رواية فيها كثير من الرقة الوصف و المشاعر تميل إلا الخيال .. تذكرني بقصص سندريلا و سنو وايت ..قصة حب بين مسجون و ابنة السجان

“To despise flowers is to offend God. The more beautiful the flower is, the more does one offend God in despising it. The tulip is the most beautiful of all flowers. Therefore, he who despises the tulip offends God beyond measure.”

I really liked this book, my first by this author but romance isn't particularly my genre if choice ....

Our hero is Cornelius, god son of the brutally murdered (and eaten!) political prisoner Cornelius De Witt and his brother Johan.I have looked into this and Dumas has been fairly accurate in his telling of this. His love interest is mainly his 3 tulip offsets (bulbs) which he has managed to get into prison with him and Rosa the jailers beautiful daughter.
Lots of very lucky coincidences, an evil villain, a really contrived denouement but still I would give it 3.5 *
One thing I noted was that Dumas like Victor Hugo in Les Miserables uses the device of 'direct address' where he speaks directly to the reader, often warning what's about to happen. This really involves the reader in the story, like it's being told just for you.
So all in all good but not great. I will read more Dumas sometime but hoping for less romance and more substance.

3.5

It has been a long time since I've read anything from Alexandre Dumas and so I was looking forward to this novel. 

The Black Tulip takes place in Holland, not France, and is on a much smaller scale than expected. Dumas usually paints on a huge canvas but not this time. The first few chapters do deal with exploding events, but very soon, the narration zooms in on the burgeoning love between an obsessed tulip grower and a courageous and intelligent girl, and a mythical flower. 

I loved the language, often over the top, extoling the obsession felt by so many characters over the Black Tulip, and the mocking tone of the narration. The couple is endearing but it is Rosa who shines through the whole story. Some plot choices towards the end felt jarring (to me) but apart from this I did enjoy this simple tale. It has whetted my appetite for more from Dumas.

”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.”

In 1672 two brothers Cornelius and Johan de Witt (Grand Pensionary/prime minister of Holland) were charged with treason and sentenced to exile. Cornelis had been tortured with the hope that he would confess to plotting with the French king.

He did not.

He had corresponded with the French King, but those letters had been safely deposited with his godson Cornelius van Baerle. This evidence, if obtained, would have insured a frog march to the executioner and a swift separation of their heads from their bodies.

If only they had been so lucky.

The mob, you know those people that we buy our fruit, our clothes, our meat from, who build our cabinetry, customize our clogs, and bake our bread, were unhappy with the verdict of exile. They wanted...blood. With a bit of sinister machination by a rather villainous depiction of William of Orange the mob gets their chance at the very moment the brothers are attempting to comply with their sentencing.

n  n
The Mob. Image from the Folio Society edition.

”And everyone wanted to strike a blow with a hammer, a sword or a knife, everyone wanted to have his drop of blood and tear off his scrap of clothing.
When the two bodies were thoroughly beaten, thoroughly dismembered, and thoroughly stripped, the mob dragged them naked and bleeding, to an improvised gibbet, where amateur executioners hung them up by the feet.”

Meanwhile our hero, Cornelius van Baerle, continues to pursue what he loves best, growing tulips. He has a genius for it. He grafts, mulches, and cultivates his bulbs with the same precision as a master violinist moves his bow across the strings. The science of tulips is his to command. When the tulip society offers a 100,000 guilder reward for the first gardener to create an unblemished black tulip Cornelius is elated not for a chance to win the money, but for the challenge of creating the perfect black tulip.

Little does Cornelius know, but he has a nemesis, one too close for comfort. In fact Mynheer Isaac Boxtel lives right next door. He was once a well respected gardener, but since his rich neighbor van Baerle decided to take up the challenge of raising tulips his own gardens have been neglected. He has no time to garden for all of his spare moments are spent with a telescope to his eye watching every movement of his illustrious neighbor. He gnashes his teeth and pulls his hair with every breakthrough that Cornelius achieves with each new specimen of tulip excellence.

n  n
Boxtel enraged. Image from the Folio Society edition

”How many times, in the midst of these torments--which no words can convey--had Boxtel not been tempted to leap into the garden by night and ravage the plants, devouring the bulbs with his teeth and even sacrificing the owner himself to his fury if the man should dare to defend his tulips!
But to kill a tulip, in the eyes of a true gardener, is such a ghastly crime (while to kill a man--well, perhaps…)Yet thanks to the progress that van Baerle was making daily in an art that he seemed to be acquiring by instinct, Boxtel was driven to such a paroxysm of rage that he considered throwing sticks and stones into his neighbour’s tulip beds.”

Boxtel becomes the source of much misery for van Baerle for that telescope revealed much more than secrets about tulips.

