What I like with Alexandre Dumas is that he’s easy to read, despite the facts that he’s clever, he always made historical researches (or had them done by Auguste Maquet?) for his historical novels or plays and had a good knowledge of men hearts, minds and behaviours. The only thing that he misses is the knowledge of women. Most of the time, and wouldn’t say all the time, because I like Alexandre Dumas; mostly, his female characters are secondary and only cute and kind. But, I don’t mind, I’m a weak reader in front of a great storyteller!
So it’s the first time I read The Black Tulip.
Interesting era in the background of the story, a hero who’s "only" a tulip-fancier, political intrigues, murders, jealousy, and love. The Black Tulip is deliciously rocambolesque (sorry, this word doesn’t seem to exist in English, it means fantastic, incredible, awesome?), it’s adventure, love, a story for the pleasure of stories, it’s Dumas!
Add to this passages which shows the great writer like:
Dumas, in a simple writing, explains us the progression of the thought of a jealous man. It’s perfectly thought and shown by Dumas in chapter six starting with this sentence:
"From that moment Boxtel’s interest in tulips was no longer a stimulus to his exertions, but a deadening anxiety. Henceforth all his thoughts ran only upon the injury which his neighbour would cause him, and thus his favourite occupation was changed into a constant source of misery to him."

But, what I liked also in The black Tulip was to recognize Dumas’ thoughts and personal life like:
He’s a man in a hurry who doesn’t have time to dwell on details and descriptions, example in chapter 6 :
"It might perhaps be interesting to explain to the gentle reader the beautiful chain of theories which go to prove that the tulip borrows its colors from the elements; perhaps we should give him pleasure if we were to maintain and establish that nothing is impossible for a florist who avails himself with judgment and discretion and patience of the sun’s heat, the clear water, the juices of the earth, and the cool breezes. But this is not a treatise upon tulips in general; it is the story of one particular tulip which we have undertaken to write, and to that we limit ourselves, however alluring the subject which is so closely allied to ours."
In a word, if you want to know more about tulips, do it by yourself, reader! This makes me smile!
I can also recognize Dumas in the great worker who’s Cornelius. Dumas travelled, had mistresses, gave parties, but he always worked a lot. He wrote his first play, Christine, as he already had a job as a secretary for the Duc d’Orléans to earn money for him and his mother, then, once he could live with his writings, he woke up early and organized his days around his work which was enormous.
I also recognize Dumas the hunter:
"Sometimes, whilst covering Van Baerle with his telescope, he deluded himself into a belief that he was levelling a never-failing musket at him; and then he would seek with his finger for the trigger to fire the shot which was to have killed his neighbour."
On chapter 7, here is Dumas the generous, the man who gave without counting, and here are some examples taken from his life:
One day, Dumas invited friends for dinner. One of them, a famous writer, Emile Bergerat, doesn’t know one of the guests and discreetly asks to Dumas’ son : "Who’s that man ?" Dumas’ son answers : "I don’t know, one of my father’s friends ? Ask him!" That’s what Emile does, and Alexandre Dumas answers: "I don’t know, one of my son’s friends, maybe, ask him!"
Another example, one day, as Dumas was in Florence, Italy, a German Priest knocked at his door and said: "You don’t know me. I’m just a simple Priest. My dream is to visit Roma. I’ve come all this way from Germany, thought I had spared enough money, but now I’m broke and I can’t reach Roma. Could you please lend me some money for my trip there and back to Germany?" And Alexandre Dumas gave him more that what he needed, pleased to help this man he didn’t know.

And on chapter 11, how brillant is the judges deliberation! And how, once again, in their conclusion, I find Alexandre Dumas and the little regard he has for the "little chiefs": those who are incapable of taking a decision by themselves, who always refer to a superior and hide behind orders, timidly. Dumas suffered, while working in the administration of the Duke of Orleans, several small chiefs and he doesn’t hold them in great esteem, just as he doesn’t hold in great estime the judges in this chapter 11.
And how I like Dumas’ humour! A little example in the last sentence of chapter 13:
"… in addition to having his clothes torn, his back bruised, and his hands scratched, he inflicted upon himself the further punishment of tearing out his hair by handfuls, as an offering to that goddess of envy who, as mythology teaches us, wears a head-dress of serpents."

