Manon Lescaut

A fairly easy, short read that could also lead you to some serious thoughting if you're not careful. The introduction to this edition is great, although I find it hard to believe that the book is meant to be, as the editor suggests, "a defence of love shaped by the hands of a master."

If you're going to defend the passion of lurv*, I doubt your best option is to show how it leads to (plot spoilers) theft, fraud, kidnapping, assault, murder, jail-break, prostitution, and generally every other vice possible for an upper class Frenchman of the time.

On the other hand, a book that's about the clash between passion and reason/virtue should present the benefits of both sides, and Prevost does it well enough that, apparently--although in my show more eyes incomprehensibly--people do still read this as a story about how great lurv is.

And now for a bit of wanton literary professor wonkishness: the tale is told, frame story aside, by the male lurver, des Grieux. We hear all about his feelings (viz., pubescent mood swings). We never get any sense for how Manon Lescaut actually feels about the insanity (literally, I'd guess) she inspires in him, and never get any sense for her feelings. This reminds me of Kushner's Flamethrowers, which I read recently. I got no sense of her personality in that book, aside from a range of completely disconnected deeds. But there *she* is the narrator. I have no idea what to make of that.


* I distinguish here between love, which is what happens when two or more people willingly rely on each other for the kind of moral and personal support needed to live an even moderately painless life, and Lurv, which is what happens when teenagers (like the characters in this book) get all sexy. show less

Is this about a capricious libertine taking advantage of the naivety of a dumb young man completely clueless when it comes to love? Yes, to a certain extent. But it would be oversimplifying to just reduce it all to that only...

Far from being a cheesy and black-and-white type of plot where everything is two dimensional, Antoine Prévost gives us to see here not only human passions in all their complexity, but also the difficulties of handling feelings and their ambiguous consequences upon our actions. Des Grieux may be of a baffling innocence, yet it takes a noble heart to be so forgiving, abandoning all in the name of love. Who are we to judge him? As for Manon, young, bratty, irresponsible, she nevertheless has ambition, and fight as show more much for her lover (whom she genuinely loves, despite everything) as for her brother. Do we know about her social origins, her past, her background? Who are we, then, here again, to blame her for thinking about comfort and the future of her couple, in a society denying her even the right to love above her condition? As circumstances will lead them both to their ruin, it's obviously easier to mock, demean, judge and condemn than actually trying to understand the deep motivations of each, overseeing thus that, behind supposed vice and quest for luxury lies, also, a certain sentimental nobility.

Strangely for an 18th century novel, the violence of the emotions involved reminds of works more associated with the Romantic era... Here's a rich and complex story, then. In any case, it's a great read! show less

Manon Lescaut is a deceptive novel in multiple ways.
It could be easily labeled as a classic, picturesque short tale of a doomed love affair between a noble young man, Chevalier des Grieux, and a beautiful maiden from a lower breed, set in the Paris of The Régence, a convulsive era where class structures and ancient regime ruled the world.
Told from the male lover point of view in a fast-paced, flowing narrative, the reader is presented with the irrevocable passion, almost obsession des Grieux is consumed with when he first sets his eyes on Manon, a fatal moment which will make his inner peace crumble down and bring him to perform all sort of dubious acts, even to commit murder, to keep his beloved with him.
Des Grieux constructs his own show more story in retrospection, using a nameless narrator who crosses paths with him almost at the end of his misadventures, giving this way a foreboding tone to the story.
"Love has made me too soft, too passionate, too faithful and perhaps over-indulgent of the desires of a most charming woman; and that is the sum of my crimes" says des Grieux, talking about his beloved Manon, the temptress, and the one to blame for his forthcoming misdeeds.
The fact that we only get to hear Manon’s voice throughout des Grieux’s account leaves the reader completely blind about her character, devoid of her motivations or her true feelings. Des Grieux describes her as a fickle, capricious creature prone to take other lovers in order to live lavishly. So Manon appears as a cold, calculating character, becoming a sort of desirable object to possess, an object des Grieux rightfully believes to belong to him. But still, in the rare passages where Manon can voice her quiescent values, we can envisage a strong spirit who keeps defying des Grieux’s views with her struggles to remain her own mistress. Couldn’t it be that in challenging him to broaden his conservative views about relationships, Manon would also be challenging the imposed gender politics of the time?
In any case, the driven plot of the story takes sweet revenge separating the lovers again and again in myriad forms: family, legal authority and the gulf between social classes keep preventing them from being together until they receive the ultimate punishment in being exiled to the colonies in New Orleans, where against all odds and once set free of the French, rotten social pressures, the idea of a simple, bare existence in a new world impregnates them with a wish to live at peace with rekindled values of virtue and morality, flirting even with an improbable happy ending, which makes the final twist in the story even more brusque and cruel than expected.

As I stated at the beginning of this rambling review, this self-righteous account, this seemingly lineal plot and simple, direct style can be misleading.
My first instinctive reaction to the story was to doubt the veracity of des Grieux’s biased tale for he is a flawed hero and unreliable narrator. His constant search for self-excuse, his vain urge in blaming others for his own acts, his theatrical, almost parodic explosion of emotive outbursts and his unremorseful confession of using them to take advantage of others made it very difficult to empathize with him.

