The Princesse de Cleves (1678)

Melancólico e lindo. Parece pertencer profundamente à sua época, e por isso é curioso ver a adaptação La Belle Personne, de Christophe Honoré, que se passa hoje em dia em um liceu francês. ( )

I ended up liking this, but, it was very difficult in the beginning because of all the names and titles. I can't imagine reading this without any knowledge of the court of Henri II. It does have a good basic plot with a main character who reminded me of Madame de Tourvel in Les Liaisons Dangereuses. I will be interested to see the modern version recently filmed in response to the book's renewed popularity in the wake of Sarkozy's criticism of it. ( )

Had to read this for a romance fiction class. Don't remember much other than it was better than I had expected.

During the seventeenth century, England was full of Puritans and France was filled with naughty people. However, The Princess of Cleves is a wonderful novel about the passions of not having an affair, while everyone else is. Strange and delightful. ( )

I've had this book sitting on my shelf since a college Humanities course, and it tickled my fancy for a heavier holiday read. Once I began reading the introduction and some of the analytic essays, I discovered that this book is an acclaimed French classic, considered one of the forerunners of the novel genre. I really need to brush up on my French literature.

The story is about Mademoiselle de Chartres, a newcomer to the French court. She quickly becomes the Princess de Cleves when she marries Monsieur de Cleves, who is smitten with her at first sight. The lady is described as being a woman without equal, brilliant and virtuous. For her part, Madame de Cleves is not in love with her husband, though she appreciates his good qualities and considers him a noble person. She has never hidden these feelings, and although Monsieur de Cleves is dissatisfied with her feelings, he knows he is a lucky man for loving and marrying the woman of his dreams. This placid state of affairs may have continued for the duration of their lives, but fate intervenes; the Princess de Cleves meets Monsieur de Nemours for the first time, several months after her marriage, and falls in love with him.

The narrative may begin like a medieval romance, with the star-crossed lovers meeting too late and tragically separated, but the plot takes a divergent course from there. Instead of making efforts to be with the man she loves, the Princess de Cleves strenuously resists forming a relationship with him. She considers it her duty to be faithful to her husband, and not only that, but she doesn't want to hurt such a good man. In addition, all of her mother's teachings were about loyalty and being steadfast, as well as the treachery of passionate love, especially love affairs. Madame de Cleves falls ever more in love with Nemours, but refuses to do more than harbor these feelings privately. Her final choice in the book is quite contrary a typical romance story, and surprises not only Nemours, but the reader as well.

The structure of the book is an interesting use of stories within stories, and a blending of historical narrative with the personal drama surrounding the Princess de Cleves. The book uses an omniscient third person narrator, which is not shocking to today's reader, but was a startling innovation during Madame de LaFayette's time. In fact, much of this book was surprising to her contemporary audience, because the idea of the nature of a novel was still in formation, and very different from current conceptions of the novel. For instance, the novel hadn't progressed to that time when writers used details to create vivid settings and physical descriptions, it hadn't developed that "show don't tell" mandate yet. For me, that is a drawback, as I relish language and a story that creates a world in words. In this novel, sentences tend to be dryer, and just give the information; this person was ambitious, this one is the most handsome and charming at court, and other tags like that. Not to say that she used no imagery, for she certainly did, but it is much more restrained than what I would read in novels from later periods. On the positive side for me, the book has a lot of depth in its symbolism and motifs. The cane that Madame de Cleves secretly took from Nemours, the portrait that he steals with her knowledge, the house at Coulommiers; these and other objects are clearly important symbols with multiple meanings, and they give us insight into the sometimes hidden emotional layers of the characters. Along the emotion angle, the author also uses clever techniques to occasionally reveal the subconsciousness of the heroine, another writer's trick that was relatively new at the time this was published. The use of parallels between characters and events - for instance Madame de Chartes and the Prince de Cleves, who are surprisingly similar in their actions and fates, or the repetition of two confession scenes - have heavy impact on the message of the book. In other words, this is a clever story. A lot is happening in these pages. Moreover, I had fun while reading. I was never bogged down, the action flows swiftly, the stories within the story are interesting, the characters sympathetic, and I always wanted to see what would happen next. When I read literature, I am looking for depth like this, entertainment that is pregnant with meaning.

Also, I need to mention the edition I read, because it's a Norton, and I love Norton! As the back of these critical editions, they always include analytical essays, samples that show the reaction from contemporaries of the writer, and any other nonfiction material that the editors feel is relevant to a deeper reading of the book. I learned so much from reading this information, some revelations that I discovered on my own as I read, but many that I never would have thought of. If you have taken literature courses, and miss the discussions that peel away the book on different levels and different topics to construct a rich understanding of a novel, than these essays are one way to recapture that feeling. I certainly am glad I finally read this book, and even happier that I read the Norton edition. ( )