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Byron Apaixonado
Após o sucesso de críticas do romance Dezembros Selvagens, Edna O’Brien vai mais longe em Byron Apaixonado e traça um retrato do polêmico poeta inglês e de suas paixões. Um livro fantástico e único sobre um dos mais importantes artistas de todos os tempos.
Segundo O’Brien, a ideia desta biografia surgiu após ler um livro de memórias em que a autora dizia ser o poeta a pessoa mais extraordinária e terrível que conhecera. Ao analisar George Gordon Byron, conhecido por todos como Lorde Byron, Edna prova que a aptidão para a poesia é distinta e tem pouco a ver com a vida individual de seu criador.
O poeta sempre foi rebelde e adorava propagar notícias escandalosas. Em Byron Apaixonado, a autora mostra que esse comportamento foi fundamental para suas obras, sendo, talvez, a razão de seu estilo inigualável.
Este retrato intenso e detalhado segue as paixões do último Adônis europeu. Uma narrativa impiedosa sobre um poeta na condição de rebelde — imaginativo, sem-lei e provocantemente imortal.
Segundo O’Brien, a ideia desta biografia surgiu após ler um livro de memórias em que a autora dizia ser o poeta a pessoa mais extraordinária e terrível que conhecera. Ao analisar George Gordon Byron, conhecido por todos como Lorde Byron, Edna prova que a aptidão para a poesia é distinta e tem pouco a ver com a vida individual de seu criador.
O poeta sempre foi rebelde e adorava propagar notícias escandalosas. Em Byron Apaixonado, a autora mostra que esse comportamento foi fundamental para suas obras, sendo, talvez, a razão de seu estilo inigualável.
Este retrato intenso e detalhado segue as paixões do último Adônis europeu. Uma narrativa impiedosa sobre um poeta na condição de rebelde — imaginativo, sem-lei e provocantemente imortal.
296 pages, Paperback
First published January 15, 2009
56 people are currently reading
921 people want to read
About the author
Edna O'Brien
111 books1,369 followersEdna O’Brien was an award-winning Irish author of novels, plays, and short stories. She has been hailed as one of the greatest chroniclers of the female experience in the twentieth century. She was the 2011 recipient of the Frank O’Connor Prize, awarded for her short story collection Saints and Sinners. She also received, among other honors, the Irish PEN Award for Literature, the Ulysses Medal from University College Dublin, and a lifetime achievement award from the Irish Literary Academy. Her 1960 debut novel, The Country Girls, was banned in her native Ireland for its groundbreaking depictions of female sexuality. Notable works also include August Is a Wicked Month (1965), A Pagan Place (1970), Lantern Slides (1990), and The Light of Evening (2006). O’Brien lived in London until her death.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 132 reviews
June 9, 2020
byron is just not that into you. it doesn't matter what you do—he's not gonna be into you. he might put his baby in you, but he will leave you as soon as you start going into labor and return only to shoot bottles in your living room while you strain and bleed to produce a creature he will hardly look at. because he is not into you. he will allow you to risk your life by being his mistress while your husband, who has already buried two wives under suspicious circumstances, watches and fumes. because he does not care about you. he will seduce you while letting you believe it was all your idea and then take the resulting child and pop it into a convent where it will die without you ever getting to see it again. because he doesn't give a shit about you. he will allow you to destroy your place in society and humiliate yourself in order to try to regain the few months of passion he allowed you and then smirk as he reads the book you wrote about him as your dignity recedes further and further. because he does not care for you at all. and why not? because you are not his sister. end of story.
byron is like one of those plants in nature that pretends to be something beautiful and broken in order to lure a would-be predator in before attacking. so what is it about him that fascinates me so? is it that his relationship with lady melbourne/lady frances mirrors the plot of my beloved Les Liaisons dangereuses? is it the purely cinematographic allure of the wedding-night bed on fire and byron believing himself to be in hell? is it the cruelties inflicted for no reason other than his own selfish unconcern for anything outside himself? what makes me adore byron, but want to smack tucker max like crazy? is it just the talent of his writing? it is distance? or fashion? because in reality, i would never become involved with a man who drank from skulls and had bears and wolves and monkeys running around while his anorexic highness forced me to watch him bed his sister and shoot our chandelier with his pistols. i have tried to mostly avoid the overly dramatic lunatic when picking partners. however, if byron came knocking, who can say?
if this is going to be your only bio of byron, i say go for it. for you, it is four stars worth. for me, i am going to see if i can get my hands on that three-volume leslie marchand biography and see about putting this moth-to-a-candle thing he has going on for me to rest.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
a temporary, partial review until i get back to ny. i'm a little over the halfway point of reading—i expect train ride home will finish this off for me, if i am able to break my weeklong stretch of not being able to concentrate on any book for more than 4.3 minutes. however, the thing that is striking to me at this point, as someone who has read a fair amount of byron: primary sources, bios, fictional bodice-rippers, etc.—is her lack of self-awareness. she at one point quotes one of byron's earliest reviews for his poetry:
so far, i'm not sure what she brings to the table with this book that i haven't read elsewhere. it's such a small-sized biography for such a huge life. it's just—except for the lollipop-color byron on the cover, i don't know what makes this stand out. but i have my journey ahead of me—i'll let you know at the other end.
come to my blog!
byron is like one of those plants in nature that pretends to be something beautiful and broken in order to lure a would-be predator in before attacking. so what is it about him that fascinates me so? is it that his relationship with lady melbourne/lady frances mirrors the plot of my beloved Les Liaisons dangereuses? is it the purely cinematographic allure of the wedding-night bed on fire and byron believing himself to be in hell? is it the cruelties inflicted for no reason other than his own selfish unconcern for anything outside himself? what makes me adore byron, but want to smack tucker max like crazy? is it just the talent of his writing? it is distance? or fashion? because in reality, i would never become involved with a man who drank from skulls and had bears and wolves and monkeys running around while his anorexic highness forced me to watch him bed his sister and shoot our chandelier with his pistols. i have tried to mostly avoid the overly dramatic lunatic when picking partners. however, if byron came knocking, who can say?
if this is going to be your only bio of byron, i say go for it. for you, it is four stars worth. for me, i am going to see if i can get my hands on that three-volume leslie marchand biography and see about putting this moth-to-a-candle thing he has going on for me to rest.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
a temporary, partial review until i get back to ny. i'm a little over the halfway point of reading—i expect train ride home will finish this off for me, if i am able to break my weeklong stretch of not being able to concentrate on any book for more than 4.3 minutes. however, the thing that is striking to me at this point, as someone who has read a fair amount of byron: primary sources, bios, fictional bodice-rippers, etc.—is her lack of self-awareness. she at one point quotes one of byron's earliest reviews for his poetry:
We would entreat him to believe that a certain portion of liveliness, somewhat of fancy, is necessary to constitute a poem, and that a poem in the present day, to be read, must contain at least one thought, either in a little degree different from the ideas of former writers or differently expressed.
so far, i'm not sure what she brings to the table with this book that i haven't read elsewhere. it's such a small-sized biography for such a huge life. it's just—except for the lollipop-color byron on the cover, i don't know what makes this stand out. but i have my journey ahead of me—i'll let you know at the other end.
come to my blog!
April 13, 2024
Lord Byron's full name is George Gordon Noel Byron, born in London on January 22, 1788. In 1798, he inherited the noble title of Great-Uncle William, becoming the sixth Lord Byron. Still a student at Cambridge, he published his first book of poetry, Hours of Idleness, as it was always received by critics such as the prestigious Edinburgh Review. Byron responded with the satirical poem "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers." At the age of 21, he entered the Chamber of Lords, shortly afterward, on a journey through Europe and the Middle East.
