Saturday, December 19, 2020



 


ZOFLOYA, or THE MOOR

Charlotte Dacre (1771-1825)


The time is the late fifteenth century.  In Venice, Italy, the di Loredani's are throwing a fete to celebrate Victoria Loredani's birthday.  The Marchese di Loredani had married his wife, Laurina after her having been his mistress for several years.  They had two children, Victoria and Leonardo, who had been brought up haphazardly, and had their characters formed, perhaps adversely, by the proud and pugnacious society of the time.  Affairs of honor, and lax conditions of morality were the prominent features of the somewhat degraded upper classes, the members of which spent most of their time verbally sparring in their constant attempts to establish their superior dignity.  Sometimes they used knives, or swords.

A stranger arrived uninvited at the party.  Charismatic and handsome, Count Ardolph soon attracted the interest of Laurina and the two arranged for a meeting after the celebration.  Ardolph was a veritable Don Juan and Laurina fell madly in love with him.  The Marchese and the Count met on an afternoon stroll, fought with knives and the former was fatally stabbed.  Ardolph persuaded Laurina to run away with him, and Victoria went with them.  Leonardo was disgusted by the whole business and left town for parts unknown.  A villa in the remote hills, Monte Bello was rented by the absconding party and they lived there in isolation, spending much of their time dealing with and participating in affairs organized by the local criminal element.  The presence of Victoria was an inhibition on their illicit activities, so they took her to stay with Signora Modena in Treviso, an unpleasant, rather sadistic old lady who kept Victoria locked up in her room for the most part.  But with the help of a servant girl and the luster of a gold ring, she managed to escape the old crone's clutches and return to Venice.  She had fallen in love earlier with Count Berenza, a Venetian she had met in Monte Bello, and was mad to see him again.  When she arrived, Berenza locked her up in a room and tried to educate her as he was more interested in her brains than her body.  To wit:

"Such was the determination of the reasoning philosopher, whose delicate and fastidious mind made its own food, and took for ever a pleasure in repining upon itself."

In a confused exchange, another interested party, Megalena Strozzi, hires an assassin to kill Berenza because she resents his supposed taking of Victoria as a mistress.  One night Victoria hears a disturbance in Berenza's bedroom and she enters just in time to keep him from being stabbed although she herself is stabbed in the arm.  It turns out that the stabber is her brother Leonardo.  Leonardo, after he fled Venice, found refuge with the Zappi family near Naples, but Zappi's wife fell in love with him so Zappi kicked him out.  After several adventures, including working as a gardener for old Nina, Leonardo returned to Venice where he was befriended by Megalena.  After the assassination attempt, Megalena and Leonardo run away to the island of Capri.

Five years later, Victoria is still living with Berenza when the latter's brother arrives for a visit.  Victoria immediately falls madly in love with him, but he doesn't care.  Driven to desperation, she tries to get Henriquez to pay attention to her but he's already enamored of Lilla, the daughter of a Venetian patrician.  Victoria doesn't know who to kill first:  "dark and dreadful are the intricacies of the human heart".  One night she has a dream in which a tall dark stranger, Zofloya, guides Victoria to a chapel where she sees Lilla die and be replaced by herself,Victoria, and Berenza falls down covered with blood and Henriquez turns into a skeleton.

Spoilers, pretty quick:  Soon Zofloya in person is a constant visitor at Berenza's palace.  He is ostensibly a servant of Henriquez, acquired in Spain when Zofloya was taken captive in the Spanish/Moorish wars. He's a master of secret medicines, an artist in "the morbid refinements of a sickly fancy".  Wearing a white turban, a lot of gold rings and staring at her with lambent dark eyes, Zofloya persuades Victoria he can help achieve her wildest dreams.  He gives her some poison which she uses on Berenza.  He ails and suggests they move lock stock and barrel to a castle he owns in the Apennine mountains where his health might improve.  Once there, Berenza eventually dies, but Henriquez is still in love with Lilla to Victoria's teeth-gritting rage.  So with Zofloya's help, again, they kidnap Lilla and chain her up in a cave in the mountains.  Henriquez is fading away for love for her, so with the aid of Zofloya, Victoria plies him with eye-altering drugs so that he thinks she's Lilla.  They have a nice time together until the dope wears off, then, seeing that his inamorata is not Lilla but Victoria, he falls on his sword, killing himself.

Victoria dashes out and runs to the cave, where she frees Lilla, stabs her, and throws the body over the cliff.  Time passes and a scene opens with Zofloya and Victoria standing on a precipice in the Alps (near Mt. Cenis, actually).  There's a lot of thunder and lightning and the two are accosted by a band of banditti who take them to their lair:  a cave located in a deep canyon.  They are captives but are not treated harshly;  they are under a sort of parole and can walk outside occasionally.   The chief and his  wife wear masks, but Victoria recognizes them anyway.  One day a traveler enters the cave dragging an abused lady with him.  The chief knows him and immediately sticks a knife in him and rescues lady who is his mother, her captor being the Count Ardolph.  She dies soon after and they discover that the Duke of Savoy is on the way with a band of troops to wipe out the bandits.  The chief, Leonardo, and his wife, Megalena, stab themselves and there's a huge earthquake which kills a lot of the bandits.  Zofloya grabs Victoria during the ruckus and takes her to another peak and reveals himself to be Satan, and laughing gleefully while the lightning rages with red light, he throws her over the cliff.

