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The Girl Who Loved Camellias: The Life and Legend of Marie Duplessis
The little known, riveting story of the most famous courtesan of her time: muse and mistress of Alexandre Dumas fils and Franz Liszt, the inspiration for Dumas's The Lady of the Camellias and Verdi's La Traviata, one of the most sought after, adored women of 1840s Paris.
Born in 1824 in Normandy, Marie Duplessis fled her brutal peasant father (who forced her to live with a man many years her senior). Julie Kavanagh traces Marie's reinvention in Paris at sixteen: as shop girl, kept woman, and finally, as grand courtesan with the clothes, apartment, coach and horses that an aristocratic woman of the time would have had. Tall, willowy, with dramatic dark hair, Marie acquired an aristocratic mien, but coupled with a singular modesty and grace, she was an irresistible figure to men and women alike. Kanavagh brings her to life on the page against a brilliantly evoked background of 1840s Paris: the theater and opera, the best tables at the cafés frequented by society figures, theater directors, writers, artists--and Marie, only nineteen, at the center of it all. Four years later, at twenty-three, she would be dead of tuberculosis.
Born in 1824 in Normandy, Marie Duplessis fled her brutal peasant father (who forced her to live with a man many years her senior). Julie Kavanagh traces Marie's reinvention in Paris at sixteen: as shop girl, kept woman, and finally, as grand courtesan with the clothes, apartment, coach and horses that an aristocratic woman of the time would have had. Tall, willowy, with dramatic dark hair, Marie acquired an aristocratic mien, but coupled with a singular modesty and grace, she was an irresistible figure to men and women alike. Kanavagh brings her to life on the page against a brilliantly evoked background of 1840s Paris: the theater and opera, the best tables at the cafés frequented by society figures, theater directors, writers, artists--and Marie, only nineteen, at the center of it all. Four years later, at twenty-three, she would be dead of tuberculosis.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published June 11, 2013
49 people are currently reading
1412 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 45 reviews
September 9, 2016
I saw this randomly in a bookstore and was abruptly consumed with the desire to read it immediately. Spoiler: it wasn't worth it. Marie Duplessis was a famous courtesan in 1840s Paris; La Dame aux Camélias by Dumas fils is a barely fictionalized version of her life, which then went on to inspire a play, the opera La Traviata, multiple ballets, an abundance of movies (including, to some extent, Moulin Rouge and Love Story), and even Tsubaki-hime in Yami no Matsuei. This could be a fascinating topic to write a non-fiction book about, but unfortunately, Kavanagh's is not that book. The Girl Who Loved Camellias mostly reads like a mash-up between a summary of Dumas's book and a summary of an early biography of Duplessis, written by Romain Vienne, one of her friends. Which, if I wanted to read either of those books, I would have just read them, and not Kavanagh's book-report version of them. And despite excerpting significant portions of both books, Kavanagh seems to expect her reader to be already familiar with them. She'll occasionally throw out a mention to something like Duplessis's love of riding horses or her TB as though it's something the reader should already know, instead of actually introducing it.
I wanted more social history, which should be the advantage of looking back on someone with 150 years' perspective. But though Kavanagh occasionally mentions things like the July Revolution, flâneurs, or the Congress of Vienna, she certainly doesn't bother to explain how they relate to Duplessis or her world (or even to define them, so hopefully you just already know what all those things are). She doesn't even get into topics like the economics of a courtesan's life; she'll tell you how much Duplessis paid for a specific dinner, but since I am not familiar with the value of 1840s money nor how much Duplessis was earning, a random number means nothing. Even when she does try to bring in some perspective, she gets it wrong: for instance, she quotes medical views of TB from the 1890s and 1900s (after its cause was discovered and it was known to be contagious), but tells the reader nothing about medical views of TB in the 1840s (which were EXTREMELY different, since no one knew about germs yet), which would actually be relevant. I also wanted a wider perspective; though Duplessis crosses paths with a ton of interesting people, Kavanagh never follows them to tell us more about these other lives. I was particularly interested in some of the other courtesans who were mentioned; Kavanagh often drops their real names or origins, so she clearly must have done the research about them, but she doesn't bother to include it in this book. Finally, I would have liked a take on why Duplessis's story has been so famous and so enduring. Though Kavanagh lists the various adaptions in the introduction, she makes no effort to guess at why it is that people keep repeating this story, or what different places and times are getting out of it, or how changes that have been made reflect varying cultural norms, or anything like that. Basically, whenever there's a potential interesting approach, Kavanagh goes back to summarizing La Dame aux Camélias.
Also somehow this is a sentence in a book published in 2013: If Alphonsine inherited her promiscuous nature from her father, then her grace and natural distinction may have been the result of her mother’s aristocratic blood. I don't even know what to say about that.
I wanted more social history, which should be the advantage of looking back on someone with 150 years' perspective. But though Kavanagh occasionally mentions things like the July Revolution, flâneurs, or the Congress of Vienna, she certainly doesn't bother to explain how they relate to Duplessis or her world (or even to define them, so hopefully you just already know what all those things are). She doesn't even get into topics like the economics of a courtesan's life; she'll tell you how much Duplessis paid for a specific dinner, but since I am not familiar with the value of 1840s money nor how much Duplessis was earning, a random number means nothing. Even when she does try to bring in some perspective, she gets it wrong: for instance, she quotes medical views of TB from the 1890s and 1900s (after its cause was discovered and it was known to be contagious), but tells the reader nothing about medical views of TB in the 1840s (which were EXTREMELY different, since no one knew about germs yet), which would actually be relevant. I also wanted a wider perspective; though Duplessis crosses paths with a ton of interesting people, Kavanagh never follows them to tell us more about these other lives. I was particularly interested in some of the other courtesans who were mentioned; Kavanagh often drops their real names or origins, so she clearly must have done the research about them, but she doesn't bother to include it in this book. Finally, I would have liked a take on why Duplessis's story has been so famous and so enduring. Though Kavanagh lists the various adaptions in the introduction, she makes no effort to guess at why it is that people keep repeating this story, or what different places and times are getting out of it, or how changes that have been made reflect varying cultural norms, or anything like that. Basically, whenever there's a potential interesting approach, Kavanagh goes back to summarizing La Dame aux Camélias.
Also somehow this is a sentence in a book published in 2013: If Alphonsine inherited her promiscuous nature from her father, then her grace and natural distinction may have been the result of her mother’s aristocratic blood. I don't even know what to say about that.
June 14, 2013
As far as I know this is the "only" full-length English language biography of Marie Duplessis, a name that few Americans would recognize. The author herself mentions her need to study French in order to read what other writers had to say about Marie, including several who met her. The problem is that few of her letters survive and she kept no journals or diaries that anyone is aware of, so what we know about Marie is always based on how others saw her and remembered her.
