Southern Lady Reads (Crazy Busy-Will Catch Up!)'s Reviews > The Lady of the Camellias

I’ve decided to make it a goal to read one classic a month in 2023, and I’m glad I decided to really dig into ‘The Lady of the Camellias’! A book that you absolutely should get lost in the minutiae of. If I showed you my weathered and beaten copy from being in my backpack for so many weeks you wouldn’t believe the number of tabs and highlights throughout the pages. Not a romance novel.. but not not a romance novel..? I truly think we can classify this classic as a study of romantic behavior.

P.S. It’s hard to really rate classics IMO, so I’m rating this one purely on how much I enjoyed it and how much I connected to the characters!

A SHORT PREVIEW:
At its core, ‘The Lady of the Camellias’ (TLOTC) is the story of an all too self-aware but vapid Parisian courtesan being loved by a man who alternates between wanting to possess her and obsessing over her. We’re thrown into the world of beautiful people with too much money and masochistic tendencies finding out what attraction really means beyond the ennui of daily life.

THOUGHTS:
- When it comes to the classics, I think everyone is going to pick out the parts that are the most meaningful to them and what makes these tales truly ‘classic’. However, there are some ideas and elements that particularly stuck out to me as good life lessons and studies in human behavior.
- The first lesson that I picked up from TLOTC – pay attention to how people treat others in life and then posthumously. Very early into the book, it was probably the first time I’ve really seen a book of old talk about it. Everyone now kind of throws shade and put’s things out there as soon as they notice it… but there is an elegance to Alexandre Dumas’s 19th-century version of calling people out for what is essentially ‘busybodying’.
- People that we think are one thing in life, that the world has placed in one very limited box, are often far more complex. No one is ‘just’ an electrician, a teacher, or even a courtesan. They have a whole world going on inside that’d maybe good, interesting, noble etc. that we know nothing about. It’s always been far too easy to label people in polite society as one-dimensional without ever knowing what really makes them – them. In the case of Margeurite, she had more nobility in her actions than probably most realized, but that was often overlooked because of what she was.

CHARACTER BUILDING:
- Marguerite Gautier: Made out to initially be such a vapid creature of whimsical wants and a peculiar affection for camellias.. I found that there was so much more to her motivations beyond that vain mask. Her character is perhaps the first time I’ve read a woman’s character be so openly critical of the way men interact with women they want to possess. She also speaks with far more intelligence than I think we’re led to believe a courtesan normally would?
- Armand: Really, he is probably one of the silliest MMC’s I’ve ever read about. So many of his motivations just seem like what we would call today ‘simping’ lol I can find no better way to describe it. (Most certainly not my kind of man.. I’m more of a Rhysand from ACOTAR, Mr.Darcy, Thor from the first two movies kind of gal!!)
- Alexandre Dumas: Sometimes I forgot that he wrote this novel while also included himself in the tale. His character throughout presents an interesting study in the role we see ourselves playing in the lives of others? He cast himself as a fairy godmother/angel of mercy type which I find interesting. Obviously we don’t know how much of this story is true..

HISTORICAL NOTES:
The woman in the novel Marguerite is based on a real-life figure: Marie Duplessis, who was a courtesan in Paris in the 19th century. This work inspired operas and movies alike, many of which are famous today! La Traviata by Verde (which means ‘The Fallen Woman’ in Italian), the musical Moulin Rouge! and many other movies.

FAVORITE QUOTE(s):
There really are SO many that I think it’s best if I limit it to 3 of my favorites and then have you read it! 🖤
- “he [God] had permitted her to die in luxury and beauty, before old age set in, that first death of courtesans.”
- ‘…the sort of witticisms that a certain segment of society finds charming but will always sully the mouth of the person who speaks them…’
- ‘Any man of twenty-five may achieve the victory of making her [a young virginal woman] fall in love with him whenever he wishes. To see the truth of this, just look at how they surround young girls with surveillance and ramparts!....But to be truly loved by a courtesan, that is a much harder won victory.’

NOTES:
- TWs: This book is based on the life of a courtesan.. which is a fancy word for upscale pr0stitute.
- Setting: Paris, France in the 19th century
- Feminist Read: Explores a woman’s worth beyond titles and roles allowed to them in this time period. Remember that this is before Marie Curie was even allowed to attend university, even though she was absolutely brilliant before women were allowed to vote in many Western societies, and only just a little before women were even allowed to divorce their god-awful husbands!