Pascarel: Only a Story

by Ouida

The first in a series of Ouida novels set in Italy.

494 pages, Hardcover

First published August 30, 2010

About the author

Ouida was the pen name of the English novelist Maria Louise Ramé (although she preferred to be known as Marie Louise de la Ramée).

During her career, she wrote more than 40 novels, children's books and collections of short stories and essays. She was an animal rights activist and animal rescuer, and at times owned as many as thirty dogs. For many years she lived in London, but about 1874 she went to Italy, where she died.

Ouida's work went through several phases during her career. In her early period, her novels were a hybrid of the sensationalism of the 1860s and the proto-adventure novels dubbed "muscular fiction" that were emerging in part as a romanticization of imperial expansion. Later her work was more along the lines of historical romance, though she never stopped comment on contemporary society. She also wrote several stories for children. One of her most famous novels, Under Two Flags, described the British in Algeria in the most extravagant of terms, while nonetheless also expressing sympathy for the French—with whom Ouida deeply identified—and, to some extent, the Arabs. This book went on to be staged in plays, and subsequently to be turned into at least three movies, transitioning Ouida in the 20th century.

Jack London cites her novel Signa, which describes an unschooled Italian peasant child who achieves fame as an opera composer, and which he read at age eight, as one of the eight reasons for his literary success.

Reviews

[Jesse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Epic! Transcendent! Ethereal! Timeless! Pascarel is Ouida’s first three-decker (i.e. three volume novel) based entirely in Italy. It is also the first novel of “the Italian set” (Pascarel, Signa, Ariadne, A Village Commune, and In Maremma). The plot weds a coming of age tale to a love story in a way that is decidedly unique, yet uncontrived. It stars two main characters, Nella and Pascarel—two souls destined for a true and eternal love. However, as in several other of the author’s works, finding love is one thing, but cultivating it is an entirely different matter.

We get to follow Nella’s journey through the various perils and pitfalls of survival. We get to see her rise from poverty and move into loftier estates. We are entertained by her transient life with a bohemian troupe of street performers. We are enchanted by somewhere approaching a full two hundred pages devoted to the experience of falling in love. And all the while it is love and art and history that are fueling a burgeoning discourse between Nella and her soulmate, the charismatic young comedian known to others simply by his formerly noble surname, Pascarel.

What emerges in the writing is one long, beautiful poem on Italy. Pascarel is one of Ouida’s most visually evocative novels. Her use of color in the narrative equates to reading a painting in words. Note, for example, Nella's first impression of Florence:

The town floated on it as upon a lake; her spires, and domes, and towers, and palaces bathed at their base in its amber waves, and rising upward into the rose-hued radiance of the upper air. The mountains that encircled her took all the varying hues of the sunset on their pale heights until they flushed to scarlet, glowered to violet, wavered with flame and paled to whiteness, as the opal burns and fades. (p. 125)

A short excerpt, really, for the language carries on in this fashion throughout the entirety of the novel. Furthermore, her scenes in this novel are richly cinematic, but with depth and substance added to their poignancy.

Last of all, I must add that Pascarel is unarguably one of Ouida’s most jubilant novels. Even though it contains some sad and tragic scenes (and it wouldn’t be Ouida without such tragedy), from start to finish Pascarel feels lighter and more exultant than many of her other works, particularly her later fiction. If you enjoyed any of the other books in the Italian set and you have yet to read Pascarel, I highly recommend adding it to your list.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the beginning and wandering players parts of the book, they felt very lyrical and dreamlike. I think i definitely enjoyed this more than the other Ouida I've read (under two flags). I think this one would appeal a lot to fans of Frances Hodgson Burnett. I think the most vivid character in the story was Italy, which makes me want to make comparisons to Romola or the Marble Faun, with how much George Eliot and Nathaniel Hawthorne make the italian settings of the novels the most vital and living part of the story.