Upon returning to England in 1811, he published the first two songs by Childe Harold's Pilgrimage in Portuguese in the year 1812 with the name "Pilgrimage of Childe Harold," a long poem in which he narrates the wanderings and loves of a disenchanted hero, at the same time—the time when it describes the nature of the Iberian peninsula, Greece, and Albania. The work was immediately successful; between 1812 and 1819, 11 editions in English were published, in addition to several translations, and its fame consolidated with other works. In these poems, of exotic plots and despite the irregularities, Byron confirmed his talent for describing environments.
In Switzerland, he wrote Childe Harold's Pilgrimage's song III in 1816, The Prisoner of Chillon, in Portuguese, The Prisoner of Chillon (1816), and the dramatic poem Manfred (1817), enigmatic and demonic. In Geneva, he lived with Claire Clairmont and became friends with Shelley. He also traveled to Venice, where he led an agitated and licentious existence, documented in letters full of verve.
He then composed the song IV of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1818) Beppo, a Venetian story, a poem in octave rhyme, with a slight and biting tone, in which he ridiculed Venice's high society. In 1819, the hero-comic poem Don Juan (1819-1824) began a brilliant and daring satire in the manner of the 18th century, which he would leave unfinished. In the same year, he joined Countess Teresa Guiccioli, following her to Ravenna, where, together with her brother, he participated in the conspiracies of the carbon rises.
Upon returning to England in 1811, he published the first two songs by Childe Harold's Pilgrimage in Portuguese in the year 1812 with the name "Pilgrimage of Childe Harold," a long poem in which he narrates the wanderings and loves of a disenchanted hero, at the same time—the time when it describes the nature of the Iberian peninsula, Greece, and Albania. The work was immediately successful; between 1812 and 1819, 11 editions in English were published, in addition to several translations, and its fame consolidated with other works. In these poems, of exotic plots and despite the irregularities, Byron confirmed his talent for describing environments.
In Switzerland, he wrote Childe Harold's Pilgrimage's song III in 1816, The Prisoner of Chillon, in Portuguese, The Prisoner of Chillon (1816), and the dramatic poem Manfred (1817), enigmatic and demonic. In Geneva, he lived with Claire Clairmont and became friends with Shelley. He also traveled to Venice, where he led an agitated and licentious existence, documented in letters full of verve.
He then composed the song IV of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1818) Beppo, a Venetian story, a poem in octave rhyme, with a slight and biting tone, in which he ridiculed Venice's high society. In 1819, the hero-comic poem Don Juan (1819-1824) began a brilliant and daring satire in the manner of the 18th century, which he would leave unfinished. In the same year, he joined Countess Teresa Guiccioli, following her to Ravenna, where, together with her brother, he participated in the conspiracies of the carbon rises.
July 26, 2021
Mad, bad and dangerous indeed! It’s hard to read this short biography without laughing, it’s just such an outrageous life. If it was a novel I’d toss it aside as ridiculous. So many lovers, so much poetry, so much borrowing of money! The estate he inherited from his great uncle is rundown and his lifestyle so lavish why anyone loaned him money is beyond me. In many ways he seems an awful man but he must’ve had some attraction beyond his title and talent. I enjoyed this read. It’s not in depth but gives a good chronology of his life, loves, work and death.
February 28, 2015
This book is not only about the many, many loves of Byron's life but his rise from his humble beginnings to his inheriting his title and crumbling estate. We witness the awful relationship he had with his mother and his first ventures into the world of writing and poetry. From a young age Bryon had the makings of deeply troubled, yet brilliant man; he was passionate, haughty, arrogant and temperamental. O' Brien notes how he sought to repress his internal, emotional wounds through love, poetry and action.
Byron had many love affairs with both men and women throughout his short life, he was in love with love. To go through each of his conquests would take the length of a novel and so I shall mention two; Lady Caroline Lamb( who gave us the phrase 'Mad,bad and dangerous to know' when speaking of Byron) and his half sister Augusta.
The poets relationship with Lady Caroline lasted only five months, but my god she makes an impression. She was already a married woman and had a very fiery and passionate nature and was not too pleased when the relationship with Byron soured. One interesting anecdote tells how, after the break up, she sent Byron a note and some of her pubic hair tinged in blood and asking the poet to reciprocate.Needless to say Byron searched quickly for a wife to be rid of his ex.
After reading this biography I truly believe that his half sister was the only true love of his life. She was the inspiration for some of his poetry and he wrote her countless letters expressing his love even when he was with other women.This relationship was not to be and Byron comforted himself with other women.
This was a good book and gives a basic overview of Bryon's life, work and loves, but at only 200 or so pages it was perhaps to short to get very involved and in depth.
Byron had many love affairs with both men and women throughout his short life, he was in love with love. To go through each of his conquests would take the length of a novel and so I shall mention two; Lady Caroline Lamb( who gave us the phrase 'Mad,bad and dangerous to know' when speaking of Byron) and his half sister Augusta.
The poets relationship with Lady Caroline lasted only five months, but my god she makes an impression. She was already a married woman and had a very fiery and passionate nature and was not too pleased when the relationship with Byron soured. One interesting anecdote tells how, after the break up, she sent Byron a note and some of her pubic hair tinged in blood and asking the poet to reciprocate.Needless to say Byron searched quickly for a wife to be rid of his ex.
After reading this biography I truly believe that his half sister was the only true love of his life. She was the inspiration for some of his poetry and he wrote her countless letters expressing his love even when he was with other women.This relationship was not to be and Byron comforted himself with other women.
This was a good book and gives a basic overview of Bryon's life, work and loves, but at only 200 or so pages it was perhaps to short to get very involved and in depth.
September 16, 2009
Until I read O’Brien’s biography, I really didn’t know much about Byron, other than some of his better known poems (She Walks in Beauty is one of my favorites) and his bad boy reputation, but he is a literary figure that I’ve always been interested in, mainly because of his legendary larger than life image. Although apparently Carolyn Lamb’s description of him as “Mad, bad, and dangerous to know” is well known, I had not heard it. By the end of the book I realized it was also pretty darn accurate.
No one can deny that he lived his life to the fullest, like a candle burning at both ends, and quite honestly, considering the mental instability, suicidal urges, the drinking, and sexual escapades too numerous to count, I’m surprised he survived as long as he did – to his mid thirties. I remember studying the Romantic poets in high school, and Byron being presented as the epitome of a true Romantic, one who was most definitely “in love with the idea of love.”
One of the few things I liked about Byron was his ever present menagerie of animals, from his pet bear at Cambridge to all the pets listed as part of his possessions that were noted with each sea voyage. In college I remember coming across a poem he wrote as a tribute to his beloved Newfoundland after it died, and it appears he may have treated his pets better than he did the people in his life.
O’Brien traces all of his affairs with both male and female lovers, starting as early as boarding school, then while at Cambridge, then as an adult. She describes affair after affair, including his relationship with Annabella, the woman who would eventually become his wife (although Byron insisted “marriage is the graveyard of love”) and live to regret it; Augusta, possibly his greatest and most scandalous love, despite the fact that “Mad Jack” was both her father as well as Byron’s; the mentally unstable Carolyn Lamb who would become the wife of the future British Prime Minister Melbourne; the Italian Countess Teresa, who was so besotted with Byron she obtained papal approval to separate from her husband; and poor Clare Cartwright (stepsister of Mary Shelley), among others, who fathered his illegitimate daughter Allegra, who, like her mother, was severely neglected by Byron even after he insisted on sole custody.
