The Betrothed

Rating:
Summary: One of the very greatest historical novels ever written
Review: Allesandro Manzoni's THE BETROTHED is rightfully considered one of the great novels in Italian history, if not the greatest. It is also one of the greatest historical novels ever written. Manzoni magnificently blends together a score of memorable characters with a string of vividly rendered historical events to provide an epic story of frustrated lovers in Italy during the Thirty Years Wars in the early 17th century when the state of Milan was occupied by the Spanish Habsburgs. The result is a great story placed against the background of a turbulent period in Italian history. The choice of that period of time is fascinating in itself. Instead of dealing with one of the more glorious periods of Italian history, such as the 15th or 16th centuries, Manzoni chose the relatively undistinguished 17th, during a time when much of Italy suffered under foreign rule, while many of the other city states were in a period of decline.

Few novels that I know deal with historical topics as magnificently as this one. One has to go to a writer like Tolstoy to find scenes as memorable as the tremendous scene in the Lazaretto in which Fra Cristoforo admonishes Renzo for his desire for revenge, with thousands of people dying of the plague surrounding them. Nearly as powerful is Manzoni's masterful depiction of the bread riots in Milan or the way he describes the progress of the German army in its passage through the region on its way to Mantua. Although one hardly reads the novel for the history lessons it provides, one learns an unusually large amount.

I am a bit perplexed as the criticism that the novel contains too much in the way of Christian redemption in the latter part of the novel. Of course it does. As much as an historical novel, THE BETROTHED is a religious novel, in which Manzoni in his own way tries to justify the ways of God to men. If one compares the novel to the historical works of someone like Hugo or other French historical novelists, one will be struck by the sharp divergence in the depiction of the Church and the clergy. In France, an anti-clericalism characterizes many or most of the novels. Manzoni is much more balanced. Some of his religious figures, such as the Nun of Moanza or the Lecco parish priest, are either ridiculous or treacherous, but by and large the great heroes in his book are either monks (Fra Cristoforo), clerics (the Cardinal), or converts (the Unnamed). The theme of the novel is a religious one: "All things work together for good for those that love God." Given the central theme of the novel, the religious themes are not an unwanted accretion, added on arbitrarily by an author otherwise summoning up a tremendous yarn, but integral to the novel as a whole. To dampen or eliminate the religious themes would have been to make it into another novel entirely.

Most of all, THE BETROTHED is just a flat out great story. Separated lovers, devious villains, mysterious figures: who wouldn't fall for all this? Manzoni is a masterful storyteller, and frequently one is left with a powerful impatience to know what is going to happen next. Anyone looking for a great novel could hardly hope to do better than this great masterpiece.

Rating:
Summary: great
Review: Anyone who finds the christian love and redemptio to be offesnive needs to have their head examined.

Rating:
Summary: A monument to what stays and changes in time
Review: As an italian reader I was compelled to read the book during my school classes and, quite naturally, did not come to appreciate it at that time. Since then I have read the book quite a few times and I am going to read it once again soon. The plot is the universal one of the difficulty of the poor and weak to resist the rich and evil, and of the powerful force - be it faith, God, hope, kamma or whatever - that helps in this apparently impossible task. In the drama that force takes the part of war, plague, a saint, a restless villain, a corrupted nun and much more. The story takes all these characters all around seventeen century norther Italy but presents a methaphor for what happens in all part of the world at any time.

Rating:
Summary: Pathetical and boring
Review: During the "Liceo" period of study, italian students are FORCED to read this book and to consider it a masterpiece not only of italian but even mondial literature. Well, if you've read the real masterpieces(Shakspeare,Proust,Dostoyewsky) this book will go directly into your waste basket.

Rating:
Summary: great
Review: Having just finished war and peace, I wondered would could possibly be better? Then, on hearing that "the betrothed" was of equal merit as a historical novel, i gave it a test drive. Like Tolstoy, Manzoni is a master of detail and character. Not only is this an enthralling story and a good record of an very turbulent period of Italy's past, but is also deeply religious. I find myself left breathless after just about each chapter. Reading "I Promessi Esposi" makes me proud to be catholic. this book awoke me from my dogmatic slumber. Now I know that Faith is jsut as important as reason.
I would say this kind of book should be required reading in high school, but it's to good for that.

Rating:
Summary: amazing
Review: Having just finished war and peace, I wondered would could possibly be better? Then, on hearing that "the betrothed" was of equal merit as a historical novel, i gave it a test drive. Like Tolstoy, Manzoni is a master of detail and character. Not only is this an enthralling story and a good record of an very turbulent period of Italy's past, but is also deeply religious. I find myself left breathless after just about each chapter. Reading "I Promessi Esposi" makes me proud to be catholic. this book awoke me from my dogmatic slumber. Now I know that Faith is jsut as important as reason.
I would say this kind of book should be required reading in high school, but it's to good for that.

