Los Angeles Times Sunday Book Review, Lisa Jardine:
History of My Life chronicles an action-packed lifetime of sublime sexual conquests, lightly glued together with contemporary anecdote, social vignettes and local color. Its language is a triumph of richly crafted French prose (we know its author worked and reworked his narrative), which was first rendered into excellently apt English by Willard Trask in the 1960s. It is vital, sharp, racy but mercifully discreet--no Anglo-Saxon four-letter words but only "conquests," "combats, "pleasures" and "crimes" committed in the name of "love." The pace never flags--for all of the customary repetitiveness of Casanova's sexual exploits, this is a grippingly good read.
--THIS IS VOLUME 3 AND 4 OF A 12 VOLUME SET - it starts when he is 23 years old.
History of My Life chronicles an action-packed lifetime of sublime sexual conquests, lightly glued together with contemporary anecdote, social vignettes and local color. Its language is a triumph of richly crafted French prose (we know its author worked and reworked his narrative), which was first rendered into excellently apt English by Willard Trask in the 1960s. It is vital, sharp, racy but mercifully discreet--no Anglo-Saxon four-letter words but only "conquests," "combats, "pleasures" and "crimes" committed in the name of "love." The pace never flags--for all of the customary repetitiveness of Casanova's sexual exploits, this is a grippingly good read.
--THIS IS VOLUME 3 AND 4 OF A 12 VOLUME SET - it starts when he is 23 years old.