In her lifetime, she was a well-known courtesan - a fashion tend-setter who could often be seen at the theater or at her box at the opera, a woman whose name was mentioned in whispers. While she wasn't invited to the places where she might mingle with "respectable" women, her home became a salon to some of the most well-known and accomplished men. If she is remembered today it is primarily as the woman who inspired the opera La Traviata and the Greta Garbo movie, Camille. Of course, long before Anna Netebroko put on that red dress, there was a novel, La Dame Aux Camilias, written by a young man with a famous name - Alexander Dumas fils. When the novel came out, shortly after Marie's death at age twenty-four from "consumption," it was viewed as an account of their relationship, though Dumas admitted that much of it, including the idea of the whore with a heart who makes a great sacrifice for a "love" was pure fiction. Once the play of the same name became popular, Marie as Marguerite Guatier belonged to the world.
While the book is heavily sourced, Kavanagh quotes often from the Dumas novel and play, even though these are both fictional portrayals. The author sometimes speculates, for instance wondering if the close relationship Marie had with another courtesan had a "sapphic" character, but also telling us that if it did, Marie would have kept that to herself. Later Kavanagh imagines that a "friend," who was said to have been staying with Dumas while he was writing his book, might have been another of Marie's lovers, and the true inspiration for the character of Armand, but she offers no evidence that Dumas was more than causally acquainted with that particular rival.
The book is useful for learning about Marie's milieu the demimonde, and its interaction and connection to the larger world. There is no modern-day equivalent of the great courtesans. These were women who were celebrated and known. They were independent operators who could choose their alliances, at a time when women had few choices. Unlike the ladies who could not be present when men gathered to speak frankly of ideas, politics and even art, women like Marie were expected to be there and participate.
But there are mysteries at the book's core which are never solved. How did uneducated, abused Alphonsine Plessis manage to transform herself into the glamorous and wealthy Marie Duplessis? That is, we know who kept her and have the dates, but why her? What was it about her in particular? It's hard to know how Marie actually "felt" about anything. She was known to lie, having once quipped, "I lie to keep my teeth white." Often people who knew her wrote entirely different versions of the same events. So while Kavanagh manages to fill in some blanks, we are left with an empty space at the center, and the question remains: Who was Marie Duplessis?
In her lifetime, she was a well-known courtesan - a fashion tend-setter who could often be seen at the theater or at her box at the opera, a woman whose name was mentioned in whispers. While she wasn't invited to the places where she might mingle with "respectable" women, her home became a salon to some of the most well-known and accomplished men. If she is remembered today it is primarily as the woman who inspired the opera La Traviata and the Greta Garbo movie, Camille. Of course, long before Anna Netebroko put on that red dress, there was a novel, La Dame Aux Camilias, written by a young man with a famous name - Alexander Dumas fils. When the novel came out, shortly after Marie's death at age twenty-four from "consumption," it was viewed as an account of their relationship, though Dumas admitted that much of it, including the idea of the whore with a heart who makes a great sacrifice for a "love" was pure fiction. Once the play of the same name became popular, Marie as Marguerite Guatier belonged to the world.
While the book is heavily sourced, Kavanagh quotes often from the Dumas novel and play, even though these are both fictional portrayals. The author sometimes speculates, for instance wondering if the close relationship Marie had with another courtesan had a "sapphic" character, but also telling us that if it did, Marie would have kept that to herself. Later Kavanagh imagines that a "friend," who was said to have been staying with Dumas while he was writing his book, might have been another of Marie's lovers, and the true inspiration for the character of Armand, but she offers no evidence that Dumas was more than causally acquainted with that particular rival.
The book is useful for learning about Marie's milieu the demimonde, and its interaction and connection to the larger world. There is no modern-day equivalent of the great courtesans. These were women who were celebrated and known. They were independent operators who could choose their alliances, at a time when women had few choices. Unlike the ladies who could not be present when men gathered to speak frankly of ideas, politics and even art, women like Marie were expected to be there and participate.
But there are mysteries at the book's core which are never solved. How did uneducated, abused Alphonsine Plessis manage to transform herself into the glamorous and wealthy Marie Duplessis? That is, we know who kept her and have the dates, but why her? What was it about her in particular? It's hard to know how Marie actually "felt" about anything. She was known to lie, having once quipped, "I lie to keep my teeth white." Often people who knew her wrote entirely different versions of the same events. So while Kavanagh manages to fill in some blanks, we are left with an empty space at the center, and the question remains: Who was Marie Duplessis?
February 23, 2017
The true story of a famous courtesan who was with both father and son Dumas'. She was the inspiration for the opera Camelle.
September 5, 2014
The Girl Who Loved Camellias is a dense 240 pages. It is the story of Marie Duplessis, whose biography was lost to history but endured through popular legend, multiple novels, dozens of ballets, and eventually opera and film. Her short, intense life is more interesting than even the novels would suggest(though much of this is drawn from those works).
Born one Alphonsine Plessis, she dubbed herself Marie du Plessis, crafting a myth, aristocratic bearing and surname, complete with designing her own coat of arms - and was one of the most famous courtesans in Paris. She escaped a brutal rural life to climb her way into the most elite circles in society and adorned herself with luxury. It is discreet as far as her dalliances(though she's glorified a bit) largely because no correspondence survived and most of the book is constructed from a few personal objects, bills of everything she bought, and the legends that she inspired. Marie herself cultivated her identity through the novel Manon Lescaut, according to a heavily annotated copy she owned. She was a muse of novelists, musicians and her story is allegedly the basis of Violetta in La Traviata.
It's an interesting sociological observation, the fascination and wariness of le monde v. demimonde, the elegant alongside the decadent, and a great view into 1840s Paris. It also makes you think about what it was about actresses at the height of their artistry...Garbo...Bernhardt...Callas...that strove to assume this role and play it thousands of times.
Note: If you would like to read this book let me know and I'll mail it to you.
Born one Alphonsine Plessis, she dubbed herself Marie du Plessis, crafting a myth, aristocratic bearing and surname, complete with designing her own coat of arms - and was one of the most famous courtesans in Paris. She escaped a brutal rural life to climb her way into the most elite circles in society and adorned herself with luxury. It is discreet as far as her dalliances(though she's glorified a bit) largely because no correspondence survived and most of the book is constructed from a few personal objects, bills of everything she bought, and the legends that she inspired. Marie herself cultivated her identity through the novel Manon Lescaut, according to a heavily annotated copy she owned. She was a muse of novelists, musicians and her story is allegedly the basis of Violetta in La Traviata.
It's an interesting sociological observation, the fascination and wariness of le monde v. demimonde, the elegant alongside the decadent, and a great view into 1840s Paris. It also makes you think about what it was about actresses at the height of their artistry...Garbo...Bernhardt...Callas...that strove to assume this role and play it thousands of times.
Note: If you would like to read this book let me know and I'll mail it to you.