And from chapter 16, Dumas plays with his characters Rosa and Cornelius to amuse us, readers, and it's a pleasure! Some says it’s easy romance? I answer, yes, maybe! But who doesn’t need a bit of love as light as a flower petal in his life? And think about that: Dumas wrote this novel when he was maybe 46 or 48? Isn’t it enviable to be able, when you have lived as much as the author to be as starry-eyed as a teenager, to allow yourself, although you’re a giant, to be romantic and young? I think it is and I think it’s the secret of the eternal youth!
Ah, Dumas, if I had been told that I would enjoy watching a flower grow, I wouldn't have believed it! There is so much in your simple tulip: love, suspense, jealousy, intrigue.
And Rosa! I apologize for having first thought she would be insignificant. It’s a beautiful woman character, who has great qualities: intelligence, psychology, finesse, strength. She leads the adventure as she leads Cornelius…
This poor Cornelius is prisoner for so many weeks. Alone at night in his cell, alone in his littel bed, he thinks of Rosa:
"…under Rosa’s eyes, is the mysterious flower, which lives, which expands, which opens, perhaps Rosa holds in this moment the stem of the tulip between her delicate fingers. Touch it gently, Rosa. Perhaps she touches with her lips its expanding chalice. Touch it cautiously, Rosa, your lips are burning. Yes, perhaps at this moment the two objects of my dearest love caress each other under the eye of Heaven."
Oh, Dumas, naughty boy!
Readers, don't tell me there aren't two degrees of reading!

Poor Cornelius who has such tragi-comic thoughts in chapter 28, it’s so fun!
"…But suppose I should waste ten years of my life in making a file to file off my bars, or in braiding cords to let myself down from the window, or in sticking wings on my shoulders to fly, like Dædalus? But luck is against me now. The file would get dull, the rope would break, or my wings would melt in the sun; I should surely kill myself, I should be picked up maimed and crippled; I should be labelled, and put on exhibition in the museum at the Hague between the blood-stained doublet of William the Taciturn and the female walrus captured at Stavesen, and the only result of my enterprise will have been to procure me a place among the curiosities of Holland."

This novel, which may seem light, also has its well thought-out sentences:
"He was one of those choice spirits who abhor everything that is common, and who often lose a good chance through not taking the way of the vulgar, that high road of mediocrity which leads to everything."

And throughout the book, Dumas accompanies us, with his false modesty of good giant who has nothing more to prove, as in this sentence, for example:
"This … scene which we have tried ― with poor success, no doubt ― to present to the eyes of the reader."
Doesn’t he mean: Please, reader, tell me I’m the best!
And I find it delicious to hear the voice of Dumas two centuries apart!
And I tell him: Dear master, come and speak to my ear again and again.

چنان از جای‌جای قصه و قصه‌گویی و شخصیت‌پردازی و همه‌چیش زیبایی می‌تراوید که واسه اولین بار بعد بیست سال باز دلم خواست برم تو قصه‌مصه زندگی کنم؛ گویی شونزده سالمه باز.