Byron was anything but a gentleman, but he was no doubt a genius and quite a colorful character. His behavior and escapades are so outrageous they are almost unbelievable, and it is no wonder he is remembered as one of if not the original “bad boy” celebrity. I have 2 other books about Byron on my bookshelf, and after reading this first biography, I am eager to read them both soon.
No one can deny that he lived his life to the fullest, like a candle burning at both ends, and quite honestly, considering the mental instability, suicidal urges, the drinking, and sexual escapades too numerous to count, I’m surprised he survived as long as he did – to his mid thirties. I remember studying the Romantic poets in high school, and Byron being presented as the epitome of a true Romantic, one who was most definitely “in love with the idea of love.”
One of the few things I liked about Byron was his ever present menagerie of animals, from his pet bear at Cambridge to all the pets listed as part of his possessions that were noted with each sea voyage. In college I remember coming across a poem he wrote as a tribute to his beloved Newfoundland after it died, and it appears he may have treated his pets better than he did the people in his life.
O’Brien traces all of his affairs with both male and female lovers, starting as early as boarding school, then while at Cambridge, then as an adult. She describes affair after affair, including his relationship with Annabella, the woman who would eventually become his wife (although Byron insisted “marriage is the graveyard of love”) and live to regret it; Augusta, possibly his greatest and most scandalous love, despite the fact that “Mad Jack” was both her father as well as Byron’s; the mentally unstable Carolyn Lamb who would become the wife of the future British Prime Minister Melbourne; the Italian Countess Teresa, who was so besotted with Byron she obtained papal approval to separate from her husband; and poor Clare Cartwright (stepsister of Mary Shelley), among others, who fathered his illegitimate daughter Allegra, who, like her mother, was severely neglected by Byron even after he insisted on sole custody.
Byron was anything but a gentleman, but he was no doubt a genius and quite a colorful character. His behavior and escapades are so outrageous they are almost unbelievable, and it is no wonder he is remembered as one of if not the original “bad boy” celebrity. I have 2 other books about Byron on my bookshelf, and after reading this first biography, I am eager to read them both soon.
November 14, 2010
A great book for its brevity and a quick overview of Byron's life, but truly one of the worst edited books I have read. In parts of it, I could actually hear the author typing her rough draft notes into the computer--the prose suddenly fell into present tense fragments (and if it was a stylistic choice rather than poor editing, it didn't work for me). Gross mistakes--referring to one character as a cousin on one page and as a nephew later on (I admit, it's hard to keep track of these Byrons, since they were all sleeping with each other and procreating, but doesn't that then make it more important to keep them straight in a biography?). I found her conclusion the most wanting part of the book. The book does paint him as a horrific human being, and she sums up the book by asking, "Why is it that we continue to be so fascinated by such a horrible person?" (really an intriguing question) and then she rushes out a pat two-sentence answer ("he had a divine spark but all too human flaws blah blah blah..."). This book read to me like one that was rushed into publication, and I think, "Why?" The guy's been dead almost 200 years. Take another couple of months to get the book right, eh?
Again, I can only recommend it for its brevity if there is interest in Byron...because the other biographies of him are just so freaking huge.
Again, I can only recommend it for its brevity if there is interest in Byron...because the other biographies of him are just so freaking huge.
January 5, 2015
Óptimo pretexto para conhecer a personalidade complexa, voraz, brutal, excessiva, obscura e muitas vezes cruel de um dos maiores vultos da literatura mundial.
Edna O'Brien é mestre na separação entre realidade e lenda, baseando a obra na vasta troca de correspondência entre Byron e aqueles com quem se relacionou ou em relatos a seu respeito por parte dos que lhe eram mais próximos.
Mas por incrível que pareça, não poucas vezes a lenda coincide com a realidade, e confirmo que o carácter magnetizante de Lord Byron atravessou os séculos incólume!
Edna O'Brien é mestre na separação entre realidade e lenda, baseando a obra na vasta troca de correspondência entre Byron e aqueles com quem se relacionou ou em relatos a seu respeito por parte dos que lhe eram mais próximos.
Mas por incrível que pareça, não poucas vezes a lenda coincide com a realidade, e confirmo que o carácter magnetizante de Lord Byron atravessou os séculos incólume!
August 13, 2016
O'Brien streamlines the Faustian pandemonium of Byron's erotic and poetic life into a swift, sometimes moving, narrative. I've had Fiona MacCarthy's magisterial biography weighing down my nightstand for a couple months, but the print's too small for tired eyes. Then I found O'Brien's book in a used bookstore. Her account is convincing, if impossible – a larger than life genius, heartless, polysexual, extravagant, an Adonis with a clubfoot whose friends literally fought over pieces of his corpse. I recall William Pritchard's summary of Hart Crane: "a fine messed-up life." Byron makes Crane look tame and small; he makes everyone look tame and small.
Here's Byron at the end, when he realizes his fabled allure is no longer working with his final fascination:
I watched thee on the breakers, when the rock
Received our prow and all was storm and fear,
And bade thee cling to me through every shock;
This arm would be thy bark, or breast thy bier.
…
Thus much and more; and yet thou lov'st me not,
And never wilt! Love dwells not in our will.
Nor can I blame thee, though it be my lot
To strongly, wrongly, vainly love thee still.
"For all his swagger and bravura, Byron's real theme was love." George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, later George Gordon Noel, 6th Baron Byron, did not go gentle into the dying of the light. He was one of the most spectacular ragers of the 19th century.
Here's Byron at the end, when he realizes his fabled allure is no longer working with his final fascination:
I watched thee on the breakers, when the rock
Received our prow and all was storm and fear,
And bade thee cling to me through every shock;
This arm would be thy bark, or breast thy bier.
…
Thus much and more; and yet thou lov'st me not,
And never wilt! Love dwells not in our will.
Nor can I blame thee, though it be my lot
To strongly, wrongly, vainly love thee still.
"For all his swagger and bravura, Byron's real theme was love." George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, later George Gordon Noel, 6th Baron Byron, did not go gentle into the dying of the light. He was one of the most spectacular ragers of the 19th century.
July 8, 2024
Conocía muy poco de la vida del mito romántico llamado Byron, poco más allá de que compartimos fecha de nacimiento y eso ya es suficiente para despertar mis obsesiones y curiosidades. El libro las alimenta y satisface dando cuenta de las aristas de un personaje inabarcable. O'Brien descubre al hombre, humano, demasiado humano que hay tras el mito. Líos de faldas y pantalones a tutiplén en una narración que en algunos momentos se hace confusa. El gran trabajo de investigación no se ha acabado de plasmar en el papel. Aunque el tono sarcástico general me ha gustado bastante. También es la primera vez que leo a la irlandesa. Eso sí, la maravillosa edición de Cabaret Voltaire, una de mis editoriales favoritas, no lo oculto, acaba de redondear un muy buen trabajo.
March 10, 2020
Reviewed for Books and livres
To be honest, I didn't know much about Byron until I read this book. I thought he was a poet, romantic, a bit fluffy probably - that's how wrong I was.
This biography is mostly centered around Byron's love life and what a love life he had - claiming more than 200 lovers ! Men, women, the important moment for him was the falling in love. As soon as daily life set in, he wasn't interested any more. Except for his sister, of course, the one woman he couldn't legally live with, even if he had a child with her. He didn't care much about his children, either. Apparently, he cared a lot about his animals, his colourful menagerie followed him everywhere he went, even abroad.
I didn't know about his foot and how much it weighed on his life, I didn't know he loved men as well as women, I didn't know he always carried his guns with him, even at home, I didn't know he spent so much time abroad. To sum it all, like I said, I knew almost nothing about him.