September 25, 2013
This is a lovely biography of Marie Duplessis, the inspiration for La Traviata and many other works. It's a fairly basic account - mostly her childhood, her numerous lovers, and her extravagant spending - with very little exploration of the psychology behind this fascinating woman. Granted, she only lived until 23, so there isn't much history to relate, but I expected a bit more from this book than it gave me.
December 27, 2020
Interesting woman. The book not so interesting.
November 28, 2016
I first heard of Marie Duplessis because of my love of opera. She was the inspiration for Dumas’s The Lady of the Camellias, which was the inspiration for my favourite opera of all time, La Traviata. After watching an amazing version of La Traviata with Anna Moffo in the lead role, I wondered how close her interpretation was to the real Marie Duplessis. Then I began to wonder who Marie Duplessis the person was, not just the character writers, painters and musicians have made her into over the decades.
Although Duplessis only lived to the age of 23, Julie Kavanagh was able to give us a very in-depth, detailed look at her life. Not only that, she provided context for Marie’s rise from simple but pretty farm girl to one of the most sought-after courtesans in Paris’ demimonde. She was a complex woman who could be both unbelievably selfish and petty but at the same time, caring and genuinely kind to the people around her. Money ran through her hands like water to feed her wardrobe and her general lifestyle but at the same time was known to give generously to charities and was very religious in her later years. If she were a mere character in a novel she’d probably be called unbelievable and contradictory, but Kavanagh’s highlighting of her contradictions really humanized Marie for me. She became a living, breathing person instead of this distant legend.
As it says in the blurb, from a very young age Marie was likely sexually abused and when she fled from the countryside she had no illusions about what a wonderful place 1840s Paris was for lower class women. She clawed her way up the unofficial courtesan hierarchy, first being a grisette (a lover to somewhat poor university students) and then a lorette when she found an older, wealthier patron. And then, finally when the simple Alphonsine Plessis caught the eye of a young duke, she was transformed into Marie Duplessis, the irresistible courtesan. It was not an easy path and Kavanagh talks about her struggles in fairly stark language that brings home the idea that while being a courtesan could be glamorous at times, there were many times it was not.
What I especially liked about The Girl Who Loved Camellias was the postscript that detailed the sale of Marie’s estate to pay off her debts and the introduction where Marie’s cultural impact is discussed. Of course, most famously there’s the book The Lady of the Camellias and Verdi’s opera La Traviata but there have also been films and even ballets about her life. Even though few people today actually know her name, Marie Duplessis lives on in the beautiful works of art she inspired.
My favourite thing about this biography is that while Julie Kavanagh goes into detail, she does not get encumbered by it as so many biographers do. While she includes the text from some letters pertaining to Marie’s life, she does not get bogged down in detailing Marie’s correspondence. Instead, she includes short quotes where it’s relevant (which seems like common sense but sadly all too few biographers do this, preferring to include every single scrap of correspondence they can find pertaining to their subject). She gives historical context to Marie’s life but again she doesn’t get too bogged down in irrelevant details. Basically, she tells a detailed but interesting story about a woman who packed quite a lot of living into just twenty three years.
If you’re looking for an interesting biography that’s a fairly fast read, I highly recommend The Girl Who Loved Camellias. It’s one of the best biographies I’ve ever read.
I give this book 5/5 stars.
Although Duplessis only lived to the age of 23, Julie Kavanagh was able to give us a very in-depth, detailed look at her life. Not only that, she provided context for Marie’s rise from simple but pretty farm girl to one of the most sought-after courtesans in Paris’ demimonde. She was a complex woman who could be both unbelievably selfish and petty but at the same time, caring and genuinely kind to the people around her. Money ran through her hands like water to feed her wardrobe and her general lifestyle but at the same time was known to give generously to charities and was very religious in her later years. If she were a mere character in a novel she’d probably be called unbelievable and contradictory, but Kavanagh’s highlighting of her contradictions really humanized Marie for me. She became a living, breathing person instead of this distant legend.
As it says in the blurb, from a very young age Marie was likely sexually abused and when she fled from the countryside she had no illusions about what a wonderful place 1840s Paris was for lower class women. She clawed her way up the unofficial courtesan hierarchy, first being a grisette (a lover to somewhat poor university students) and then a lorette when she found an older, wealthier patron. And then, finally when the simple Alphonsine Plessis caught the eye of a young duke, she was transformed into Marie Duplessis, the irresistible courtesan. It was not an easy path and Kavanagh talks about her struggles in fairly stark language that brings home the idea that while being a courtesan could be glamorous at times, there were many times it was not.
What I especially liked about The Girl Who Loved Camellias was the postscript that detailed the sale of Marie’s estate to pay off her debts and the introduction where Marie’s cultural impact is discussed. Of course, most famously there’s the book The Lady of the Camellias and Verdi’s opera La Traviata but there have also been films and even ballets about her life. Even though few people today actually know her name, Marie Duplessis lives on in the beautiful works of art she inspired.
My favourite thing about this biography is that while Julie Kavanagh goes into detail, she does not get encumbered by it as so many biographers do. While she includes the text from some letters pertaining to Marie’s life, she does not get bogged down in detailing Marie’s correspondence. Instead, she includes short quotes where it’s relevant (which seems like common sense but sadly all too few biographers do this, preferring to include every single scrap of correspondence they can find pertaining to their subject). She gives historical context to Marie’s life but again she doesn’t get too bogged down in irrelevant details. Basically, she tells a detailed but interesting story about a woman who packed quite a lot of living into just twenty three years.
If you’re looking for an interesting biography that’s a fairly fast read, I highly recommend The Girl Who Loved Camellias. It’s one of the best biographies I’ve ever read.
I give this book 5/5 stars.
April 27, 2017
Kavanagh seems to have done her research lovingly and thoroughly, but the "real" Dame aux Camélias remains as elusive as ever. The fact is, she lived most of her very short life in that weird social category of the highly-paid courtesan, meaning that while wealthy men were proud to parade her, they didn't respect her and would certainly not introduce her to their mother or their sister. Hence most of the first-hand accounts of her career are contradictory and unreliable. Dumas fils, whose novel really launch the cult of the woman variously called Marie, Marguerite, Camille or Violetta, only had a very short affair with her. Did he share her with his much more famous father, or did he try to keep her to himself? There seems to be no way of finding out for sure. The portrait that emerges from this book is far from the sweet, refined, self-sacrificing woman you think of based on Dumas fils or La Traviata. Kavanagh's Marie Duplessis is a party-loving material girl who may have turned down the offer of a Mrs. Anderson to get out of prostitution and lead a bourgeois life in London. In spite of all her charm and quickly acquired veneer of culture, she seems to have flung herself in vain at Liszt, who didn't take her up on her offer to follow him to Weimar. As interested to acquire a title as to collect diamonds, Marie managed to get Count Edouard de Perregaux to marry her, but hardly saw him afterwards. Regardless, he had her body moved from a grave that had been allocated only for 5 years to a vault with a concession for perpetuity. What the true nature of their relationship was is one of the many mysteries left unsolved. However, I disagree with those Goodreads reviewers who accuse Kavanagh of having merely done a collage of previous sources. She does rely heavily on Dumas fils and Marie's platonic friend Romain Vienne, but I do give her credit to try and extract the truth from the conflicting evidence. It is unfortunate that at times you aren't sure whether she is talking about Marie the woman or one of the numerous fictional characters inspired by her story. Although Marie didn't linger very long after tuberculosis set in, she was bankrupt by the time she breathed her last, with bailiffs already seizing her possessions with her body still warm, which speaks to the fragility of "success" for women making a living from prostitution. In the end, my impression is that whoever Marie was is irrecoverable because men's fantasies of her started to proliferate and turn her into myth even before she was dead.