"Laleaua neagră" prezintă punctele slabe ale societăţii olandeze din secolul XVII, mai precis, ale anului 1672, când în Olanda -după cum istoria grăieşte- au avut loc manifestaţii ce priveau oscilaţia între simpatia populară pentru monarhie şi cea pentru caracterul republican al statului (aşa cum era el înţeles în epoca respectivă). Mă rog, acesta e fundalul pe care se desfăşoară acţiunea operei.
Romanul are un caracter romantic în cel mai pur sens al acestui curent, fiind prezente antitezele vădit profunde, iubirea platonică, "personajele excepţionale în situaţii excepţionale" şi -cum am precizat mai sus- orientarea spre istorie.
Având în vedere faptul că Dumas nu e Dostoievski (şi nici Franţa nu e Rusia!), e de la sine înţeles că acţiunea porneşte dintr-un cerc aristocratic. Totuşi, ea nu rămâne fixată acolo, ci se răsfrânge şi asupra "plebei".
"Laleaua neagră" -oximoronul din titlu, poetic vorbind- este simbolul în jurul căruia au loc întâmplările, simbolul care uneşte destinele a două personaje excepţionale: Roza şi Cornelius.
Caracterul reprezentantei sexului frumos este unul candid, pur în lipsa lui de educaţie (nu de puţine ori educaţia îi face pe oameni mai mult răi decât buni), fiind, de asemenea, de o frumuseţe excepţională. Cornelius are două pasiuni mistuitoare: Roza şi laleaua neagră ("Să ucidă un om mai merge! Dar să ucizi o lalea este în ochiul unui adevărat tulipier o crimă atât de înspăimântătoare!").
În fapt, "Laleaua neagră" este un roman care anunţă -pueril, se-nţelege- opera ce avea să apară 12 ani mai târziu, opera compatriotului lui Dumas: "Mizerabilii".


"Nimic nu e mai neplăcut pentru oamenii furioşi, decât indiferenţă acelora contra cărora urmează să-şi descarce furia."

"Zelosul tulipier nu înţelegea tot ce se ascunde sub valul acestei indiferenţe a sărmanei copile care se simţea mereu rivală cu laleaua neagră."

Replică-prolog pusă în gură unui anumit Grotius: "Unii oameni suferă destul de mult pentru a avea dreptul să nu spună niciodată: Sunt foarte fericit."

P.S.1: A nu se privi orientările politice ale autorului în acest roman. Tind să cred că a redat adevărul istoric, din moment ce prezista "relele" monarhiei şi ale republicii deopotrivă, insistând, e drept, pe greutatea celor dintâi.
P.S.2: Nu ştiu cine Dumnezeu sunt domnii de la editura REGIS GRUP şi cine e acest aşa-zis traducător Lazăr Marcu, dar au dat-o în bară uraaaat de tot. Cred că şi google translate ar fi tradus mai bine opera din franceză. Eu unul, nici dacă voiam să concep un exerciţiu pentru copiii de la primară, cerându-le să corecteze un text scris greşit, n-aş fi dat dovadă de atâta "ingeniozitate".

Andrei Tamaş,
13 februarie 2016

3.5 stars

The Christmas season is for classics, I decided a couple of years back. There is enough else going on that I want to be assured that my book is going to be satisfying on some level, and ideally not too challenging.

This was perfect for that. An adventure of love, betrayal and tulip obsession, it begins with a hair-raising double murder in 17th century The Hague, moves swiftly on to the corrosive jealousy of a mediocre tulip grower and the machinations of our hero (a great tulip grower) and a beautiful jailor's daughter to make the dreamed-of black tulip grow.

The romance was, well, extremely silly (though somewhat charmingly contains an angle on the importance of literacy), and my favourite bits were the early chapters, but this was nonetheless a rollicking Christmas read and a nice window into the Netherlands.

A novel of tulips and how they inspired love, jealousy, hatred, devotion, and great sums of money in seventeenth century Holland.

Through a miscarriage of justice, our main characters Cornelius and Rosa are brought together under difficult conditions and strike up a friendship that sees their quest to "create" a black tulip become central to their relationship. It also leads them into danger from unexpected quarters.

It's a super story that I very much enjoyed.

