#napoleonic books

[microcosme11]

Napoleon se souvient (Napoleon Remembers) by Odette Dossios-Pralat, 1999.

At first, I thought this was real! There was an Introduction by a fictional scholar who found this journal by Napoleon. But it's a novel, in the form of Napoleon's personal journal written by him on St. Helena. [Somehow the fictional scholar was able to read Napoleon's handwriting.] I like it very much. It really sounds like the voice of Napoleon ruminating about mistakes he might have made that landed him on St. Helena.

[usergreenpixel]

MALMAISON MEDIA SALON SOIRÉE 17: THE PRINCESS OF NOWHERE (2010)

1. The Introduction

Hello, Dear Neighbors. Thank you for joining the party today. I’m feeling better, fortunately, and I’m ready to analyze media again.

Fittingly, today we’re talking about Pauline Bonaparte, the woman who had a scandalous reputation back in the day and seems like a typical party girl. Since I do like the woman, I’ve always been curious as to what kind of media is out there that tells her story.

Sure, there’s the movie called “Imperial Venus”, but it looks like Pauline is far more obscure than some of her family members (and don’t even get me started on Napoleon). So you can imagine how intrigued I was after stumbling across this particular book, written by a distant descendant of the Borghese family.

I’ll admit that the author’s identity did cause concern for me, mainly due to the potential for slander and negative bias to wriggle their way into the narrative, but the premise about the story being told from the prospective of a character close to Pauline seemed intriguing so I gave the book a shot.

Luckily, it’s available in free PDF form here. And, without spoilers, the read was… interesting.

This review is dedicated to @aminoscribbles .

2. The Summary

This is the story of Pauline Bonaparte and her tumultuous and toxic relationship with Prince Camillo Borghese, told from the point of view of Pauline’s foster daughter and distant cousin, Sophie Leclerc.

(Sophie is an original character btw. )

Sounds like an interesting idea with potential, but let’s keep going.

3. The Story

First of all, due to all the POV switching and the focus on Paulette, you can pretty much forget about Sophie since she fades into the background rather quickly and becomes irrelevant faster than a new fashion trend. Kinda makes me wonder why she was even in the book to begin with.

The plot pacing is also clunky, clumsily intertwined with flashbacks and fictional letters, but apparently the author is writing for the first time so of course it’s not going to be flawless. Still, I do wish he worked a bit more on the story before publication. 

The negative bias also is there but it’s a weird mixed bag and not as bad as I expected - there’s at least an attempt to make Pauline a complex character and tell the story of a toxic yet ultimately loving couple, so points for effort.

Unfortunately, the story speed runs through moments like Pauline joining Napoleon on Elba, moments that could’ve given us more of a glimpse into her character and would definitely be more engaging than the awfully long sex scenes in the book.

4. The Characters

As I said, Sophie becomes irrelevant fairly quickly so I’m not sure what to make of her. She’s a very flat character whose initial admiration for Pauline isn’t properly justified. Nor is her relationship with the woman properly explored. A shame and a waste of potential, really.

Pauline herself isn’t evil like I expected, so it’s a pleasant surprise. However, she’s still capricious, selfish and careless. She does have nice moments like personally nursing Sophie back to health and she does genuinely grieve her husband and later her son.

However, all the nice moments are undermined by the moment when it’s revealed that Pauline poisoned herself and Sophie with arsenic to make Borghese believe that they got sick and send them to France. Err… WTF?!

(Yes, she does that in the book, even though the real Pauline was so sickly that she wouldn’t even NEED poison. As for poisoning a child… can’t imagine her doing so.)

Borghese himself is, naturally, almost a saint (duh), but still makes mistakes here and there, so he’s just flat and we never see a deeper dive into his relationship with Pauline.

To be honest, all characters are flat and underdeveloped so let’s move on.

5. The Setting

Some descriptions are good but, again, underdeveloped.

6. The Writing

The writing style is actually solid and sometimes engaging, but there are a few instances of Pauline being a bit too crass to feel realistic and those sex scenes are boring as hell.

Couple that with flashbacks and letters and yeah… it’s a hit or miss at best.

7. The Conclusion

All in all, definitely not an awful book. I’ve seen MUCH worse. That being said, it’s not a good book either. Just… decent but underbaked.

Check it out if you want, but it’s still biased towards Borghese and doesn’t do Pauline justice, unfortunately. It’s a mixed bag for me though so I will not reread this book.

Anyway, on that note, let us end our tiny soirée. Stay tuned for more reviews, everyone!

Love,

Citizen Green Pixel

[maggiec70]

Hello, dear Tumblr grandmother. I have a question…

HOW THE FUCK DID YOU HANDLE “THE QUEEN’S FORTUNE”?! I’m listening to the prologue of the book and I’m already not impressed!!!

I have a high tolerance for Really Awful Historical Fiction simply because the rewards from writing blistering, scathing, eviscerating reviews of said books are so great. Not to mention compelling the scribblers of the Awful Books to have heart failure and attempt to retaliate. I got two of them banned from Goodreads for their feeble attempts to take on my reviews.

[napoleondodofan]

Okay hi whatever

[divorcedwife]

more novels for babies

[eraserheadbabyfever]

my school library regularly purges its outdated books and just gives them away for free. usually theyre just technical books that arent interesting to anyone, but i found an old book on fan culture, which contained this gem

[miffy-junot]

OKAY HEAR ME OUT:

All of these edgy science fiction / fantasy novels about overthrowing evil empires and then becoming the very thing that you sought to destroy and the main character ending up as bad as the regime they overthrew and all that, you know?