December 11, 2016
Oh, what to do with this one…On the side of a three-star read, there just wasn’t a lot of “meat” here as far as details of Marie Duplessis. On the side of a four-star read – there just isn’t a lot of material available and yet, this is a real woman who was a demimondaine in 1840’s Paris who inspired an absurd amount of our now treasured art works. Hints of Marie’s life story gave us La Dame aux Camélias by Dumas fils, which inspired a number of plays, which in turn inspired Verdi’s La Traviata, which inspired ballets, and movies. Anyone remember the big movie scene in original Annie movie, where Daddy Warbuck’s buys out the theater? Yeah, they are watching “Camille” featuring Greta Garbo as yet another fictional version of Marie. To a wider extent, the themes of Marie’s brief life influenced Moulin Rouge, Love Story (from the 70s) and even one of my favorite Carol Burnett sketches of all time and the much-loved troupe of “woman coughs once in a film and you immediately know she’s going to die”.
And yet – for all of that, I came out of this knowing very little of Marie herself. I can’t really fault the writer as there are very very surviving letters or communications from Marie’s own hand about she felt or thought about her own life path. And add to that the complication that the most well known part of her life is built on utter and total self-reinvention. So yeah, this felt like a worthwhile read and great light introduction to a woman who captivated and inspired an absurd number of artists, but in the end it the facts and details that would of allowed me to really connect with or understand Marie better were just not there.
And yet – for all of that, I came out of this knowing very little of Marie herself. I can’t really fault the writer as there are very very surviving letters or communications from Marie’s own hand about she felt or thought about her own life path. And add to that the complication that the most well known part of her life is built on utter and total self-reinvention. So yeah, this felt like a worthwhile read and great light introduction to a woman who captivated and inspired an absurd number of artists, but in the end it the facts and details that would of allowed me to really connect with or understand Marie better were just not there.
August 23, 2014
There is a lot of myth, hyperbole and speculation about the woman who was the inspiration for Dumas, Verdi and at least three movies. The author attempts to find the truth, as much as it exists, about the life of Alphonsine Plessis. Her main source is the biography by Alphonsine's devoted friend Romain Vienne and she uses letters and official documents to give a chronological outline. Newspaper accounts give some detail but also contains a lot of gossip and the credibility is questioned.
The real story, of a young girl whose father acted as a pimp, who fled from him in Paris and became a famous courtesan and died tragically young, is harsher than the Dumas and Verdi versions. Alphonsine was led into prostitution at the age of thirteen by a greedy and drunken father. She reinvented herself in Paris, changing her name and learning how to speak and dress and became renowned for her beauty and her kind nature. The author does not soften the harsher details of her life and the expectations a courtesan would have--a short and hectic career spent with men not always of her choosing. The real woman behind Violetta Valery is more compelling, sympathetic and tragic than any heroine created by a writer or composer. Good research and good writing make this book worthwhile.
The real story, of a young girl whose father acted as a pimp, who fled from him in Paris and became a famous courtesan and died tragically young, is harsher than the Dumas and Verdi versions. Alphonsine was led into prostitution at the age of thirteen by a greedy and drunken father. She reinvented herself in Paris, changing her name and learning how to speak and dress and became renowned for her beauty and her kind nature. The author does not soften the harsher details of her life and the expectations a courtesan would have--a short and hectic career spent with men not always of her choosing. The real woman behind Violetta Valery is more compelling, sympathetic and tragic than any heroine created by a writer or composer. Good research and good writing make this book worthwhile.
July 14, 2014
Beautifully done: Julie Kavanagh carefully separates fact from fiction and indicates where informed speculation takes the place of what can be known from surviving documents. From the technical point of view, I also liked the way the publisher had dispensed with superscript endnote numbers and arranged them by page and short quotation at the back.
My only complaint is that there isn't a list of dramatis personae to help the reader keep track of the major characters who crossed Marie's path. Using the index to sort out sentences like "It was Olympe who introduced Marie to Aguado's personal physician..." (p. 196) leads one to "Aguado de las Marismas, Count Olympe," i.e. to the conclusion that Olympe=Aguado, surely not what the author intended!
My only complaint is that there isn't a list of dramatis personae to help the reader keep track of the major characters who crossed Marie's path. Using the index to sort out sentences like "It was Olympe who introduced Marie to Aguado's personal physician..." (p. 196) leads one to "Aguado de las Marismas, Count Olympe," i.e. to the conclusion that Olympe=Aguado, surely not what the author intended!
March 21, 2017
La Traviata was the first opera I saw back in high school and maybe that is why it is one of my favorites. After seeing the Met Opera live in HD version recently, I decided to learn a bit more about the real Violetta, Marie du Plessis.
The real woman was just as flawed, conflicted, lovely, charming and exquisitely dressed as one would imagine. I think I would have loved her as so many Parisians did and grieved for her early death from tuberculosis at age 23. I see her as an person famous for being famous, for her beauty, taste and wit, and her intellectual salons that gathered all the artists of the day. She certainly set Paris on its ear in the early 1840's. And, all from humble peasant beginnings in Nonant.
The real woman was just as flawed, conflicted, lovely, charming and exquisitely dressed as one would imagine. I think I would have loved her as so many Parisians did and grieved for her early death from tuberculosis at age 23. I see her as an person famous for being famous, for her beauty, taste and wit, and her intellectual salons that gathered all the artists of the day. She certainly set Paris on its ear in the early 1840's. And, all from humble peasant beginnings in Nonant.
September 14, 2018
I didn't know anything about Marie until I read this and it was very impressive how thorough the author managed to be. The book did a good job at explaining life during her time in France, her situation in that life and how she choose to take control of it. The author very successfully describes Marie in a way that makes the reader understand her infamy. While at some points, particularly towards the end, I found it dragging, overall it was a great biography of a woman who deserves it.
Want to read
June 16, 2013Coming up:
Come Hear The Story of Marie Duplessis, the Real-Life Inspiration Behind Camille and Moulin Rouge!
