Giacomo Girolamo Casanova (1725–1798)

I picked this audiobook up because it's read by Benedict Cumberbatch, and honestly I thought I could listen to him read *anything* to me. I've been proven so, so very wrong. In fact, the bit that is essentially detailing a gang rape, but couched in words that reassure the reader/listener that Casanova and his buddies meant no harm and in fact after the first go-round the girl was pretty okay with it and actually liked what was being done to her was so much worse than its already horrendous show more nature would suggest because of the incongruity of it being delivered via the dulcet timber of Cumberbatch's voice. Even worse is reading/listening to this in the days of Kavanaugh et al. and letting it sink in in an even more absorbing way that this is all the Same Shit, Different Century. Cripes. show less

Started in on this free book (archiv.org) mistaking it at first for Cellini's autobiography. Yet it was interesting enough anyway to read through to halfway into Volume Two (out of six or eight). Would have continued but for the other 400 books on my to-read list. Including Cellini's autobiography.

This is well-written by one who did his own thinking and thought clearly, and was honest about himself as to the considerable amount he chose to tell, making no excuses for his several misfortunes show more except his youth, naiveté, ignorance, acquisitiveness, intellectual appetite and passion.

Edmund Wilson in "The Wound and the Bow" remarks that Casanova's aim is not so much to glorify himself as to tell us an astonishing story that illustrates how people behave, the way in which life works out. He suspects that if Casanova's memoirs were a novel, then he would be the greatest novelist who ever lived. And the real theme of Casanova is the many things a life may hold, the many roles a man may play and the changes brought by time. Wilson writes that the first part of the story is gay, with a Venetian carnival liveliness; the last, unbearably sad.

The best translation of the complete memoirs may be by Willard Trask. Many other editions are abridged.
Caution: some readers may be mildly titillated. Don't let that stop you. show less

I think it is well established by now that I trust the Melville House novella series implicitly. I can't imagine that I would have ever gotten around to reading this story otherwise. I think duels are largely dumb and had very little interest in Casanova, but I found this to be surprisingly entertaining and more thoughtful than I expected.

Another score for Melville House.

While his name is now synonymous with a serial romantic, I don’t actually care much for his romantic trysts. He traveled a lot and describes vivid details of 18th century life.
His reflections on his hedonism in the first chapter were some of my favourite parts.
I took pleasure in straying, and I lived perpetually in error, with no other consolation than an awareness of doing so.(3)
I have always known myself to be the principal cause of all of the misfortunes that have befallen me. Thus I show more took pleasure in finding myself able to be my own pupil and compelled to love my teacher. (16)

I also found it funny how besotted he was. He’s not seducing M.M. for the fun of it, he truly thinks he loves her. Did he think that about all his ladies? Keep on dreaming my guy, you’re only fooling yourself.

This is just an excerpt and I am tempted to read the big work, or more excerpts. However, I would want to read about him enjoying swindling fools and making questionable life decisions.
Notes in this book mention masks, disguises and balls, as well as philosophical conversations, and I would be interested in those. show less