After reading this book, I know a lot more and really, if I could ever meet him in real life, I'd immediately get away as I could ! I bet he was handsome, had a sweet voice and probably a lot of charm, but the man was really insufferable. Like those geniuses that, because they are geniuses, believe they can get away with anything. He was capable, however, of generosity as much as he was of cruelty but his generosity impressed me a lot less than his cruelty.
When I closed this book, I felt mostly relieved that this was over, I felt like I'd been running a marathon trying to catch up with this larger than life character ! I gave it 3 stars instead of more because there were times in the book that I liked a lot better than others, ups and downs in the way it was written. And I would have loved to know more about Shelley, Percy and Mary, and their friendship instead of reading about it only near the end.
It's also funny because I read Trelawny's biography last century and remember loving it. Somehow, it seems Edna O'Brien doesn't like him much, which makes me want to re-read that book to see what I could have missed !
Do I want to read Byron's works now ? I'm not sure. Maybe. I know his "She walks in beauty" poem like everyone, and the quotes in the book were... not bad, but the man himself threw me off a bit. I'll see if I find something at the library, but I'm in no hurry.
To be honest, I didn't know much about Byron until I read this book. I thought he was a poet, romantic, a bit fluffy probably - that's how wrong I was.
This biography is mostly centered around Byron's love life and what a love life he had - claiming more than 200 lovers ! Men, women, the important moment for him was the falling in love. As soon as daily life set in, he wasn't interested any more. Except for his sister, of course, the one woman he couldn't legally live with, even if he had a child with her. He didn't care much about his children, either. Apparently, he cared a lot about his animals, his colourful menagerie followed him everywhere he went, even abroad.
I didn't know about his foot and how much it weighed on his life, I didn't know he loved men as well as women, I didn't know he always carried his guns with him, even at home, I didn't know he spent so much time abroad. To sum it all, like I said, I knew almost nothing about him.
After reading this book, I know a lot more and really, if I could ever meet him in real life, I'd immediately get away as I could ! I bet he was handsome, had a sweet voice and probably a lot of charm, but the man was really insufferable. Like those geniuses that, because they are geniuses, believe they can get away with anything. He was capable, however, of generosity as much as he was of cruelty but his generosity impressed me a lot less than his cruelty.
When I closed this book, I felt mostly relieved that this was over, I felt like I'd been running a marathon trying to catch up with this larger than life character ! I gave it 3 stars instead of more because there were times in the book that I liked a lot better than others, ups and downs in the way it was written. And I would have loved to know more about Shelley, Percy and Mary, and their friendship instead of reading about it only near the end.
It's also funny because I read Trelawny's biography last century and remember loving it. Somehow, it seems Edna O'Brien doesn't like him much, which makes me want to re-read that book to see what I could have missed !
Do I want to read Byron's works now ? I'm not sure. Maybe. I know his "She walks in beauty" poem like everyone, and the quotes in the book were... not bad, but the man himself threw me off a bit. I'll see if I find something at the library, but I'm in no hurry.
June 22, 2024
Para los que conocíamos superficialmente la vida de Lord Byron esta biografía puede resultar interesante, porque aporta más datos, si bien sigue siendo muy genérica y superficial.
Para los admiradores y estudiosos del poeta estoy convencida de que este libro no les aportará nada.
Me ha resultado interesante, porque Byron en sí mismo es interesante, fascinante (y a veces repulsivo, en una atrayente dicotomía muy propia de un genio único como él). Pero se me ha quedado a medio camino, y el hecho de que la narración en algunas partes sea confusa tampoco ha ayudado.
Eso sí: la edición es magnífica. Gran trabajo por parte de la editorial Cabaret Voltaire
Para los admiradores y estudiosos del poeta estoy convencida de que este libro no les aportará nada.
Me ha resultado interesante, porque Byron en sí mismo es interesante, fascinante (y a veces repulsivo, en una atrayente dicotomía muy propia de un genio único como él). Pero se me ha quedado a medio camino, y el hecho de que la narración en algunas partes sea confusa tampoco ha ayudado.
Eso sí: la edición es magnífica. Gran trabajo por parte de la editorial Cabaret Voltaire
January 27, 2020
3.75****
What can I say Byron is the original madlad fuckboi he will drop you at instantaniousley if things get too serious. Noone to sleep with? no problem my half-sister lives down the hall!
Unwanted child? no worries i'll take her from her mother and sell her to an italian convent!
Thought my letters to you meant something?!
Yolo jk byeee and never write to me again.
.
On another note I didn't give it four stars because I find the writing very hard to read and follow. The style becomes very tiresome to read. Some paragraphs would be great (I really can't talk)
I wish it was longer I would love to read more in depth, (especially the revengefull
letters if wronged women) about his life and this felt like a very short "key highlights" book.
What can I say Byron is the original madlad fuckboi he will drop you at instantaniousley if things get too serious. Noone to sleep with? no problem my half-sister lives down the hall!
Unwanted child? no worries i'll take her from her mother and sell her to an italian convent!
Thought my letters to you meant something?!
Yolo jk byeee and never write to me again.
.
On another note I didn't give it four stars because I find the writing very hard to read and follow. The style becomes very tiresome to read. Some paragraphs would be great (I really can't talk)
I wish it was longer I would love to read more in depth, (especially the revengefull
letters if wronged women) about his life and this felt like a very short "key highlights" book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 18, 2015
Honestly I can not explain why I read, willingly, books on Byron. Maybe it's to gather more proof that he was a detestable person. It certainly isn't because I enjoy his poetry which 200 years after it was written is virtually unreadable. Miss O'Brien I found annoying as well. Maybe I like being annoyed. O'Brien tells us that Byron had an aversion to scenery therefore preferring to travel at night. What human being has an aversion to scenery? He makes an exception, we are told, shipboard to step out on deck to see Mt. Stromboli. Byron traveled with a menagerie of animals, a retinue of hangers on and his own bed. Again, this feeds my irritation with the man. What human being goes on vacation with his own bed? He is constantly running into people he knows from home, even on lonely country roads in Italy. I would have liked Miss O'Brien to explain to me how Byron was a famous poet even among uneducated Greek peasants just a few years after his first poems were published in England. They certainly had not been translated into Greek and I doubt they would have made much sense to them in any case. But no other biographer has bothered to do so either. If Byron were worshipped by the Greek people, it could stand some explaining.
September 1, 2009
This was interesting and not overly generous with the adjectives. Spurred me on to add "Childe Harold" to my "to-read" list. Quite the physically-challenged, evil genius antihero thing going on...
I'd probably have gone on at least one date with Byron, considering some of the other characters I've dated. Byron couldn't have been worse than a one-balled dude on lithium. Heck, at least Byron would've probably written me a little poem...
I'd probably have gone on at least one date with Byron, considering some of the other characters I've dated. Byron couldn't have been worse than a one-balled dude on lithium. Heck, at least Byron would've probably written me a little poem...
November 26, 2019
Immersed in the adventures of George Byron’s love lives, experienced throughout his life - from an early age with both men and women - I found to be enthralling. There are tales of debauchery, malice, deep affection, audacity and real compassion, all converging in this one man to construct a being of unparalleled enigma.
A very well written book, quite fleeting in parts but not without real passion.
A very well written book, quite fleeting in parts but not without real passion.
March 24, 2023
I didn’t know much about Byron before reading this. Now I know more, so this is a successful book. I enjoyed reading it, as the author had an enthusiasm for her topic, while also being sarcastic about her subject. Also, the word “short” is in the title, always a draw for me if I’m looking for electronic books to take out of the library, since I might be able to finish them before they are reclaimed by the evil overlords of borrowed electronic content.