June 24: 7:00PM – 8:00PM
http://www.strandbooks.com/event/even...
Come Hear The Story of Marie Duplessis, the Real-Life Inspiration Behind Camille and Moulin Rouge!
June 24: 7:00PM – 8:00PM
http://www.strandbooks.com/event/even...
January 1, 2020
This very readable book offers a fascinating glimpse into Paris society in the 1840s from the perspective of women's roles and the opportunities available to them. Especially of interest to anyone interested in the history of the period.
September 29, 2022
Disappointing as there is such interesting history here. This read like a confusing rewrite of previous books, plays, operas etc. about Marie Duplessis, with little effort to make the characters and their lives come alive.
July 14, 2015
It's hard to believe that a book about such a notorious, supposedly stunningly beautiful young woman could be so boring!
November 22, 2013
Would have given 2.5 stars. Good and interesting subject without enough original-source material -- forcing the author to speculate much too much.
October 3, 2020
0,5
Czytałeś "Damę kameliową", albo biografię Marie Duplessis? W takim razie odpuść sobie książkę "Dziewczyna, która kochała kamelie". Dlaczego? Bo jest to streszczenie obu wyżej wymienionych tytułów. Do tego streszczenie dość nieudolne. Autorka czerpie pełnymi garściami z książki Dumasa, przepisując wręcz całe fragmenty i popiera to tezami z biografii Romaina Vienne'a, do tego stopnia, że można by rozważyć nawet plagiat.
Autorka wychodzi z błędnego założenia, że czytelnik wszystko wie o bohaterce książki, zna jej czasy, powiązania, koneksje. Mimo wielu przypisów nie tłumaczy kwestii podstawowych, przez co książka momentami jest spisem nic niemówiących czytelnikowi nazwisk, które na dodatek sama autorka myli, tak samo jak daty czy miejsca. Jakby tego było mało, to dostajemy mnóstwo nieprzetłumaczonych francuskich zwrotów i nazw, które również czytania nie ułatwiają. Autorka we wstępie i posłowiu pisze ile czasu jej zajęło przekopywanie się przez materiały do książki ile tekstów źródłowych przeczytała i poznała. Niestety w tekście tego w ogóle nie widać.
Ogólnie czyta się to ciężko, książka jest odtwórcza, całe fragmenty są nudne i niewiele wnoszące do treści, źle skonstruowane, niezrozumiale napisane, niektóre epizody nie są w ogóle wyjaśnione, a Autorka niezrażona niczym odwołuje się do nich, albo nagle i niespodziewanie je komentuje i nie ratuje tego nawet tłumaczenie Anny Gralak. Zawsze mnie zastanawia po co powstają tego rodzaju książki. Dla mnie jako czytelnika chcącego poznać krótkie, acz burzliwe życie Marie, ta książka jest bezwartościowa. Zdecydowanie polecam w tym celu "Damę kameliową", po którą również niebawem sięgnę.
Czytałeś "Damę kameliową", albo biografię Marie Duplessis? W takim razie odpuść sobie książkę "Dziewczyna, która kochała kamelie". Dlaczego? Bo jest to streszczenie obu wyżej wymienionych tytułów. Do tego streszczenie dość nieudolne. Autorka czerpie pełnymi garściami z książki Dumasa, przepisując wręcz całe fragmenty i popiera to tezami z biografii Romaina Vienne'a, do tego stopnia, że można by rozważyć nawet plagiat.
Autorka wychodzi z błędnego założenia, że czytelnik wszystko wie o bohaterce książki, zna jej czasy, powiązania, koneksje. Mimo wielu przypisów nie tłumaczy kwestii podstawowych, przez co książka momentami jest spisem nic niemówiących czytelnikowi nazwisk, które na dodatek sama autorka myli, tak samo jak daty czy miejsca. Jakby tego było mało, to dostajemy mnóstwo nieprzetłumaczonych francuskich zwrotów i nazw, które również czytania nie ułatwiają. Autorka we wstępie i posłowiu pisze ile czasu jej zajęło przekopywanie się przez materiały do książki ile tekstów źródłowych przeczytała i poznała. Niestety w tekście tego w ogóle nie widać.
Ogólnie czyta się to ciężko, książka jest odtwórcza, całe fragmenty są nudne i niewiele wnoszące do treści, źle skonstruowane, niezrozumiale napisane, niektóre epizody nie są w ogóle wyjaśnione, a Autorka niezrażona niczym odwołuje się do nich, albo nagle i niespodziewanie je komentuje i nie ratuje tego nawet tłumaczenie Anny Gralak. Zawsze mnie zastanawia po co powstają tego rodzaju książki. Dla mnie jako czytelnika chcącego poznać krótkie, acz burzliwe życie Marie, ta książka jest bezwartościowa. Zdecydowanie polecam w tym celu "Damę kameliową", po którą również niebawem sięgnę.
February 7, 2023
I had been looking for information on Marie since 1980 long before internet. Even with internet there was almost nothing written about her at all. Not until Julie dug deep into Marie's family history and personal letters did I get, not only the information I had been looking for, but so much more. I remember well the day I was watching a Book reviewing show on tv when they introduced Julia and her book I almost fell off my chair. I was frozen with anticipation. My book today is dog eared, highlighted, and covered in notes with multiple tabs. I am quoting some of the material in my book. I can't thank Julie enough for this... she is the only one who mentioned the fact that she took acting lessons. Everyone else just mentioned her love of theatre. Julie's info matched what I learned in 1980. There are many many details you wouldn't have heard before this book.
February 9, 2019
Wydawać by się mogło, że kiedy pisze się o kimś książkę, to należałoby czytelnikowi sprzedać wyjątkowość opisywanej postaci. Ja tego zupełnie nie poczułam. Książka jest dosyć nieciekawa i raczej stanowi pewien dokument i zebranie materiałów źródłowych. I tu autorka wykonała kawał dobrej roboty i za to na pewno należy jej się uznanie.
June 7, 2024
Extremely dense. We’re talking doctoral thesis. And perhaps it was! It feels obvious to me that this is an extremely well researched book. There were some very captivating parts but ultimately it started to feel like a bit of a chore to pick it up. Glad I made it through!
October 15, 2025
An interesting book. A bit light on the details of Maria's life, which I understand as there probably isn't a lot of information. I do wish there were more pictures of her, not just the actresses who played her.
June 25, 2013
Marie Duplessis lived for 24 years in the early-1800's (the timeframe of Les Misérables). She grew up abandoned, hungry, exploited, uneducated, amoral. She could do an honest day's work but would do anything for anything in the streets if it paid better. Not exactly a shining heroine from history, her sad story might be a shrill fable for the young and female to adhere to social norms. How wonderful it is, then, that Julie Kavanagh has uncovered so much more about Duplessis than the stark tragedy of a young woman who shouldn't have had a chance but became immortal through art.
