基本信息出版社：Penguin Classics
页码：560 页
出版日期：2007年01月
ISBN：0140449663
条形码：9780140449662
装帧：平装
正文语种：英语
丛书名：Penguin Classics

内容简介 在线阅读本书

A magnificent new translation of Stendhal’s picaresque novel about love and intrigue in post- Napoleonic Europe

Judged by Balzac to be the most important French novel of its time, The Charterhouse of Parma is a classic portrait of aristocratic adventure. Fabrizio del Dongo, a headstrong and naive Italian grandee, defies the wrath of his right-wing father and goes to fight for Napoleon. But his dreams of military glory are dashed, drawing him back to Milan. There he becomes embroiled in a series of amorous exploits, fueled by his own impetuous nature and the political chicanery of his aunt and her wily lover. This is a colorful journey through extravagance, duplicity, and youthful daring.
作者简介 Mari e-Henri Beyle (1783–1842) had a post in the Ministry of War and followed Napoleon’s campaigns before retiring to Italy. As “Stendhal,” he wrote novels, literary criticism, and various biographical and autobiographical works.
John Sturrock is a consulting editor for the London Review of Books. His translations for Penguin Classics include Hugo’s Notre-Dame of Paris and volume 4 of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time.
媒体推荐 The New York Times Book Review, Daniel Mendelsohn
Howard understands that Stendhal's style is inextricable from his substance--the speed from his passion, the irony from the worldliness--and so he gives you Stendhal's style whole, with no touching up. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review
"The Charterhouse of Parma has never sparkled in English with such radiance as it does in Richard Howard's new translation."
--Edmund White

"[A] superb new translation."
--Bernard Knox, The New York Review of Books

"An epic tale of war, love, sex, politics, and religion...an action-packed narrative."
--The New Yorker --This text refers to the Paperback edition.


编辑推荐 Amazon.com
Officer, diplomat, spy, journalist, and intermittent genius, Marie Henri Beyle employed more than 200 aliases in the course of his crowded career. His most famous moniker, however, was Stendhal, which he affixed to his greatest work, The Charterhouse of Parma. The author spent a mere seven weeks cranking out this marvel in 1838, setting the fictional equivalent of a land-speed record. To be honest, there are occasional signs of haste, during which he clearly bypassed le mot juste in favor of narrative zing. So what? Stendhal at his sloppiest is still wittier, and wiser about human behavior, than just about any writer you could name. No wonder so meticulous a stylist as Paul Valéry was happy to forgive his sins against French grammar: "We should never be finished with Stendhal. I can think of no greater praise than that."

The plot of The Charterhouse of Parma suggests a run-of-the-mill potboiler, complete with court intrigue, military derring-do, and more romance than you can shake a saber at. But Stendhal had an amazing, pre-Freudian grasp of psychology (at least the Gallic variant). More than most of his contemporaries, he understood the incessant jostling of love, sex, fear, and ambition, not to mention our endless capacity for self-deception. No wonder his hero, Fabrizio de Dongo, seems to know everything and nothing about himself. Even under fire at the Battle of Waterloo, the young Fabrizio has a tendency to lose himself in Napoleonic reverie:

Suddenly everyone galloped off. A few moments later Fabrizio saw, twenty paces ahead, a ploughed field that seemed to be strangely in motion; the furrows were filled with water, and the wet ground that formed their crests was exploding into tiny black fragments flung three or four feet into the air. Fabrizio noticed this odd effect as he passed; then his mind returned to daydreams of the Marshal's glory. He heard a sharp cry beside him: two hussars had fallen, riddled by bullets; and when he turned to look at them, they were already twenty paces behind the escort.

The quote above, a famous one, captures something of Stendhal's headlong style. Until now, most English-speaking readers have experienced it via C.K. Scott-Moncrieff's superb 1925 translation. But now Richard Howard has modernized his predecessor's period touches, streamlined some of the fussier locutions, and generally given Stendhal his high-velocity due. The result is a timely version of a timeless masterpiece, which shouldn't need to be updated again until, oh, 2050. Crammed with life, lust, and verbal fireworks, The Charterhouse of Parma demonstrates the real truth of its creator's self-composed epitaph: "He lived. He wrote. He loved." --James Marcus --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.