Cornelius is arrested and evades a similar fate as his uncles when a last second (sword in the air ready to descend) reprieve arrives. His sentence is commuted to life imprisonment. When he was arrested he had time only to grab three offsets of a bulb that he believes will produce the perfect black tulip. As unlikely as it seems, given the dank, despairing environment of prison, he meets an angel in the form of Rosa the daughter of the brutish jailer Gryphus. She becomes his confidant, his reason to continue living, and the protector of his greatest creation.

n  n
Rosa and yes that is Boxtel lurking in the shadows. Image from the Folio Society edition.

”As the rail of the staircase creaked under the prisoner’s heavy hand, the girl half opened the small door of a room which she inhabited in the very wall of the staircase. Holding a lamp in her right hand, she at the same time lit up her delightful pink face, framed in splendid locks of thick blonde hair, while with her left hand she drew her white nightdress across her breast.

It was love at first sight. If Boxtel hadn’t in a fit of jealous, depraved behavior perpetrated a plan to destroy his enemy, Cornelius would have never met the love of his life.

*Sigh*

“Sometimes one has suffered enough to have the right to never say: I am too happy.”

Now the plot revolves around the fate of three tulip offsets and Boxtel’s nefarious attempts to steal them. Rosa is thrust into the maelstrom of tulip craziness not seen since the crash of the tulip market back in 1637. She loves Cornelius, but can not be certain if his love for her eclipses his love for his tulips. I would love to tell you more, but I don’t want to take any chances of imperiling the enjoyment of discovery each of you will experience when you follow this plot to it’s frenzied conclusion. One danger you will not be able to avoid is the sudden desire to obtain and plant the most dazzling display of tulips that can be concocted from the twisted minds of those brilliant Dutch gardeners. Enjoy!

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Letzter Streich des Erfolgsduos Dumas/Maquet auf den der anschließende Urheberrechtsprozess um Monte-Christo, Musketiere und Co schon seine Schatten voraus wirft. Denn es geht um geniales Schöpfertum und Diebstahl durch einen minder begabten, missgünstigen Nachbarn, der vor nichts zurück schreckt, um den in jeder Hinsicht begüngstigteren Cornelius van Baerle um alles zu bringen.
Dabei gerät der fanatische Tulpenzüchter eher unfreiwillig in die politischen Händel, da er nichtsahnend den Briefwechsel der beiden De Witts mit dem französichen Minister Louvois aufbewahrt, die geheime Friedensverhandlungen mit dem Hof des Kriegsgegners Ludwig XIV. belegen.
Der neidische Isaak Boxtel spioniert seinen Nachbarn regelmäßig mit dem Teleskop aus, zumal sich beide am Wettbewerb um die schwarze Tulpe bewerben, die mit 100.000 Gulden dotiert ist. Als Isaak bemerkt, dass sein Rivale nahe am Ziel ist, zieht er die Denunziationskarte und will sich die Zwiebeln vom Enthaupteten holen, doch Wilhelm von Oranien lässt am zweitklassigen Staatsfeind Gnade walten und verhängt lebenslängliche Haft. Als Todgeweihter gewinnt Cornelius die Gunst von Kerkermeisters Töchterlein und vermacht ihr die drei Zwiebeln, Rosa sorgt für die Versetzung ihres Vaters ins neue Gefängnis und es beginnt eine Ménage à trois zwischen Cornelius, Rosa und der Zwiebel, die so etwas wie das Kind darstellt. Gefängniswärter Gryphius wittert hinter der heimlichen Zellenzucht eine Verschwörung und zertritt die erste schwarze Tulpe, Töchterlein Rosa hat die zweite in der eigenen Schlafkammer durchgebracht, ist aber schwer eifersüchtig auf die Vorliebe Cs, dessen denunziatorischer Rivale ihr auf der Jagd nach der 100.000 Gulden-Zwiebel unter falschem Namen den Hof macht, ehe er mit der preiswürdigen Tulpe entkommt.
Natürlich gibt es einen Showdown mit irdischer und himmlischer Gerechtigkeit, doch leider ist die Geschichte mindestens drei mal zu lang, bzw. liest sich so spannend wie die schwächeren Momente aus den späteren Musketier-Romanen. Etwa die Liebeshändel am Hof von Ludwig XIV., die in deutschen Übersetzungen weitgehend fehlen, bzw. hektarweise vor der Übertragungsarbeit abgeholzt wurden, um die Leser nicht zu langweilen. Von daher: guter Plot mit ausreichend Konfliktpotenzial und Liebeshandlung, aber schwacher Umsetzung. Die verhältnismäßig vielen 5-Sterne-Rezis gehen wohl auf das Konto von ausgewiesenen Blumenfreunden und leidenschaftlichen Gärtnerinnen.

I can't believe it's been over 5 years since my last Dumas novel.

Dumas is all about plot, forget characterization. His characters are all 2-dimensional but it's that plot! As I can only read translations, I shouldn't comment on writing style. However, what I read is typical 19th Century: longer, more complex sentences than even 20th Century writing and dialogue that conveys the thought adequately (but did people really talk that way?).