2.8 stars

لاله سیاه، به معرفی بخشی از تاریخ هلند در قرن ۱۷ که زیر سلطه کشور پرتقال بود می پردازد
در این اثر "لاله سیاه " نماد عشق به وطن و میهن پرستی است و عشق میان کرنلیوز و رزا ، عشقی انسانی
الکساندر دوما در این اثر به بلوغ رفتاری و احساسی انسان هایی اشاره می کند که حب به میهن و وطن را در کنار صداقت و عشق به هم نوع در بالاترین وجه خود دارند
رزا برای تعهد و مسئولیتی که احساس می کند خود را در شرایط سخت و وحشتناکی قرار می دهد... اتهامی که اگر ثابت می شد به قیمت جانش تمام می شد اما تعهدی که به کرنلیوس که پرورش دهنده لاله سیاه بود و عشقی که نسبت به او داشت سبب شد تا تمام مصایب و دشواری ها را به جان بخرد تا هم عشق و علاقه اش را به کرنلیوس اثبات کند و هم به وطنش( گل لاله)

"حق السعادة هو: لمن قاسى الكثير" عبارة ختمت بها رواية الزنبقة السوداء للكاتب الفرنسي الكسندر دوماس
رواية جميلة جدا تحتوي أحداث مليئة بالسعادة وأيضاً مليئة بالأحداث الثاريخية

I'll read it again, when my english become better.
Thanks my school library for this simple novel.

Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) is known for his historical novels. The most famous are set in France: n  The Count of Monte Criston and n  The Three Musketeersn. For The Black Tulip, published in 1850, Dumas looked north: the story is set in 1672 in Holland, the western part of the Netherlands. This year is known in Dutch history as the ‘n  Rampjaarn’ (Year of Disaster), during which the Republic was at war with England, France and two German principalities and came close to being overrun. Despite their successful politics, Grand Pensionary (raadpensionaris) Johan de Witt and his brother Cornelis were blamed for the misery and lynched by an angry mob that favoured Stadholder William III (who would also become king of England in 1689).

Embedded in this historical context, Dumas creates a fictional story around tulip grower Cornelius van Baerle, godson of Cornelis de Witt. At the height of the Tulip mania, Cornelius is about to win a prestigious prize with his cultivated black tulip when his jealous neighbour Isaac turns him in to the authorities. Sent to prison for alleged treason, Cornelius fights for his life, love and reputation.

Dumas does not always stick to the facts. He shifts the Tulip mania (which occurred in the 1630s) back by half a century and confuses William III with William the Silent. A bigger drawback is that his characters remain superficial; Isaac, in particular, seems somewhat cartoonish. Then again, The Black Tulip is yet another exciting adventure. I appreciated how Dumas honours the 17th century love for flowers, especially tulips, as reflections of God and beauty. The disgraceful murder of the De Witt brothers also painfully illustrates how history repeats itself, particularly in relation to the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. Altogether, it was a pleasure to read this novel while on holiday in the Netherlands.

È una storia d’amore e, in effetti, di spionaggio industriale. Cornelius van Baerle, figlio di un ricco capitalista dell’Aia, non segue la carriera di famiglia. Il suo interesse è la placida mania dei tulipani, di cui scopre o inventa tipi sempre nuovi su cui investe cifre colossali. La sua ambizione più alta è di riuscire a selezionare il re dei tulipani, l’impossibile tulipano nero. La città offre, per chi riuscirà nell’impresa, il premio favoloso di centomila fiorini. Cornelius è sul punto di arrivarci ma un suo concorrente, il laido e invidioso Boxtel, per riuscire a impadronirsi dei bulbi sperimentali, lo accusa falsamente.