I was also motivated to pull down from my bookshelves the battered, stained copy of The Norton Anthology of Poetry from my undergraduate days and made several attempts upon the poetry of Byron contained therein. Armed with knowledge of the Bryon biography, I found them much less baffling than previously. I’ve even made several pushes into “Don Juan: Canto One”, also with greater success than before, which is good, but I’m at stanza 18 (of about 200) and the hero hasn’t even been born yet. I’m trying not to get discouraged.
If he were a fictional character, Bryon might have been a hero in the novel of Charles Dickens if the first draft had been seized and rewritten by the Marquis de Sade. Born with a handsome face but a club foot to parents who were completely incapable of raising a child, Bryon experienced life on the border of destitution before suddenly coming into an aristocratic title, property, and modestly money-earning enterprises. Once wealthy, Bryon proves that poverty does not enrich the soul by behaving for the rest of his life as one of a self-absorbed and mood-driven aristocrat, a situation which was not improved by a hereditary seat in Parliament and literary fame. In summary, a much more interesting literary life than the average scribbler can usually eke out in the odd moments away from the composition table.
Also, in re: Dickens – Byron had a faithful servant, “the withered Mrs Mule”.
It’s hard to know whose weirdness to address first: O’Brien’s or Bryon’s?
Bryon’s is more fun – I’ll write about it first. The grand uncle from which Bryon eventually inherits his title was actually known as (if O’Brien is to be believed) The Wicked Lord.
Well, in any event, the Wicked Lord doesn’t actually sound so bad quite yet, but hard on the heels of the information above comes the information that the Wicked Lord killed his cousin after they quarrel over the best way to hang game, which I guess is no more stupid than people killing each other over a pair of sneakers today. However, today’s murderers with pointless quarrels often do not have the good fortune to be an aristocrat and be let off with a modest fine after a short imprisonment. This left him free to spite his heirs by, in a fit of pique, cutting down the forest surrounding his country home and slaughtering the two thousand deer that used to live there, as well as other actions intended to deprive future heirs of income. These actions later caused Bryon “the inroads of financial embarrassment”, a phrase that I will try to incorporate causally into conversation in the future.
I guess the above might mean that, when Byron himself engaged in abominable behavior – including a wedding night (described with glee in detail) that could have flowed from the pen of Edgar Allen Poe, as well as the subsequent affair and child with his half-sister – people of his day could be shocked, but they certainly could not be surprised.
O’Brien’s style of writing was also slightly odd to me, but it seemed appropropriate to the subject. She occasionally uses an obscure word when a more widely-known word would have sufficed, and assumes that the reader will understand Latin phrases and references, like “Vanitas vanitatum” and “Implora Pace”. At other times, I guess that my middle-class colonial upbringing left me bereft of the vocabulary necessary to understand the doings of the aristos of the Byronic era, like when a fancy lady asked “the valet de chambre at Lady Davy’s to pull out the protruding basque of her corset” (page 183). I guessed that this uncapitalized use of “basque” was a clue that it was not a member of the ethnic group that most frequently lives in Spain that was stuck in the corset, even though it pleased me to imagine that it was.
This was a fun read, occasional trips to the paper or online dictionary notwithstanding. I’ll crack open the aged college poetry textbook soon and see if Don Juan finally is able to be born.
I was also motivated to pull down from my bookshelves the battered, stained copy of The Norton Anthology of Poetry from my undergraduate days and made several attempts upon the poetry of Byron contained therein. Armed with knowledge of the Bryon biography, I found them much less baffling than previously. I’ve even made several pushes into “Don Juan: Canto One”, also with greater success than before, which is good, but I’m at stanza 18 (of about 200) and the hero hasn’t even been born yet. I’m trying not to get discouraged.
If he were a fictional character, Bryon might have been a hero in the novel of Charles Dickens if the first draft had been seized and rewritten by the Marquis de Sade. Born with a handsome face but a club foot to parents who were completely incapable of raising a child, Bryon experienced life on the border of destitution before suddenly coming into an aristocratic title, property, and modestly money-earning enterprises. Once wealthy, Bryon proves that poverty does not enrich the soul by behaving for the rest of his life as one of a self-absorbed and mood-driven aristocrat, a situation which was not improved by a hereditary seat in Parliament and literary fame. In summary, a much more interesting literary life than the average scribbler can usually eke out in the odd moments away from the composition table.
Also, in re: Dickens – Byron had a faithful servant, “the withered Mrs Mule”.
It’s hard to know whose weirdness to address first: O’Brien’s or Bryon’s?
Bryon’s is more fun – I’ll write about it first. The grand uncle from which Bryon eventually inherits his title was actually known as (if O’Brien is to be believed) The Wicked Lord.
He built a folly castle and stone forts on the lake that were fitted with a fleet of toy ships, where he conducted naval battles with his servant Joe Murray, who had to act as factotum and second officer and was said to have taught the crickets in the chimneypiece to speak back at him (page 7).Say what? What does that mean exactly? Is that like, sometimes, when I say “hello” to my cat, and then he meows back at me, and we continue like that for a while? Except with crickets?
Well, in any event, the Wicked Lord doesn’t actually sound so bad quite yet, but hard on the heels of the information above comes the information that the Wicked Lord killed his cousin after they quarrel over the best way to hang game, which I guess is no more stupid than people killing each other over a pair of sneakers today. However, today’s murderers with pointless quarrels often do not have the good fortune to be an aristocrat and be let off with a modest fine after a short imprisonment. This left him free to spite his heirs by, in a fit of pique, cutting down the forest surrounding his country home and slaughtering the two thousand deer that used to live there, as well as other actions intended to deprive future heirs of income. These actions later caused Bryon “the inroads of financial embarrassment”, a phrase that I will try to incorporate causally into conversation in the future.
I guess the above might mean that, when Byron himself engaged in abominable behavior – including a wedding night (described with glee in detail) that could have flowed from the pen of Edgar Allen Poe, as well as the subsequent affair and child with his half-sister – people of his day could be shocked, but they certainly could not be surprised.
O’Brien’s style of writing was also slightly odd to me, but it seemed appropropriate to the subject. She occasionally uses an obscure word when a more widely-known word would have sufficed, and assumes that the reader will understand Latin phrases and references, like “Vanitas vanitatum” and “Implora Pace”. At other times, I guess that my middle-class colonial upbringing left me bereft of the vocabulary necessary to understand the doings of the aristos of the Byronic era, like when a fancy lady asked “the valet de chambre at Lady Davy’s to pull out the protruding basque of her corset” (page 183). I guessed that this uncapitalized use of “basque” was a clue that it was not a member of the ethnic group that most frequently lives in Spain that was stuck in the corset, even though it pleased me to imagine that it was.
This was a fun read, occasional trips to the paper or online dictionary notwithstanding. I’ll crack open the aged college poetry textbook soon and see if Don Juan finally is able to be born.
September 28, 2021
Excellent biography on an enigma of a man. I've been so mesmerized by this genius of a poet, angel or demon or a combination of both. Edna O'Brien writes a beautiful story, couldn't put it down, of a man that has become legend. Highly recommend this book.
May 24, 2024
A fascinating story of an awful genius of a man told poorly. Narrative tense/perspective changing midway through chapters and back again without rhyme or reason, odd jumps in time and place, overall surprisingly poorly written. A shame.