France has a special place in its heart for its courtesans. Sex seems to be an art for which many a blind eye has been turned over the centuries. Even in the sexist, classist society of the time, Duplessis enjoyed freedom the likes of which a modern girl might envy. She was just about the only woman allowed in the most exclusive café-salon of the (naturally, all-male) intellectual elite, despite not having learned to read or write as a child. To say Duplessis was merely a talented prostitute would be naïve. She served as a muse for some of the most lauded artists of the age. Alexandre Dumas the son, Guiseppe Verdi, and Franz Liszt are among those who made brilliant art because of her. A novel based on her life (La Dame aux camélias), written by Dumas, became an acclaimed play, then the Verdi opera, La Traviata. Her legacy began immediately at her death and easily continued far longer than she lived with successful stage and film adaptations made well into the early 1900's. Given her notoriety during her life and death and the popularity of her legend, it is interesting that Duplessis is most remembered today by French intelligentsia.
Part of this is explained by the transience of records. Her letters were mostly burned and the remnants largely lost, even to those then living at the time of her death. Nearly all those who knew her loved her, but pursued their own self-serving agendas with her legacy, especially her cousin/primary biographer. Her debts, which overtook her final year, were paid off by auctioning her furnishings and personal items. Duplessis's sensational status as a well-known courtesan also worked against historians' favor. Gossip in newspapers and rumors that made their way into biographies of the time were sometimes misleading or otherwise unsubstantiated. Marie Duplessis lived in the shadows of good society and might have easily remained there with the ghosts of many other fallen women but for two things: her incredible joie de vivre and the tenacity of Julie Kavanagh.
Despite the trope of a good-girl-gone-bad road to prostitution, Duplessis almost chose the life, if you can assume she had any agency given her environment. She knew that her circumstances (an abusive sociopathic father infamous for miles around, a runaway mother, complicated family dynamics, and crushing poverty in a small village) were only going to get her so far. The qualities integral to herself were more promising. She was lively, curious, quick, and joyous. She was also very shrewd for a pre-teen, realizing that sex was both a means and an end. She instigated her career by gleefully seducing a 17-year-old and never looked back.
After making her way to Paris, she tried her hand at making a respectable living, but it left her literally starving at the side of food vendors' carts. Paris was a center of ideas, art, learning. Students, invariably dandified and practically penniless, didn't have girlfriends; they kept mistresses, of which there were many tiers, and theirs was the penultimate. The affair would last as long as the student could feed and house his girl. Entertainment was often conversation and the theater when they were a bit flush. Marie Duplessis began her transformation with these baby men, learning as they were learning at the great universities. She was an amazingly quick study. Once she could read, she was, as in all things, voracious. With a natural eye for the superior, she hungered for the best of everything - food, clothes, art, music, talk, books, travel, horses - and she found a way to finance her dreams through the many companions who kept her. Some she truly loved and some she only liked, but Duplessis lived honestly, sweetly, modestly - words not often associated with her profession. She was gifted, conversing with the wittiest literati and the most powerful political men in Europe. Her greatest skill may have been the ability to read people extremely well. She could get her way without resorting to ugliness of any kind.
Julie Kavanagh breathes fresh life into this woman whose greatest wish was to never die. Kavanagh pursued this legendary character with a kind of heroic diligence - relearning French to research her sources in situ. She briefly describes the journey brushing a century and a half of dust from Marie Duplessis's story to give us this more complete, objective portrait of a small but interesting figure from history. Kavanagh writes engagingly of a thoroughly captivating subject who comes through remarkably whole despite the gaps that were too worn away to reconstruct. Viva Marie!
France has a special place in its heart for its courtesans. Sex seems to be an art for which many a blind eye has been turned over the centuries. Even in the sexist, classist society of the time, Duplessis enjoyed freedom the likes of which a modern girl might envy. She was just about the only woman allowed in the most exclusive café-salon of the (naturally, all-male) intellectual elite, despite not having learned to read or write as a child. To say Duplessis was merely a talented prostitute would be naïve. She served as a muse for some of the most lauded artists of the age. Alexandre Dumas the son, Guiseppe Verdi, and Franz Liszt are among those who made brilliant art because of her. A novel based on her life (La Dame aux camélias), written by Dumas, became an acclaimed play, then the Verdi opera, La Traviata. Her legacy began immediately at her death and easily continued far longer than she lived with successful stage and film adaptations made well into the early 1900's. Given her notoriety during her life and death and the popularity of her legend, it is interesting that Duplessis is most remembered today by French intelligentsia.
Part of this is explained by the transience of records. Her letters were mostly burned and the remnants largely lost, even to those then living at the time of her death. Nearly all those who knew her loved her, but pursued their own self-serving agendas with her legacy, especially her cousin/primary biographer. Her debts, which overtook her final year, were paid off by auctioning her furnishings and personal items. Duplessis's sensational status as a well-known courtesan also worked against historians' favor. Gossip in newspapers and rumors that made their way into biographies of the time were sometimes misleading or otherwise unsubstantiated. Marie Duplessis lived in the shadows of good society and might have easily remained there with the ghosts of many other fallen women but for two things: her incredible joie de vivre and the tenacity of Julie Kavanagh.
Despite the trope of a good-girl-gone-bad road to prostitution, Duplessis almost chose the life, if you can assume she had any agency given her environment. She knew that her circumstances (an abusive sociopathic father infamous for miles around, a runaway mother, complicated family dynamics, and crushing poverty in a small village) were only going to get her so far. The qualities integral to herself were more promising. She was lively, curious, quick, and joyous. She was also very shrewd for a pre-teen, realizing that sex was both a means and an end. She instigated her career by gleefully seducing a 17-year-old and never looked back.
After making her way to Paris, she tried her hand at making a respectable living, but it left her literally starving at the side of food vendors' carts. Paris was a center of ideas, art, learning. Students, invariably dandified and practically penniless, didn't have girlfriends; they kept mistresses, of which there were many tiers, and theirs was the penultimate. The affair would last as long as the student could feed and house his girl. Entertainment was often conversation and the theater when they were a bit flush. Marie Duplessis began her transformation with these baby men, learning as they were learning at the great universities. She was an amazingly quick study. Once she could read, she was, as in all things, voracious. With a natural eye for the superior, she hungered for the best of everything - food, clothes, art, music, talk, books, travel, horses - and she found a way to finance her dreams through the many companions who kept her. Some she truly loved and some she only liked, but Duplessis lived honestly, sweetly, modestly - words not often associated with her profession. She was gifted, conversing with the wittiest literati and the most powerful political men in Europe. Her greatest skill may have been the ability to read people extremely well. She could get her way without resorting to ugliness of any kind.