I have to say, regardless of the dated textual material and plot, that Ms. Dacre was a master of prose, in my opinion, anyway.  She had a very large vocabulary and really knew how to use it.  I felt shivers traversing my spine several times while reading some of the more horrifying episodes, in spite of the somewhat, or altogether, "Perils of Pauline" ambience.  She wrote in a time when ladies were not supposed to do that sort of thing, but not only made a success of it (she wrote other books, also), but carved out a path for other literarily inclined women to follow.  I don 't know if any academic studies have been made of her ouvre, but it would be fresh territory for some grad student to investigate...  

I should also say that the main gist of the book had to do with chains of circumstance:  how a single action (in this case, Laurina's decampment with Count Ardolph) led to a whole series of dire events and deaths, with both her daughter and son falling into undisciplined and baneful situations, not to mention Laurina's own demise.  Surely Ms. C meant all of this as an object lesson, but her perhaps overly pedantic purpose was alleviated by the beauty and effectiveness of her prose...  I should also add that the reason i got this book in the first place was that it was supposedly a favorite of Shelley's.  How or if it effected him and his complicated affairs with the opposite sex is open to question...


17 comments:

  1. I'm sorry but I laughed through your review. In a good way, of course! What drama! It's almost unbelievable. And I thought The Mysteries of Udolpho was extreme. It sounds like a fun read though, especially if Dacre's prose was so excellent. I'm going to keep an eye out for this one. Your review was riveting!

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    1. i'm delighted you liked it! i admit to trying to put a certain amount of humor into what was actually a pretty dour book. it was very well written, as i said, but ms. D sounded rather like a severe person, altho it's hard to tell... i would read another one of her books if i could find it but she's pretty obscure. i hope you and yours have a wonderful Christmas and that 21 goes better than 20.. how could it not?!!

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    2. I hope you and Mrs. M. have a wonderful Christmas too! I'm finding ways to celebrate in spite of our bizarre personal lockdown (you are not allowed to go near other people outside of your household on pain of neighbours turning one another in and stiff fines, however you can swarm like ants around Home Depot, Costco, etc.) 2021 just has to be better than 2020 but perhaps not for awhile. One wonders how it will all turn out.

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  2. I do not think that I had ever heard of Dacre before.

    This does sound fun.

    Cleo mentioned The Mysteries of Udolpho. It is interesting that I also though of that book when I was reading your commentary.

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    1. i read something about that when i was researching her but i don't recall exactly what it was... either she influenced Radcliffe or the other way around. there certainly are similarities between the two books although Dacre's has a definitely moral message and i don't remember Udolpho having that, just the baddy who owned the castle... and the picture...

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  3. Sounds a bit like modern life in some quarters. I am glad to know she helped other female authors. Also glad you were entertained.

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    1. you sound a bit dubious and i don't blame you, haha... a glimmering of understanding creating havoc in my brain pan: not everyone likes old lit like you, dummy! (meaning me, of course) and you're right, the problems, universal it seems, never go away, they just take advantage of the electronic age! i hope you'll have a wonderful Christmas and get to do whatever you want!

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  4. Quite the soap opera in plot and the many characters. And much like the operas at the time in its extreme melodrama. But I agree with you. It doesn't matter what the plot is about or what kind of characters are included. It all depends on the power of expression and writing of the author.

    I hope you and Mrs. Mudpuddle and your daughter and son have a peaceful, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

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    1. you're right, Sharon, it WAS soap opera-ish... i probably would have given up on it if the prose hadn't been so good. i really wonder why Shelley liked it so much: one of those questions that never will be answered, i guess.... tx so much for the card: very impressionistic and interesting! Merry Christmas to you and yours, also; i hope you get whatever you wish for!

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  5. I've been curious about this one for a while--I saw it in a used book store and didn't buy it (rare for me!) and then the next time I went it wasn't there. Now it seems I missed a good one. And Gutenberg seems to only have it in a French translation. I'll just have to keep my eye out for it to show up again!

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    1. i got my copy from Abebooks: it was pretty reasonable price, i forget, something below 10$ i think... if you can read it w/o getting depressed or too involved, i think you'd appreciate the writing, anyhow... i hope you all have a merry christmas season, where ever you are...

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    2. And Merry Christmas to you! Hope it's a good one despite all.

      No travels, of course, so we'll just be here in Toronto, eating cookies and singing carols off-key...

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    1. it WAS!! dramatic anyhow... it's interesting reading older prose and plots in that the reader can understand where a lot of the material for modern works comes from, including plot lines and sometimes even writing styles... i always imagine a white-haired old crankpot in a dimly lit attic with a goose quill for a pen, scribbling away with a fanatical light in his eyes...

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    2. That is an absolutely perfect image! And reading books like these are good reminders that were are not nearly as creative as we think we are, and that our stories are retellings from years and years and years ago. Scenery, gadgets, names might change, but plots and motive don't!

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    3. that's true i think... i've read somewhere that there are only a few basic plots in all fiction but that there's an infinite number of variations on those few themes... i guess i like to get a bit closer to the originals if possible...

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    4. I have read that also! It isn't really surprising I guess when you think about. No matter the genre, we all have he same basic needs. But how anyone reacts to those needs being or not being met can vary wildly.

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