June 22, 2011
Edna O’Brien’s writing style perplexes me. I remember being mystified by it when I read her excellent novel
House of Splendid Isolation
. I felt this disconnect again while reading Byron in Love. I was impressed with the tightness of the plot and the lack of excess in her prose. The trade off is I tended to feel a bit detached and unemotional while reading this book. At times, Ms. O’Brien’s poise and restraint as a novelist unduly bridled the sauciness of Byron’s story.
When I read Ms. O’Brien, I feel like I’m staring in through a mildly warped window at the characters. The scene appears slightly blurred and the sounds are a bit muffled. It is like O’Brien has me off to the side, watching from a discreet distance--as one might do when witnessing a couple argue in public. It’s a compelling style, but not the one I would pick for a biography of Lord Byron--especially one that is delivered like a novel. Yet I still feel this is a great book.
O’Brien’s unvarnished recounting of Byron’s scandals, as well as his chauvinism, challenged me (though I retain my affinity for him). I don’t believe one can take a serious look at Byron without acknowledging his great failures as a father and husband. But it also makes me consider one of the callous byproducts of traditional marriage culture. No child should ever be termed “illegitimate”, even when born out of wedlock to irresponsible parents.
This book also reminded me--as any objective biography of Byron should--of the rampant and abrasive hypocrisy that emanates from intensely heterosexual cultures. Byron could have been subjected to the death penalty for his homosexual liaisons. But when he engaged in heterosexual adultery, he was just fitting in. Ms. O’Brien brings this harsh double standard into sharp relief.
My chief complaint with this book is grammatical. O’Brien’s abrupt shifts between present and past tense annoyed me. Given her abilities and authorial maturity, I have to think the shifts were deliberate. I just found them acutely distracting. Other than that, I don’t have anything much to fault, except my lingering sense of disconnectedness with Byron in Love.
I’ll sum it up with an analogy. I love the musical Les Miserables. I also love composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim. But even on his best day, providing his finest work, I cannot imagine Mr. Sondheim musicalizing Les Miz to my satisfaction. There is simply an incongruity between his style and the way my heart yearns to experience that story. This also sums up why I didn’t fall head over heels for Ms. O’Brien’s take on Byron, though I found the book excellent. In any case, I feel the definitive portrayal of Byron was written long ago, though its main character is a childe called Harold.
When I read Ms. O’Brien, I feel like I’m staring in through a mildly warped window at the characters. The scene appears slightly blurred and the sounds are a bit muffled. It is like O’Brien has me off to the side, watching from a discreet distance--as one might do when witnessing a couple argue in public. It’s a compelling style, but not the one I would pick for a biography of Lord Byron--especially one that is delivered like a novel. Yet I still feel this is a great book.
O’Brien’s unvarnished recounting of Byron’s scandals, as well as his chauvinism, challenged me (though I retain my affinity for him). I don’t believe one can take a serious look at Byron without acknowledging his great failures as a father and husband. But it also makes me consider one of the callous byproducts of traditional marriage culture. No child should ever be termed “illegitimate”, even when born out of wedlock to irresponsible parents.
This book also reminded me--as any objective biography of Byron should--of the rampant and abrasive hypocrisy that emanates from intensely heterosexual cultures. Byron could have been subjected to the death penalty for his homosexual liaisons. But when he engaged in heterosexual adultery, he was just fitting in. Ms. O’Brien brings this harsh double standard into sharp relief.
My chief complaint with this book is grammatical. O’Brien’s abrupt shifts between present and past tense annoyed me. Given her abilities and authorial maturity, I have to think the shifts were deliberate. I just found them acutely distracting. Other than that, I don’t have anything much to fault, except my lingering sense of disconnectedness with Byron in Love.
I’ll sum it up with an analogy. I love the musical Les Miserables. I also love composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim. But even on his best day, providing his finest work, I cannot imagine Mr. Sondheim musicalizing Les Miz to my satisfaction. There is simply an incongruity between his style and the way my heart yearns to experience that story. This also sums up why I didn’t fall head over heels for Ms. O’Brien’s take on Byron, though I found the book excellent. In any case, I feel the definitive portrayal of Byron was written long ago, though its main character is a childe called Harold.
October 18, 2009
Oh, Lord Byron. Sigh.
I was seriously obsessed with Byron, John Keats, Percy Shelley, and Mary Shelley when I was in high school. Why yes, I've seen Gothic about a million times. Also, on my first solo trip to Europe, I visited some of their haunts in Switzerland & Italy, saw Keats' death mask, locks of their hair... I'm a nerd, I know.
There are a number of biographical tomes on Byron, and this is one of the most easily digestible ones. And that's not just because it is normal-book-sized instead of phone-book-sized. As the title suggests, the book focuses on Byron's love life - which was, uh, active to say the least. He was quite fickle with his affections, but though he bounced from one lover to the next (both men and women, though in his poems references to male lovers are concealed with female names), each love was passionate bordering on (and often crossing the border) insane.
Byron was a massively selfish, spoiled, and self-obsessed man. He was all kinds of abusive to the women who fell for him and got more deeply entangled with him than his usual 2 week to 2 month affairs (his wife; the mother of his daughter Allegra). I was reading this book as the Tucker Max movie was debuting and getting all kinds of well-deserved flak from feminists, and it made me look at Byron thru Tucker Max tinted lenses. Byron was an entitled dickhead, a destructive force in many ways, not unlike Tucker Max (um, except that Byron was a MUCH better writer).
That said, I can't help but love and swoon over Byron. Maybe its a fucked up nostalgia for my teen years. Maybe it's my romanticization of the Romantics and the nineteenth century in general. But even though he was a total dick, Byron - with his anorexia, his mental health problems, his club foot and chestnut hair, and his predilection for pets like bears and wolves - occupies this fantasy space for me that I won't give up even though it's irrational.
I was seriously obsessed with Byron, John Keats, Percy Shelley, and Mary Shelley when I was in high school. Why yes, I've seen Gothic about a million times. Also, on my first solo trip to Europe, I visited some of their haunts in Switzerland & Italy, saw Keats' death mask, locks of their hair... I'm a nerd, I know.
There are a number of biographical tomes on Byron, and this is one of the most easily digestible ones. And that's not just because it is normal-book-sized instead of phone-book-sized. As the title suggests, the book focuses on Byron's love life - which was, uh, active to say the least. He was quite fickle with his affections, but though he bounced from one lover to the next (both men and women, though in his poems references to male lovers are concealed with female names), each love was passionate bordering on (and often crossing the border) insane.
Byron was a massively selfish, spoiled, and self-obsessed man. He was all kinds of abusive to the women who fell for him and got more deeply entangled with him than his usual 2 week to 2 month affairs (his wife; the mother of his daughter Allegra). I was reading this book as the Tucker Max movie was debuting and getting all kinds of well-deserved flak from feminists, and it made me look at Byron thru Tucker Max tinted lenses. Byron was an entitled dickhead, a destructive force in many ways, not unlike Tucker Max (um, except that Byron was a MUCH better writer).
That said, I can't help but love and swoon over Byron. Maybe its a fucked up nostalgia for my teen years. Maybe it's my romanticization of the Romantics and the nineteenth century in general. But even though he was a total dick, Byron - with his anorexia, his mental health problems, his club foot and chestnut hair, and his predilection for pets like bears and wolves - occupies this fantasy space for me that I won't give up even though it's irrational.
August 19, 2009
Lord Byron was a prolific poet, but perhaps his most lasting contribution to humankind is to demonstrate once and for all that hedonism really isn’t a particularly rewarding lifestyle. Well, sure, who hasn’t wanted to shoot pistols in the dining room and drink wine from human skulls, but thanks to Byron, we know better, don’t we? (O’Brien says that after Byron’s friend Percy Bysshe Shelley died in a sailing accident, his skull very narrowly avoided becoming part of Byron’s drinkware collection.)