Julie Kavanagh breathes fresh life into this woman whose greatest wish was to never die. Kavanagh pursued this legendary character with a kind of heroic diligence - relearning French to research her sources in situ. She briefly describes the journey brushing a century and a half of dust from Marie Duplessis's story to give us this more complete, objective portrait of a small but interesting figure from history. Kavanagh writes engagingly of a thoroughly captivating subject who comes through remarkably whole despite the gaps that were too worn away to reconstruct. Viva Marie!
March 4, 2021
Delusa. Mi aspettavo un romanzo biografico invece è una biografia. Probabilmente ho sbagliato io.
Read
July 16, 2025porzucona w połowie
October 7, 2025
Long and exhausting
January 15, 2026
4,3/5
Really good book about the personal story of Marie duplessis
Really good book about the personal story of Marie duplessis
September 11, 2013
"The little known, riveting story of the most famous courtesan of her time: muse and mistress of Alexandre Dumas fils and Franz Liszt, the inspiration for Dumas's The Lady of the Camellias and Verdi's La Traviata, one of the most sought after, adored women of 1840s Paris. Born in 1824 in Normandy, Marie Duplessis fled her brutal peasant father (who forced her to live with a man many years her senior). Julie Kavanagh traces Marie's reinvention in Paris at sixteen: as shop girl, kept woman, and finally, as grand courtesan with the clothes, apartment, coach and horses that an aristocratic woman of the time would have had. Tall, willowy, with dramatic dark hair, Marie acquired an aristocratic mien, but coupled with a singular modesty and grace, she was an irresistible figure to men and women alike. Kavanagh brings her to life on the page against a brilliantly evoked background of 1840s Paris: the theater and opera, the best tables at the cafés frequented by society figures, theater directors, writers, artists--and Marie, only nineteen, at the center of it all. Four years later, at twenty-three, she would be dead of tuberculosis."
Wow. This was a great biography of the courtesan who inspired The Lady of the Camellias and La Traviata. I read the biography right after reading the original novel, and that was a good choice. I was already immersed in the fictional world of Marguerite and Armand, and then I started reading about the actual woman, who was not quite as exalted as Dumas-fil's tragic heroine who sacrifices her chance at redemption. No, Marie Duplessis in the flesh was much harder than Dumas-fil's Marguerite or Verdi's Violetta.
Kavanagh writes really well; I was thinking about skipping the introduction, but it wasn't dry and uninteresting like introductions can sometimes be. On the contrary, I was immediately drawn into this compelling and fascinating story. It's pretty easy to get into, and Marie is a character one can easily sympathize with, fleeing from her awful circumstances and making a better life for herself. Her basic, basic story in terms of upbringing could be compared to Maude in Belle Epoque, but while Maude becomes a repoussoir, Marie became a courtesan, a high-class prostitute. And many influential men were her lovers, among them the composer Liszt, the director of the Paris Opera, and of course, Dumas-fils himself.
The book was engaging and very easy to get into; I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the writing and the way this excellent biography was crafted. Kavanaugh provides a lot of detail, and the book seems to be meticulously well-researched. She describes how Marie's parents met, and how it quickly turned out that her father was a brute without straying too far from her subject. There's lush description too, and at times the book almost reads like a novel, as if Kavanaugh herself was transported back to the 1840's to witness Marie's life. It feels as if the reader has been taken back too. I could almost picture the sights and smells, particularly of Marie's early life and the time she lived with her kind-hearted cousins in the country. The whole first chapter of the book is in fact devoted to Marie (or Alphonsine's) early life before she arrived in Paris. It ends with her in Paris having "tangible proof of the luxuries her beauty could buy." In this first case, fried potatoes. Later, she convinces a young student to buy her some cherries. Marie's first time in Paris was spent in the Latin Quarter, where there were lots of students living cheaply.
Kavanagh writes for an intelligent and well-educated audience; there are some terms that she assumes the reader knows, and I liked that. She also does some reasonable interpreting while still sticking to the facts and not indulging in speculation. Often biographers tend to get carried away with an adoration or obsession with their subject; not so here because Marie was a complicated character, deeply flawed, at once sympathetic and very alien to the modern world.
This was an excellent biography, and I definitely learned a lot. I read it comparatively quickly for a nonfiction book; it wasn't overwritten or boring reading at all. Definitely recommended. I received a review copy from Knopf.
www.novareviews.blogspot.com
Wow. This was a great biography of the courtesan who inspired The Lady of the Camellias and La Traviata. I read the biography right after reading the original novel, and that was a good choice. I was already immersed in the fictional world of Marguerite and Armand, and then I started reading about the actual woman, who was not quite as exalted as Dumas-fil's tragic heroine who sacrifices her chance at redemption. No, Marie Duplessis in the flesh was much harder than Dumas-fil's Marguerite or Verdi's Violetta.
Kavanagh writes really well; I was thinking about skipping the introduction, but it wasn't dry and uninteresting like introductions can sometimes be. On the contrary, I was immediately drawn into this compelling and fascinating story. It's pretty easy to get into, and Marie is a character one can easily sympathize with, fleeing from her awful circumstances and making a better life for herself. Her basic, basic story in terms of upbringing could be compared to Maude in Belle Epoque, but while Maude becomes a repoussoir, Marie became a courtesan, a high-class prostitute. And many influential men were her lovers, among them the composer Liszt, the director of the Paris Opera, and of course, Dumas-fils himself.
The book was engaging and very easy to get into; I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the writing and the way this excellent biography was crafted. Kavanaugh provides a lot of detail, and the book seems to be meticulously well-researched. She describes how Marie's parents met, and how it quickly turned out that her father was a brute without straying too far from her subject. There's lush description too, and at times the book almost reads like a novel, as if Kavanaugh herself was transported back to the 1840's to witness Marie's life. It feels as if the reader has been taken back too. I could almost picture the sights and smells, particularly of Marie's early life and the time she lived with her kind-hearted cousins in the country. The whole first chapter of the book is in fact devoted to Marie (or Alphonsine's) early life before she arrived in Paris. It ends with her in Paris having "tangible proof of the luxuries her beauty could buy." In this first case, fried potatoes. Later, she convinces a young student to buy her some cherries. Marie's first time in Paris was spent in the Latin Quarter, where there were lots of students living cheaply.
Kavanagh writes for an intelligent and well-educated audience; there are some terms that she assumes the reader knows, and I liked that. She also does some reasonable interpreting while still sticking to the facts and not indulging in speculation. Often biographers tend to get carried away with an adoration or obsession with their subject; not so here because Marie was a complicated character, deeply flawed, at once sympathetic and very alien to the modern world.
This was an excellent biography, and I definitely learned a lot. I read it comparatively quickly for a nonfiction book; it wasn't overwritten or boring reading at all. Definitely recommended. I received a review copy from Knopf.
www.novareviews.blogspot.com
October 21, 2015
"Per Alphonsine fu il momento decisivo del suo arrivo nella metropoli: la prima occasione in cui ebbe una prova tangibile dei lussi che la sua bellezza poteva comprare."