You could very easily make a dramatised version of the life of Napoleon Bonaparte, transplant it into generic fantasy evil empire world, change the names of the historical figures to fictional names, and all the tumblrinas would eat that up.

Picture this: Napoleon Our protagonist is born the second child in a large family on Corsica generic fantasy island, is sent to a military academy in France evil empire, and begins to rise through the ranks of the army. A revolution occurs, in which the French evil empire monarchy is overthrown, and our protagonist, a supporter of the revolution, fights for the revolutionary government against royalist uprisings and the first coalition other evil empires. Along the way, our protagonist becomes increasingly powerful, as well as being an absolute slut. After a series of military campaigns, our protagonist, seeing the corruption of the directory new evil government, stages a coup and becomes first consul generic fantasy leader. However, over the course of the book, our protagonist has acquired a huge ego and lost many morals, and ends up themself the emperor of France fantasy kingdom. "Morally grey" shenanigans ensue. (Of course, our protagonist would have many many love interests, such as Josephine de Beauharnais hot milf, Jean-Andoche Junot hot best friend, and Tsar Alexander I enemies-to-lovers-to-enemies-again.) (Main character would be characterised as being the most pathetic little person to ever exist who is frequently bullied for being quirky and not-like-other-girls)

[wazili]

Rare Chéché portrait

Don't bother him, he's doing his homework

From Le Grand amour de Fouché : Ernestine de Castellane, 1931

[apurpledust]

guys I was reading this book written in the 1950s, which is basically a fictionized retelling of Napoleon's life, but it really reads more like a romantic biography. The author includes this Napjuno crumb,,,,

oh my goddddd someone sedate me also there's this scene with Napoleon sort of joking with Murat before revealing his displeasure of Junot's "indiscreet disclosures"

the part mentioning Junot's death😭

[akaryotic]

some of my favourite lines from the mfu books so far (1-6) (p. 2) (p. 3)

ive been making a tally just for fun to keep track of how many times solo and kuryakin get shot/drugged/captured/tortured respectively and i might post it when i finish the series if anyone would like to see it LMAO

[cedyat]

PSA: Tsar Alexander I liked dick jokes!

I think. Little Explanation: On the 5th of May 1807 while the war of the fourth Coalition is in full swing Frederick William III writes this inconspicuous sentence in a letter to his wife:

"The grand duke [Constantine] is in Schwansfeld, a name whose double meaning has greatly amused the Emperor [Alexander]."*

Schwansfeld can be translated literally as "swan's field" or "field of swans", but what is the other meaning?

Well, "Schwans-" sounds very similar to "Schwanz", a word meaning "tail". However, "Schwanz" can also mean dick. I looked up whether it was already used in this way 200 years ago and in fact: yes! It was already slang all the way back in the 1600's and even Goethe uses it. So with that in mind the other meaning would be "dick field". A theory that I feel is even backed up by the fact that the full name of this town is "Großschwansfeld" so -> "big dick field".

TL;DR: Either I am too dumb to understand a simple pun or one of the most powerful man of his time had the humor of a 12-year old.

* Briefwechsel der Königin Luise mit ihrem Gemahl Friedrich Wilhelm III, p. 299

[microcosme11]

Betraying Napoleon

Interesting book even though I'm missing a lot since my French isn't great and I don't translate every paragraph. I haven't finished the book, but I like it. The first part is a philosophical essay about why people would betray Napoleon, how inevitable it was, he even realized it, etc. The author likes and admires Napoleon while accurately describing negative aspects of his personality, such as humiliating helpful people who might start disliking him intensely.

The next part of the book is an alphabetical list of people who betrayed Napoleon and how/why they did it. Jacques Chirac is included for commemorating the anniversary of Trafalgar (wtf?), but not the anniversary of Austerlitz, because Napoleon wasn't politically correct. Author correctly notes that in two hundred years we'll still be reading about Napoleon, while Chirac is already forgotten.

One thing I like about the author's style is he throws out pithy little comments like, "It doesn't matter."

[usergreenpixel]

Okay, I’m surprised. Apparently, a descendant of the Borghese family wrote a novel about Pauline Bonaparte. Did you know this, Neighbors?

[chirp-a-chirp]

Napoleon: Everyone keeps flirting with you.

MC: You’re exaggerating!

Napoleon: In front of me.

MC: T-that can’t be!

Vlad: Here are flowers. Free of course.

Le Comte: Let me dress you, Ma Cherie.

Arthur: Wanna makeout luv?

Napoleon: NO.

[vintagehomecollection]

Interior Visions: Great American Designers and the Showcase House, 1988

[mmkayokay]

I DID IT I FINISHED IT!!!!

it's a book cover for my favourite muncle book (so far) because the original covers were a travesty!!!

more versions below & process stuff

the vampire is loosely based on christopher lee but i was tempted at one point to draw him as vincent price lol just the vibes

also how ridiculous is this book? a scooby doo ass plot that had our boys shooketh and shooting at nothing. loved it 5/5 stars would eat here again

mcdaniels just understands napoleon and illya on such a deep level

closeups!

spent hours on those wolves only for them to be nothing burgers that look far too pettable rip also the two wolves at the back are just flipped twins we dont talk abt them

but yay!!!!! i'm so happy with how this turned out and i def want to do another! maybe for the dagger affair because that was quite fun too!