By O’Brien’s account, though rife with intrigues, Byron led quite an unhappy and lonely existence, and in his wake, he left numerous shattered lives—broken hearts of course, but more significantly, wrecked marriages (including one of Byron’s own) and abandoned children. O’Brien makes a persuasive case for Byron’s damaged childhood as the root of his dysfunction, his mistreatment of women. O’Brien psychoanalyzes Byron, but she also satisfies our voyeuristic curiosity. She lets her readers gape aghast at Byron’s escapades, all leading inevitably to that untimely, but somehow fortunate, death in Greece.
By O’Brien’s account, though rife with intrigues, Byron led quite an unhappy and lonely existence, and in his wake, he left numerous shattered lives—broken hearts of course, but more significantly, wrecked marriages (including one of Byron’s own) and abandoned children. O’Brien makes a persuasive case for Byron’s damaged childhood as the root of his dysfunction, his mistreatment of women. O’Brien psychoanalyzes Byron, but she also satisfies our voyeuristic curiosity. She lets her readers gape aghast at Byron’s escapades, all leading inevitably to that untimely, but somehow fortunate, death in Greece.
July 27, 2009
Reads like a romp--a quick, breezy, torrid look at Byron's rather active love life. Don't read if you would like to hang onto a view of him as the dreamy romantic hero-poet, a cad maybe, but a dashing, charming, sensitive, misunderstood cad. He sounds here like someone you would totally hate if you knew him. However, I've said it before, I'll say it again: miserable and/or horrible people make for far more interesting biographies than happy, well-adjusted ones.
January 8, 2022
Working my way through books my dear departed Tante S left me and decided to learn more about Lord Byron. What a scoundrel! Wastrel! Oh, and brilliant poet. But his short daring life, per O'Brien, seemed ill-used and ill-considered. Running away from himself and throwing himself into torturous romances, Byron is the apotheosis of Proust and more like Hemingway, seeking pleasure and adventure to avoid his demons. Interesting read.
May 11, 2021
I have wanted to read this book for ages. It’s been floating in my TBR pile on my goodreads since I joined back in 2012 to give you an idea. I finally found a copy at my local used book store when I found the book on his pal Shelley, that I reviewed earlier this summer. Lord Byron was not someone I was hugely familiar with, despite being a Lit major at school. He was a name I heard of in passing often but I can’t remember ever reading anything by him so I didn’t have a strong personal literary opinion of him before reading this biography of him.
Really, my first reaction to Byron was that he sounded more like a fictional character (especially one out of a Gothic drama) than a real person who actually lived at one point. A guy who brings his pet bear to college with him and drinks out of a human skull- yeah, that’s rather strange behavior and a definite red flag in the potential romance department. Oddly enough, he seemed almost determined to become an evil villain; the way he treated most women around him was pretty gross and O’ Brien does not shy away from that in this biography. He wasn’t stupid either; he knew he was wrong but he really didn’t care.
Admittedly, I actually felt bad for Byron, at points. I think his childhood really traumatized him on a deeper level. His father left him and his mother when he was a little boy in Scotland. His mother was also rather abusive emotionally and physically. He was mercilessly taunted for being ‘crippled’ by several people- he had a clubfoot of which he was deeply ashamed of. Because of his pride, he endured painful treatments to try and fix it. When nothing really did, he limped for the rest of his life. He was also molested by his nanny and one of his mother’s adult male lovers before he was a teenager. I would more than understand if he was scarred for life after all that happening to him as a child.
He inherits the title of Lord Byron from his mad uncle who dies when he’s just ten years old. That probably messes him up too but in another way; for he quickly gains all the privileges of a future Lord. The newfound power quickly goes to his head. He soon becomes this spoiled little prince who exacts his revenge on his mother reducing her to his servant and throws hideous temper tantrums whenever something doesn’t go his way.
Honestly, Byron is an interesting figure from afar but I think he’d be absolutely terrifying to know personally. He completely and totally lacked self-control. That was what I gleaned from this overall. I can sympathize with people who have and struggle with mental illness for I personally know that struggle. There’s a lot of evidence that something or several somethings afflicted Byron through out his life (some of his symptoms sounded like epilepsy, others like badly managed bipolar disorder and he was also known to have both syphilis and gonorrhea so that could have affected him as well) . However, when you constantly hurt other people as Byron no doubt did (his abandoned wife, Annabella and all his children and the many, many women he used and then turned his back on), I can’t defend you. Even if you’re mentally ill, you should never take it out on other people. It was much more difficult if not nearly impossible to control a mental illness back in Byron’s time since what passed for medicine then usually didn’t help much; some treatments made symptoms of such ‘madness’ even worse. In fact, bad medical treatments and disease was what did Byron in at the end.
After reading this biography, I would hardly be surprised if Lord Byron has also been cited as being one of the first modern bisexuals. His relationships with both men and women were fairly well known, even as he lived, it wasn’t really a secret (which is surprising considering gay men’s relationships with each other were forbidden by English law at the time, sometimes by penalty of death). I think the bad bisexual stereotype that everyone is familiar with; “Bisexuals sleep with everyone” may also be attributed back to him because in the book, he almost literally sleeps with everyone. I know this wasn’t because he was bisexual. He didn’t have any self-control at all which was probably more a suffering from hyper sexuality and/or narcissism issue than being bisexual. Unfortunately, the stereotype persists. So while yes, Byron has, in fact been identified by many historians and biographers as a bisexual, he’s certainly not usual in that respect.
Byron also had a long lasting affair with his half-sister, Augusta Leigh, with whom he shared a father. They are believed to share a daughter, Medora. Augusta is cited as being the one true love of his life by many reviewers and O’ Brien seems to support this fact in her biography of him. Though Byron had many affairs through out his life (so many the number is debated and unknown since his memoirs were ultimately destroyed following his death for reasons of ‘decency’ to his friends and family left behind), it seems to me that his forbidden love for Augusta might have been for him, the truest romance. He had several shorter impassioned affairs and even more one-night stands. But it was rumored that it was Augusta’s name along with his daughter, Ada’s that were on his lips as he lay dying in Greece, a man of only thirty six.
I rated this book 4.5 stars! I am certainly intrigued by Byron’s contradictory character. I will likely read more on him, the Shelleys, and the Romantic Era, since it’s a time period that fascinates me. While, I wouldn’t personally want to meet Lord Byron because of his total lack of self control and his self-obsession, I think he’s certainly an interesting character to observe from afar. In some ways, he made himself both a villain to some (the mistreatment of his wife, children, and mistresses/lovers as well as his highly questionable morality) and a hero to others (The people of Greece for helping in their revolution and other poets for his literary prowess). He in himself has long been a cultural icon in the English-speaking world, being considered by many one of the best poets in the English language.
Triggers/Content Warnings: Abuse (emotional, physical, sexual, child neglect), misogyny (on the part of Byron, mainly), Incest (Byron and Augusta), Suicide (Shelley’s, other minor players in Byron’s story), and gruesome deaths
Really, my first reaction to Byron was that he sounded more like a fictional character (especially one out of a Gothic drama) than a real person who actually lived at one point. A guy who brings his pet bear to college with him and drinks out of a human skull- yeah, that’s rather strange behavior and a definite red flag in the potential romance department. Oddly enough, he seemed almost determined to become an evil villain; the way he treated most women around him was pretty gross and O’ Brien does not shy away from that in this biography. He wasn’t stupid either; he knew he was wrong but he really didn’t care.