"La ragazza delle camelie" è la vera storia di Alphonsine Plessis (in arte Marie Duplessis), la donna che ha inspirato Alexandre Dumas figlio nel famosissimo romanzo "La signora delle camelie", in questa biografia troviamo continui richiami della vita reale di questa donna che si trovano nell'opera del famoso scrittore, perché anche lui l'aveva frequentata e ne era rimasto totalmente affascinato e ammaliato, come tantissimi altri personaggi vissuti a quell'epoca (nella Parigi tra il 1830 e il 1848), una donna forte, carismatica, focosa ed a tratti cinica.
Questa ragazza è morta all'età di 23 anni, ma è vissuta nell'eternità, la sua vita ha inspirato l'opera di Verdi "La traviata", il romanzo sopra citato, è stata impersonata da Eleonora Duse, da Greta Garbo e da famose ballerine di danza classica, è rimasta viva per sempre come tantissimi personaggi (Marilyn Monroe, Kurt Kobein, Jim Morrison, Amy Winhouse ecc.), belli e dannati, che hanno vissuto la vita senza regole, al massimo, cogliendo l'attimo, un antesignana del mito.
"Voglio che sulla mia bara mettiate un lucchetto molto debole; -implorò Marie-. E' questo ciò che m'importa di più."
Un libro interessante perché non si sofferma solo sul personaggio, ma racconta un'epoca, quella della Parigi, dove i dandy imperversavano per le vie, dove la scoperta del piacere, del bel vestire, del bell'apparire iniziava a incunearsi nella mentalità di uomini e donne, era importante partecipare ai balli, alle prime teatrali e frequentare i cafè alla moda, per Marie Duplessis, di immane bellezza, fu facile introdursi nel demi-monde, diventando una Lorette così ricercata da uomini importanti che la volevano al suo fianco, per esibirla e per poi poterne apprezzare l'enorme piacere che lei dava!
"...l'uomo, allo stato di natura, nasce virtuoso; il vizio deriva dalla vita nella società mondane, esposta alle artefatte pressioni urbane."
Marie aveva uno stile di vita dai costi elevatissimi, doveva sempre trovare un protettore capace di sostenere tali spese, per frequentare i circoli alla moda: leggeva libri classici, imparava le buone maniere ed a suonare il piano, conversava misurando e scegliendo le parole e faceva sfoggio della sua delicata ed incantevole bellezza, lei che proveniva dalla povertà e dalla miseria di un piccolo paesino della Normandia, era riuscita a conquistare Parigi, ma sapeva benissimo che tutto quello che aveva poteva sparire in un batter d'ali, quando la sua bellezza sarebbe sfiorita, a quel punto nessuno si ricorderà più di lei, tutto sarà perso, per questo motivo viveva con sfrenatezza, dissolutezza e libertà, era cosciente che non poteva aspirare mai ad avere una famiglia ed un marito dell'alta borghesia, il suo ruolo era e doveva essere quello della "lorette", non sarebbe mai stata la donna con la quale costruire una vita stabile.
"Noi ragazze perdute saremo biasimate in eterno. Ogni porta onesta mi è sbarrata; le convenzioni sociali sono spietate. Riabilitazione? Mai! Perdono umano? Figurarsi! Conosco gli uomini troppo bene sotto questo aspetto per nutrire la benché minima illusione."
Un libro da leggere per chi ama le biografie ben fatte e per chi vuol calarsi in una Parigi degli inizi dell'ottocento!
"La ragazza delle camelie" è la vera storia di Alphonsine Plessis (in arte Marie Duplessis), la donna che ha inspirato Alexandre Dumas figlio nel famosissimo romanzo "La signora delle camelie", in questa biografia troviamo continui richiami della vita reale di questa donna che si trovano nell'opera del famoso scrittore, perché anche lui l'aveva frequentata e ne era rimasto totalmente affascinato e ammaliato, come tantissimi altri personaggi vissuti a quell'epoca (nella Parigi tra il 1830 e il 1848), una donna forte, carismatica, focosa ed a tratti cinica.
Questa ragazza è morta all'età di 23 anni, ma è vissuta nell'eternità, la sua vita ha inspirato l'opera di Verdi "La traviata", il romanzo sopra citato, è stata impersonata da Eleonora Duse, da Greta Garbo e da famose ballerine di danza classica, è rimasta viva per sempre come tantissimi personaggi (Marilyn Monroe, Kurt Kobein, Jim Morrison, Amy Winhouse ecc.), belli e dannati, che hanno vissuto la vita senza regole, al massimo, cogliendo l'attimo, un antesignana del mito.
"Voglio che sulla mia bara mettiate un lucchetto molto debole; -implorò Marie-. E' questo ciò che m'importa di più."
Un libro interessante perché non si sofferma solo sul personaggio, ma racconta un'epoca, quella della Parigi, dove i dandy imperversavano per le vie, dove la scoperta del piacere, del bel vestire, del bell'apparire iniziava a incunearsi nella mentalità di uomini e donne, era importante partecipare ai balli, alle prime teatrali e frequentare i cafè alla moda, per Marie Duplessis, di immane bellezza, fu facile introdursi nel demi-monde, diventando una Lorette così ricercata da uomini importanti che la volevano al suo fianco, per esibirla e per poi poterne apprezzare l'enorme piacere che lei dava!
"...l'uomo, allo stato di natura, nasce virtuoso; il vizio deriva dalla vita nella società mondane, esposta alle artefatte pressioni urbane."
Marie aveva uno stile di vita dai costi elevatissimi, doveva sempre trovare un protettore capace di sostenere tali spese, per frequentare i circoli alla moda: leggeva libri classici, imparava le buone maniere ed a suonare il piano, conversava misurando e scegliendo le parole e faceva sfoggio della sua delicata ed incantevole bellezza, lei che proveniva dalla povertà e dalla miseria di un piccolo paesino della Normandia, era riuscita a conquistare Parigi, ma sapeva benissimo che tutto quello che aveva poteva sparire in un batter d'ali, quando la sua bellezza sarebbe sfiorita, a quel punto nessuno si ricorderà più di lei, tutto sarà perso, per questo motivo viveva con sfrenatezza, dissolutezza e libertà, era cosciente che non poteva aspirare mai ad avere una famiglia ed un marito dell'alta borghesia, il suo ruolo era e doveva essere quello della "lorette", non sarebbe mai stata la donna con la quale costruire una vita stabile.
"Noi ragazze perdute saremo biasimate in eterno. Ogni porta onesta mi è sbarrata; le convenzioni sociali sono spietate. Riabilitazione? Mai! Perdono umano? Figurarsi! Conosco gli uomini troppo bene sotto questo aspetto per nutrire la benché minima illusione."
Un libro da leggere per chi ama le biografie ben fatte e per chi vuol calarsi in una Parigi degli inizi dell'ottocento!
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