The Book of the Courtesans: A Catalogue of Their Virtues
by Susan Griffin
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Book Summary Information
Author: Susan GriffinEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2002-09-10
ISBN: 0767904516
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Broadway
Book Reviews of The Book of the Courtesans: A Catalogue of Their Virtues
Book Review: Lackluster
Summary: 3 Stars
The Book of the Courtesans is Susan Griffin's love letter to women of loose morals. For a book designated nonfiction, I found Griffin's writing to be more romance than history; she only peppers her daydreams of rags-to-riches courtesans and women of delightful freedom and tenacity with biographical information of the women themselves.
The title suggests a structured look at the "virtues" of courtesans throughout history, so the author's bias is neither unexpected nor unappreciated (after all, I purchased her book because of my own personal interest in the subject). For the most part, the virtues she lists are what a reader would expect from the subject matter: beauty, wit, grace. However, the author takes numerous liberties with her own structure, and includes "virtues" such as timing (which I wouldn't necessarily call a virtue), and even includes "Her Pink Rabbits" under the chapter on "Brilliance". Hhmmm.
The Book of the Courtesans is an exercise in purple prose and presumption as opposed to reliable research and true biography. While the reader will be treated to some information about the women who inspire Griffin's work, what they will largely encounter is Griffin's own romanticized imaginings of the world that these women create.
Summary of The Book of the Courtesans: A Catalogue of Their Virtues
They charmed some of Europe?s most illustrious men, honing their social skills as well as their sexual ones, and accumulating wealth, fame, and power along the way. Unlike their geisha counterparts, courtesans didn't lived in brothels or bend their wills to suit their suitors. They were the muses who enflamed the hearts of our most celebrated artists--Raphael, Manet, Dumas, and Proust, to name just a few--as well as becoming artists in their own right. Offering the first comprehensive tour of their worlds, Susan Griffins celebrates these first feminists and hails their virtues: Timing, Beauty, Cheek, Brilliance, Gaiety, Grace, and Charm.From Veronica Franco, who graced the palazzos of sixteenth-century Venice, and Madame de Pompadour, the arbiter of all things fashionable at Versailles during the reign of Lous XV, to La Belle Otero of the grand boulevards of Paris in the Gay Nineties and Marion Davies, who took Hollywood by storm in the 1920's and 1930's, The Book of the Courtesans enticingly illustrates the intricacies of their lavish lifestyles and incredible life stories. Fascinating true tales and enlightening snippets from courtesans' memoirs further reveal how these cunning women seized their opportunity to become the West's first liberators, free to choose their own lovers and command remarkable respect.
Delving into his scintillating world, The Book of the Courtesans is an impeccably researched, beautifully crafted portrait of some of the most intriguing figures in women's history.
Poet and writer Susan Griffin is famously provocative, though her provocation takes very different forms, ranging from her classic feminist treatise, Women and Nature, which linked patriarchy with the oppression of women and nature, to her well-received A Chorus of Stones, which weighed in on the nature of war. But in The Book of Courtesans, Griffin is downright scintillating. Courtesans, she writes, were not prostitutes nor even kept women, though certainly they used their sexuality to financial gain. Rather, they were personages and celebrities, friends to royalty and the most famous writers and artists of their time, the subjects of gossip, the charismatic epicenter of the Second Empire, the Gay Nineties, the Belle Epoche, "Gay Paree." Their faces were immortalized in paintings by the Renaissance masters, by Degas, Renoir, and Toulouse-Lautrec, their lives by Proust, Balzac, Zola, Flaubert. They lived in splendor, set fashion standards, owned fabulous jewelry collections. And they were talented authors, poets, actresses, and singers. In a time of prescribed roles for women, they turned the tables, creating lives of remarkable intellectual and financial freedom.
Griffin sings the praises of these women and enunciates their virtues, which, ironically, are the sort popularly thought to be made anachronistic by feminism. With her impeccable timing, the French dancer Mogador achieved legendary status the first time she danced on stage and later became a countess. Harriet Wilson seduced the Duke of Wellington with her cheek, and delivered him from boredom. Marion Davies' gaiety enlivened all those who saw her, Madame Pompadour was the embodiment of grace, and Sarah Bernhardt exuded so much charm she acted her way straight out of the role of courtesan. Griffin imagines herself into her subjects lives with sensitivity and sensuality--the rags to riches stories that characterized them and their creative responses to often dire circumstances. In the end, she not only immortalizes these feminist precursors, but reminds us that "the capacity to take pleasure in life is no less a virtue than any other." --Lesley Reed
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