates almost dreamlike meetings and philosophical discussions between Casanova and Goethe, Hegel, and even Sartre. Casanova is portrayed as a weakening but still forceful old man, full of warmth, humor, and intelligence. Very entertaining and well written, this novel is recommended for all libraries. Jim Coan, SUNY at Oneonta Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Essayist, deadpan NPR racounteur, and too-infrequent novelist Codrescu (The Blood Countess, 1995, etc.) offers a comedic take on the life of Casanova. It's all very well being a legendary ladies' man, heralded all across Europe and doubtless on other continents as well for acts of shocking bravery in the pursuit of sexual conquests, but what happens when one such as Casanova grows old? Here we find the Chevalier de Seingalt ensconced in a remote Bohemian castle by the grace of his sponsor, Count Waldstein, who has retained Casanova to catalogue his immense library. Giving a mere fraction of his time to the Count's task, our hero is much more interested in getting on with his own writing and in telling stories. Fortunately for him, serving girl Laura Brock is fascinated by his tales and soon willing to take part in sexual escapades with other servant girls for his observation and enjoyment. As fully packed as the story is with tales of Casanova's historic trysts-including rendezvous with Venetian convent girls and the seduction of a 300-woman harem-it makes a point of illustrating just how exaggerated the Chevalier's already-impressive exploits had become even in his own lifetime. The plot is not much more than a thin rigging upon which Codrescu can hoist a multitude of erotic flashbacks, stories-within-stories, and commentaries on religion, philosophy, sex, and the changing tides of history in 18th-century Europe. While the author is obviously enamored of his subject, Codrescu never tries to make Casanova out to be more than he is (unlike, for example, Doug Wright's worshipful treatment of the Marquis de Sade in the play Quills). Though the narrative never turns a blind eye to the casualviolence of its day, this is ultimately a fun and sexy romp through a libertine's freely fictionalized life. Consider it the bastard child of Anne Rice's erotica and Umberto Eco's philosophical meta-fiction. High-flying but somehow unpretentious prose, intellectual fireworks, and more steamy couplings than a shelf's worth of romance novels: altogether, a potent dose of high-literary eroticism.
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