After reading Ian Kelly's excellent biography of Beau Brummell, the original dandy, I could hardly wait to get hold of his exploration of the life of Casanova. The hardback arrived a couple of weeks ago, sumptuously bound and rich with the promise of 18th century intrigue.
I'd known for some time that Casanova was far more than the serial seducer of legend. He was also a former priest, a writer, an actor, a gambler, a gourmand, a con-artist, an adviser to Mozart (he's said to have inspired Don Juan), a Freemason and a spy. He rose from a Venetian hovel to become a globetrotting aristocrat. With all these ingredients, his life story couldn't fail to be a winner.
Except that Kelly's book disappoints on several counts. While the biography saves us from having to read Casanova's own account of his life, which is several volumes long, it devotes far more pages to his sexual escapades than to other aspects of his personality.
We're told that he was a spy, but we find little detail about this activity, other than that he undertook a mission to Dunkirk to "report on the French fleet" for the Venetians, he was "perhaps involved in covert espionage for the French" during the Seven Years' War and that he tried to sell the secrets of English dyeing technology to both the Venetians and the French.
All this is covered in a few lines, hinting that there are other books about Casanova to be written - or perhaps speculative movie scripts.
Similarly, the author is curiously dismissive about Casanova's interest in the shadowy world of the Cabbala, suggesting that the Venetian was little more than a dilettante in this field. He also tempts us with the revelation that Casanova was a superlative food writer, while providing too few examples of this talent.
To add to these small annoyances, the book is riddled with typing errors and awkward phrases. It's as if Kelly's publisher put pressure on him to dash it off quickly, but didn't spend enough time checking the proofs.
Having said all that, the book does deliver a picaresque journey through 18th century Europe. Casanova is always on the move, and it's a pleasure to travel with him on foot, by sea, or in rickety long-distance coaches. His women are sublime and his skirmishes between the sheets never fail to raise an eyebrow. The modern world tends to think it invented sexual freedom, but Casanova would probably find our morals claustrophobic.
That, of course, is the final problem with the book. At the end of the day, Casanova is not a very likeable figure. He no doubt had a rakish charm, but it's difficult to identify with somebody who unknowingly sleeps with his teenage daughter (he had abandoned her mother long before the birth) and then, having realised his mistake, does it again. He is slippery, vain, lecherous and egotistical - far more villain than hero.
But Casanova's failings are not the author's. This is an entertaining attempt to flesh out a myth.
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