Rating:
Summary: The Betrothed- A worthy read, or refuse???
Review: hello. I'm an advanced dilusionary scitzophrenic padantic twelve year-old, with involuntary narccassitc rage who makes aged people feel stupid. Just kidding. The Betrothed can be considered a reasonably good book, or a complete waste of time where Manzoni just displays his knowledge of obscure 17th century historians to attempt to impress us with his bombastic, pretentious, precocious, and padantic prose. However, at least this version of his magnum opus is good, wiht a reasonably good introduction. The overall story is interesting, however, at one point, Manzoni talks about the plauge in Milan and obsure historians for around 150 pages. These pages do not relate to the stroy at all. My advice is to skip them all together, i made the mistake of reading through them. Anyway the overall gist of the story is this... and i quote, "At the center of this turmoil (the turmoil being the suffering that is caused by tyranny in any form)are Renzo and Lucia, who end up having to flee from the villainous Don Rodrigo. They are separated and each faces many dangers-violent riots, famine and plauge-until they are reunited again. They also encounter a variety of people along their adventures: the Nun of Monza, whose strange manner hides a disturbing tale;Father Cristoforo, a man with a violent past and a passion for justice; and the Unnamed, the supreme tyrant." The Betrothed is fairly good and i would reccomend it if you have time to kill, but not for fun neccesarily, this is soley because it is 720 pages...However, if you can manage to get through it all, its quite worthwhile. Yet, i could understand if one did not enjoy the book, or put it down whilst in the middle of reading and debunking it. In conclusion, I reccomend the Betrothed, buteven if you don't like it, its worthwhile to buy it because it will be a good source of toilet paper to last you through about 3 years.

Rating:
Summary: Music Drama
Review: I recently read this book upon the recommendation of my Italian teacher. I agree with most of the reviews here that it is a masterpiece of sorts. It's a whirling panorama of life in seventeenth- century Italy--famine, plague, riots, and Spanish occupation. The story is melodramatic but so is much of Dickens. While I was reading it, I thought that it would make a compelling grand opera; I kept hearing the overture of Verdi's La Forza del Destino playing along in my mind. It's a mystery why Verdi, who revered Manzoni and dedicated his requiem mass to him, never attempted to dramatize this work. The two seem tailor-made for each other.

My only major criticisms with Manzoni's magnum opus would be with the way he introduces fascinating characters, such as the Nun of Monza and Father Cristoforo, who would themselves be suitable subjects for novelistic treatment, and then whisks them away never to be heard from again for hundreds of pages. The Nun of Monza's fate is relayed in a couple of sentences. And the hero and heroine, Renzo and Lucia, are rather conventional in comparison, less complex, less multilayered, than some of the other characters. But nineteenth-century literary conventions would normally put such types at the center of the action anyway, so one can't really fault Manzoni for basically following fashion. (And this defect would not have made mattered so much in an operatic form where the music takes over much of the dramatization.)

Another point of contention: the heavy air of Christian redemption and piety that hangs over the latter portions of the novel in which formerly evil characters reform their wicked ways and find God. It can be a rather thick and gooey mess for a modern reader unused to all this sanctimoniousness; in its own way, it's as offensive as Dickens' sickly sweet, masochistic, prolonged dwelling over the death of Little Nell.

Overall, Manzoni's inspiration is erratic and he doesn't always concentrate on the aspects of the story that I would have liked. This may be because he's more of an instinctual artist than a thinking one, like Stendhal, whose Charterhouse of Parma, bridging the gap between thought and feeling, makes an interesting comparison in its portrait of nineteenth-century Italy. I would also agree with one of the reviews below: Manzoni is clearly not Shakespeare or Dostoyevsky. His writing lacks the unity of conception, the inexplicable greatness that makes the works of Shakespeare and Dostoyevsky so powerful, so relevant to all humanity. Nevertheless, this is a vital, important work in Italian letters and useful as a document of seventeenth-century Italian history.

Rating:
Summary: The Italian Novel
Review: I would like to spend some words for people living in the States...this is our most admired novel and loved too. If you want to have a trip in italian literature and language start reading this.. well it's always worth starting from the best

Rating:
Summary: THE masterpiece of Italian literature, for good reason
Review: Manzoni's The Betrothed (I Promessi Sposi) is generally considered to be the greatest Italian novel of all time. I read it aloud to my 9-year-old daughter and we were both enthralled. It is set in the environs of Milan in the early 17th century (it was written in the 18th century). The framing story concerns young lovers whose marriage is thwarted by a local nobelman/ petty tyrant in order to win a bet. Subordinate stories range from political, economic and biographical analyses of the times to a vivid, eye-opening description of a plague outbreak and the official denial that exacerbated it. Penman's English translation is superb.