Cahier Alexandre Dumas

 What a joy this Cahier de L'Herne dedicated to Alexandre Dumas is!

To me Dumas has always meant, since the first time I read The Three Musketeers, adventure. My favorite character is Aramis because of his delicacy and elegance, but I also appreciated tremendously Porthos, because a true viveur; women, food, alcohol, courage, he didn't have any preclusion and it meant to me a lot of joy de vivre.

Dumas read himself as a vulgarisateur. He wrote once: "Lamartine est un reveur; Hugo est un penseur; je suis un vulgarizateur."

But, of course, he was more than this and he became immortal thanks to the pages he wrote, for spectators, readers; he transmitted and transmit (the immortality of writers and creatives is this one) joy, drama, pathos, fun events to his audience, not important if readers or people at theather. More recently to the cinema, with the transposition in every possible ways of his literary masterpieces; the most searched, wanted also on the big screen. 

When he died, because of the difficult social and political situation of France, the news passed  unobserved, but Victor Hugo, in a felt letter sent to his family vividly told them the essence of the powerful character that had left the world: "Le nom d'Alexandre Dumas est plus que francais, il est européen; il est plus que européen, il est universal" defining him also "Une grande ame bonne." 

Yes, because Alexandre Dumas was a man plenty of curiosity and starved of knowledge, and he was insatiable; he needed to discover much more everytime, falling enchanting for the world under all its shades.

He loved adventures, and the discovery of several countries. Italy was his second home; he adored our country and thanks to this passion created wonderful books passed to the history; Russia was another chapter of his existence, when invited visited the country.

In his books we find irony, drama, a lot of fun, adventures, lightness. 

Alexandre Dumas read differently history when he wrote his book if compared to the rest of his contemporaries: he wasn't interested at big passed events, he was interested in that little stories too often forgotten. He re-launched them in his writings creating situations in grade of establishing a popular, certain engagement between the reader and the story. He also read history in a pedagogical, civilization purpose. 

Antony, a drama written by Dumas meant the modern dramatization in theater. In Antony we see the differences that there are when a scandalous relationship between a married noble woman  with a daughter, and a man without too many titles become too absorbing. In the 5th act proposed in the cahier there is a final dramatic meeting between the lovers, the idea of escaping away together, for then thinking at the assassination of the husband of Adele, involved in this love-affair, after that she refused of following him because she didn't want to leave her daughter alone. It was a tremendous success this one of Antony and was created also a parody, extremely funny, called Batardi.

Dumas consacrated Madame Bovary by Flaubert in a felt article published in his Monte-Cristo. Why was a masterpiece Madame Bovary? Because, explains Dumas, in this book there are the three kinds of imaginations characterizing a story; but finding all of them, together in a book is difficult if not impossible. 

Which imaginations? The little, the secondary and the third one, the imagination of the events. He was vice-versa pretty critic regarding Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, in a letter when he lived in Naples in 1862, remarked his polemic position, underlined his disappointment in another letter this time sent to George Sand. A thematic, this one he couldn't abandon also if absorbed by italian policy. 

 

Dumas was a very prolific author also thanks to the help of several ghost-writers, and to the literary critics this one has always been an ethical problem: how to classify Dumas? He wrote in collaboration, not alone, not in solitary state, as we love to think a writer does. Because of his character, Dumas can't be "destroyed" as author, remaining a creator of books, and  pieces for the theater. 

This cahier presents five sections where the personality, character, works, plays, women, trips, and much more of Alexander Dumas are scrutinized, commented, for then leaving at the reader a large vision of the whole. 

Enjoy this new Cahier de l'Herne.  It's adoring.

Highly recommended-

I thank L'Editions de l'Herne for the physical copy of the book.

Anna Maria Polidori