But what most struck me when trying to add perspective into the story was the shameful realization that my dislike for des Grieux came from recognition, as his futile attempts at trying to hold on to Manon revealed the universal impossibility of a mutual understanding, the hopelessness of a complete possession of the other.
No simple tale then, but a novel which oozes with the complexity of human relationships and the tragic consequences of trying to cross the barrier of subjectivity in appealing to raw emotions, as one can’t disengage from individual consciousness , however much we try.
"What fatal power had dragged me down to crime? How came it that love, an innocent passion, had turned for me into the source of all misery and vice" wonders a despairing des Grieux.
Exalted existential questions about the tragic consequences of being in love, as being infected by an incurable disease, which robs us of our former selves, blinding us with passion, making it difficult to find our place in a material world where authority and order prevail over emotions.
And in this sense, I’d say that Manon Lescaut is a disruptive novel because in giving free expression to des Grieux’s feelings, even if charged with subjectivity, Prévost is encouraging us to reach our own truths through language, although he also whispers a warning, reminding us that our own reached reality might be easily misunderstood by those we love the most and by the world we live in. show less

This is one of the few books where I wanted to strangle the main character.

Chevalier de Grieux is so madly in love with the lower-class beauty Manon Lescaut that he's willing to forsake his education, his family and friends for her. On first read, it's easy to write off de Grieux as a silly boy blinded by love since he's willing to follow Manon to the 'New World' and put up with her schemes to extort money with her beauty, which lands the lovers in jail more than once.

This books is more than just simple story of boy-meets-girl. Abbe Prevost writes a magnificent tale of lovers told from the point of view of Chevalier de Grieux. Modern readers will want to shake de Grieux for throwing away his upper-class life for a girl who appears show more indifferent to his passion. However, Prevost creates a France divided by the class characters are born into and wealth. With the two lovers being born in to different societies, readers start to pity de Grieux and Manon's relationship and question if their love is doomed because of fate or poor decisions. show less

...................I went into this book totally unaware as to what it was about,
the nature of the issue at hand nor the depth and sophistication of the theme. With that said, here is the short tale of Chevalier des Grieux, a young man fully prepared to become a member of the Order of Malta. As he was leaving Amien to return home he meets Manon Lescaut who has just arrived to begin her novitiate. The young Chevalier is immediately smitten with her beauty and "on the instant, deprived of my reason and self-control." Their relationship begins with a lie and before you know it they run away together and abandon all thought of their intended plans. Over and over again, Manon is torn away from Chevalier by other suitors, suitors who lure show more her away with jewels and money. Manon always makes it appear that it is her "project" to fill their coffers. They're like grifters, running from the law, devising another "project", then on the run again. It never matters to Chevalier, he will do anything to regain her love and provide for the niceties she has come to desire and expect. It is very easy to become frustrated with Chevalier, how gullible can he be? Why does he return to her? Is his love simply an obsession? Is Manon simply a prostitute or does she truly love him? And what of all the friends and relations who come to Chevaliers aid, are they enablers that allow Chevalier to continue his wayward life? What propels them to be just as gullible as Chevalier?
Lots of deep questions to address and I look forward to the lectures provided in class.
One other thing, Prevost immediately captures the reader by starting at the end and then relating Chevalier's story. In doing this, the reader is in want of answers and plows thru the novella.
Loves me, loves me not. You decide.
PS: Read this novel for Coursera class "The Fiction of Relationship" show less

I disliked this novel quite intensely at the beginning but I'd mellowed toward it somewhat by the end.

There's a lot of tell-don't-show going on with regards to the feelings of the characters, I guess because it was written at a time when the novel as a representation of a character's inner self was in its infancy. The reviews I've read complain of failing to believe in Manon's love for the Chevalier des Grieux but, to me, this seems beside the point.

Given that she is the title character, Manon has very little direct dialogue in the novel. Everything she says is paraphrased in the Chevalier's narration, and it's only in the final pages that she is given a decent sized paragraph of her own words. To me, she feels stifled, which, I guess, show more is appropriate to her character. She is in the process of being forced into a life of religious slavery when des Grieux, on the strength of a single glance, approaches and declares his undying love for her. Eloping with him being the better of two options, she attempts to make a life with her overbearing, jealous lover. She feigns relationships with wealthy men in order to rob them, which the Chevalier interprets as her being truly unfaithful. These cons are prematurely aborted when he interrupts them in pitiful jealous rage and they flee from the scene swiftly followed by guards, servants, jilted lovers etc. Poverty, prison and infamy ensue.

It's the story of a resourceful, cunning, amoral, young woman making the best of her bad circumstances pursued by the most hapless of lovers. She might be Bonnie Parker but he ain't no Clyde Barrow. show less

Frustrating novel of two lovers who cannot agree as to the ground rules of their relationship. Manon, an uncommonly attrative common girl, is swept up by the Chevalier Des Grieux. Their romance is driven and then driven apart as much from external forces as by their lack of common understanding of the ground rules of their existence together. The edition I read is flawed as the novel was written in 1731 and my English edition had chapter heading quotes from Byron, Scott, and others who clearly did not travel back in time to provide quotes for the chapter headings on novels written 80 years in the past.