Questo è un romanzo storico, è un racconto di complotti, di spionaggio, di ingiustizie, di violenza, di politica, d'invidia. Ma soprattutto è un racconto d'amore, l'amore (corrisposto) di un prigioniero per la sua carceriera, l'amore per i tulipani, che per qualcuno valgono ben piú di un fiore!
Quando ho iniziato questa lettura non sapevo bene cosa aspettarmi, pensavo alle vicende della famosa Stella della Senna, del cartone animato che appunto si intitolava "il tulipano nero"...invece qui l'unica eroina è la bella Rosa, ma non ha né maschera né mantello, solo le sue trecce bionde della Frisia, il suo amore e tanto coraggio.
Una storia originale, corredata da note a piè pagina che spiegano ogni personaggio storico ed ogni vicenda realmente accaduta che viene menzionata nel testo

In 1672, Cornelius and Johan de Witt, brothers and prominent citizens of Holland were charged with treason and sentenced to exile. Cornelius had been tortured in the hope that he would confess to plotting with the French king, but he said not a word. He was guilty but he was safe in the knowledge that the evidence was safely hidden.

His silence did not save them. The authorities, and William of Orange in particular, wanted rid of the troublesome pair and so they manipulated the situation. The two brothers were lynched by an angry mob early on their journey to their place of exile.

The opening chapters of the story were a little more difficult to follow than I had expected, but I kept going because it was Dumas, because I understood that this was real history, because I knew there would be tulips, because I had read much that was positive about this book, and because I’d had in mind for my 100 Years of Books for quite some time.

I’m glad that I did.

‘Contempt for flowers is an offence against God. The lovelier the flower, the greater the offence in despising it. The tulip is the loveliest of all flowers. So whoever despised the tulip offends God immeasurably.’

The story moves to Cornelius van Baerle, a wealthy young man who lived quietly in the country and devoted his life to his tulips. He studied them, so that he could grow the very best flowers and develop new varieties. When the Haarlem Tulip Society offered a prize for the first black tulip presented to them, Cornelius set to work. Not for the prize, not for the glory, but for the chance to introduce such a flower into the world.

He didn’t know that his neighbour, Isaac Boxtel, had the same ambition; or that his motives were self-serving and that he was prepared to go to any lengths to win and to ensure that his neighbour did not.

Cornelius van Baerle was the godson of Cornelius de Witt, but he had followed his father’s advice to steer clear of politics; and that may be why when his godfather asked him to be the custodian of a packet of letters he accepted readily and put it away safely.

His neighbour didn’t know that, but he had seen the visitor and when he heard the news of the murders he denounced his rival to his authorities. The packet was discovered just where Cornelius had put it, and his protestations that he had no knowledge of the contents were greeted with disbelief. He had just enough time to hide his three black tulip bulbs in his clothing before he was taken to the same prison where his godfather had been held.

Rosa, the beautiful and spirited daughter of Gryphus, his brutal jailor, came to love Cornelius. She feared that he loved tulips more than her, but she loved him more than enough to do everything she could to help him to grow his black tulip in secret. He did love her, but he knew that his future was uncertain and so he was unwilling to say or do anything that would confirm his feelings.

Neither of them knew that Boxtel was close at hand, plotting and scheming to capture the bulbs.

Cornelius knew that he might not live long enough to see his black tulip flower.

'He thought of the beautiful tulips which he would see from heaven above, at Ceylon, or Bengal, or elsewhere, when he would be able to look with pity on this earth, where John and Cornelius de Witt had been murdered for having thought too much of politics, and where Cornelius van Baerle was about to be murdered for having thought too much of tulips.'

The story that plays out is captivating, it is wonderfully readable, and this short novel holds a great deal more than most other books with similar proportions. Every character, every incident, every dialogue, has its purpose; and the plot, a lovely fiction spun around real history, is very well built by a very fine craftsman.

There are echoes of his other work, it is recognisably his work, but it is also quite distinctive.

There is a beautifully handled romance, there is wonderful suspense and intrigue, there is a nice dash of comedy, and there is a race to present the black tulip that leaves the outcome for all concerned in doubt to the very end.

The conclusion ties all of the plot strands together, and a little glimpse of what the future held was a lovely final touch.

Definately liked it better than I did 14 years ago. I actually preferred this one over Dumas' The Three Musketeers, but possibly only because I was not as dissapointed in this one as I was in the latter.