Admittedly, I actually felt bad for Byron, at points. I think his childhood really traumatized him on a deeper level. His father left him and his mother when he was a little boy in Scotland. His mother was also rather abusive emotionally and physically. He was mercilessly taunted for being ‘crippled’ by several people- he had a clubfoot of which he was deeply ashamed of. Because of his pride, he endured painful treatments to try and fix it. When nothing really did, he limped for the rest of his life. He was also molested by his nanny and one of his mother’s adult male lovers before he was a teenager. I would more than understand if he was scarred for life after all that happening to him as a child.
He inherits the title of Lord Byron from his mad uncle who dies when he’s just ten years old. That probably messes him up too but in another way; for he quickly gains all the privileges of a future Lord. The newfound power quickly goes to his head. He soon becomes this spoiled little prince who exacts his revenge on his mother reducing her to his servant and throws hideous temper tantrums whenever something doesn’t go his way.
Honestly, Byron is an interesting figure from afar but I think he’d be absolutely terrifying to know personally. He completely and totally lacked self-control. That was what I gleaned from this overall. I can sympathize with people who have and struggle with mental illness for I personally know that struggle. There’s a lot of evidence that something or several somethings afflicted Byron through out his life (some of his symptoms sounded like epilepsy, others like badly managed bipolar disorder and he was also known to have both syphilis and gonorrhea so that could have affected him as well) . However, when you constantly hurt other people as Byron no doubt did (his abandoned wife, Annabella and all his children and the many, many women he used and then turned his back on), I can’t defend you. Even if you’re mentally ill, you should never take it out on other people. It was much more difficult if not nearly impossible to control a mental illness back in Byron’s time since what passed for medicine then usually didn’t help much; some treatments made symptoms of such ‘madness’ even worse. In fact, bad medical treatments and disease was what did Byron in at the end.
After reading this biography, I would hardly be surprised if Lord Byron has also been cited as being one of the first modern bisexuals. His relationships with both men and women were fairly well known, even as he lived, it wasn’t really a secret (which is surprising considering gay men’s relationships with each other were forbidden by English law at the time, sometimes by penalty of death). I think the bad bisexual stereotype that everyone is familiar with; “Bisexuals sleep with everyone” may also be attributed back to him because in the book, he almost literally sleeps with everyone. I know this wasn’t because he was bisexual. He didn’t have any self-control at all which was probably more a suffering from hyper sexuality and/or narcissism issue than being bisexual. Unfortunately, the stereotype persists. So while yes, Byron has, in fact been identified by many historians and biographers as a bisexual, he’s certainly not usual in that respect.
Byron also had a long lasting affair with his half-sister, Augusta Leigh, with whom he shared a father. They are believed to share a daughter, Medora. Augusta is cited as being the one true love of his life by many reviewers and O’ Brien seems to support this fact in her biography of him. Though Byron had many affairs through out his life (so many the number is debated and unknown since his memoirs were ultimately destroyed following his death for reasons of ‘decency’ to his friends and family left behind), it seems to me that his forbidden love for Augusta might have been for him, the truest romance. He had several shorter impassioned affairs and even more one-night stands. But it was rumored that it was Augusta’s name along with his daughter, Ada’s that were on his lips as he lay dying in Greece, a man of only thirty six.
I rated this book 4.5 stars! I am certainly intrigued by Byron’s contradictory character. I will likely read more on him, the Shelleys, and the Romantic Era, since it’s a time period that fascinates me. While, I wouldn’t personally want to meet Lord Byron because of his total lack of self control and his self-obsession, I think he’s certainly an interesting character to observe from afar. In some ways, he made himself both a villain to some (the mistreatment of his wife, children, and mistresses/lovers as well as his highly questionable morality) and a hero to others (The people of Greece for helping in their revolution and other poets for his literary prowess). He in himself has long been a cultural icon in the English-speaking world, being considered by many one of the best poets in the English language.
Triggers/Content Warnings: Abuse (emotional, physical, sexual, child neglect), misogyny (on the part of Byron, mainly), Incest (Byron and Augusta), Suicide (Shelley’s, other minor players in Byron’s story), and gruesome deaths
November 7, 2024
Menuda vida. Por reseñar dos momentos, ese en el que su amante despechada, Caro, monta un aquelarre para quemar en una hoguera pública los recuerdos que tiene de él, y esa descripción del triángulo entre Byron, su esposa Annabella y su medio hermana Augusta, que la pobre Annabella está sufriendo un infierno y aún por encima aparecen los acreedores, se instalan en el salón de su casa y Byron termina liándose también con uno de ellos.
Por lo demás, esta biografía es gozosísima pero en algunos aspectos, como el lenguaje que usa, la sutileza con la que alude a algunos temas y la falta de contexto histórico (algo que en general me carga si es demasiado pero un poquito hace falta cuando se habla de hace doscientos años), parecería no ser contemporánea sino haberse escrito hace mínimo 50 años. Para bien y para mal.
Por lo demás, esta biografía es gozosísima pero en algunos aspectos, como el lenguaje que usa, la sutileza con la que alude a algunos temas y la falta de contexto histórico (algo que en general me carga si es demasiado pero un poquito hace falta cuando se habla de hace doscientos años), parecería no ser contemporánea sino haberse escrito hace mínimo 50 años. Para bien y para mal.
June 12, 2024
⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1/2 De la biografía de la primera rockstar solo se puede esperar una narración “spinal tap”: lectura tan hipnótica, apabullante, desequilibrada y excesiva como el propio Byron.
April 30, 2024
Who edited (or more appropriately not edited) this book, for God's sake?
November 22, 2024
Note to self: re-read this every time I need to fall out of love with someone tall, brooding and mysterious.
He will write beautiful letters then abandon you, take your children and throw them in a convent to die.
He will write beautiful letters then abandon you, take your children and throw them in a convent to die.
September 25, 2024
Reflexiones heroicas mezcladas con tristeza por el fin de la edad dorada de Atenas. Las calles estrechas eran sórdidas y estaban atestadas. Griegos, turcos y albanos pugnaban por abrirse paso a codazos y, aunque estaban por todas partes, nadie reverenciaba las ruinas, morada de los dioses y «sepulcro de una nación». En la Acrópolis, Byron contempló los frontones en ruinas, las columnas desfiguradas por el tiempo y los elementos, por las conquistas y los saqueos, ruinas que reflejaban la ruina interior del propio Byron y las heridas que buscaba restañar con el amor, la poesía y la acción, heridas que el tiempo ahondaría.
May 28, 2012
This book should have been really good - the author has a definite flair for the poetic and dramatic and I was rather engrossed by certain parts of this book as much as if it were a novel. It painted Byron in a more unpleasant light than in a tragic rockstar light - I had difficulty feeling sympathy for O'Brien's Byron. I kind of hated him, actually, but he appears to have largely deserved whatever censure and derision he incurred. What hindered the book's ultimate success for me was its lack of cohesive structure - I feel like she often did not transition smoothly from event to event so that I was confused by why we were once talking about the war in Greece and then all of a sudden a love letter to Teresa. Also she tended to gloss over certain parts of Byron's life that were uncomfortable for her; his relationship with John Edelston, for example, is mentioned only briefly, despite how passionate and important it was to Byron. Furthermore, I grew frustrated with how often (sometimes three or four times a page) she changed the tense of her narrative. Pick a tense, and stick with it. Lastly, and perhaps this is petty, there were definitely times when she left out words in the sentence. Usually little words, like "of" or "the". Nonetheless her editor should have caught them, and it was just the last little thing that made this book hard for me to really enjoy.
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