Where Dumas shines is in his writing of realistic scenes. This opens with a mob scene - I could almost hear the people shouting. This is followed by scenes at a rural home with large gardens and what we call greenhouses - beautiful. Later there are scenes in a prison where those scenes are quiet with the people whispering. All of these are so well depicted as to think Dumas was intentionally helping future screenwriters. As this was originally published in 1850, we can be confident he wasn't even thinking of his novels being adapted to film.

This is not quite up to the standards of his The Count of Monte Cristo, but it is very good. I'm glad I have another Dumas in my near future and I can only hope it is at least as good as this, worth a strong 4 stars.

Note: I did not read this edition, but the one in Premium Collection - 27 Novels in One Volume: The Three Musketeers Series, The Marie Antoinette Novels, The Count of Monte Cristo, The ... Hero of the People, The Queen's Necklace....

As the first, and in much likelihood, the only romantic novel I will ever pick up this summer, Alexandre Dumas' "The Black Tulip" is one of the most sentimental, endearing classics I've come across, and is probably every botanist's favorite love story if not their favorite book. Taking place in 17th Century Holland, a gifted and passionate florist by the name of Cornelius Van Baerle, has doted his time and inherited fortune on the cultivating of tulips, widely regarded throughout Europe as the most beautiful of flowers. His life achievement is to successfully produce the impossible, in the form of a spotless black tulip, and present it at an upcoming festival from the Horticultural Society of Haarlem. Suddenly, his life of ease and immense wealth is taken from him when he is arrested as a conspirator against Prince William of Orange due to his godfather's political ties. Imprisoned for life, Van Baerle's only comforts come from the three bulbs he's hidden to plant the black tulip, and the console of the jailer's beautiful, selfless daughter, Rosa, who visits him every night in exchange for reading and writing lessons. Together, they grow the black tulip in secret with Van Baerle relaying instructions to her, while Rosa keeps the tulip in her room. Even as their friendship blossoms, Van Baerle is stalked by enemies. Rosa's drunkard father, Gryphus, delights in abusing the poor prisoner claiming he's a sorcerer conjuring evil, and his former neighbor from home, Boxtel, is a malicious rival whose been observing his every move in search of his incredible flower.

"The Black Tulip" is a beautifully told story of love, courage, and undying devotion amidst the most damnable of circumstances. Dumas infuses his storytelling with an eloquent, Shakespearean-like writing style of heart-rendering poetry. When Rosa expresses her concern that Van Baerle loves his precious tulip over her, he quotes...

"Be it so: no more beautiful flowers with their elegeant grace and their divine caprices! Deprive me of all that, flower jealous of other flowers, deprive me of all that, but do not prevent me from hearing and seeing you, and from listening to your footstep on the dull staircase; do no deprive me of the light of your eyes in this gloomy corridor or of the assurance of your love which unceasingly soothes my heart. Love me, Rosa, for I know well that I love you alone."

The novel starts out a little slow, describing in detail of Holland and the nation's rivalry with the French king, Louis XIV, and Van Baerle's godfather, the Grand Pensionary. As I progressed, I fell in love with it's rich historical insight, immaculate period detail, and classic portrayal of divine intervention. Often times, I find Christian themes rather inspiring in a work of literature, especially in stories from Charles Dickens where good people are rewarded for their honesty and compensated for their misfortunes. I particularly enjoyed "The Black Tulip" for the goodheartedness, strength, and confidence of it's protagonists and the humor of it's more villainous personas from the dim-witted, superstitious Gryphus, to Boxtel's foiled attempts in sabotaging Van Baerle's tulip garden. For all that it's worth, "The Black Tulip" is a classic tale embodying the elements of a truly memorable reading experience. This was the first novel I've read from Dumas, but I already have intentions of reading more from this masterful storyteller of good triumphant.

- حافظي عليها يا روزا كما ترعى الأم ولدها، كما يتمسك الجريح بقطرة الدم المتبقية في عروقه ..
- زنبقتك هي ابنتي، إنها لا تغيب عن عيني لحظة .. حين أستيقظ إنها أول شيء أنظر إليه، وعندما أنام تكون آخر شيء أراه ..

الزنبقة السوداء قصة حب، حب الجمال الذي وضعه الله في مخلوقاته ..

This is a brilliant piece of work by Alexander Dumas. The story holds many themes: love, courage, honesty and jealousy; and Dumas has woven all these themes in to one of the history's most beautifully said stories.

The story mainly revolves around Dr. Cornelius Van Baerle, a tulip grower who has been wrongly imprisoned, and his journey of sheer courage to see his dream for the production of a black Tulip become a reality. His dream was aided by Rosa Gryphus, the jailer's daughter who becomes the love of his life.

I loved both the male and female lead characters. They somehow left an everlasting impression on me by their courage to face hardships and cruelty, their love and devotion to each other, and their honesty even to the extent of incriminating themselves. I can without a doubt say they will be yet another addition to my favorite character couples in classics.

Dumas had written the villainous characters of Gryphus, the jailer and Boxtel, the jealous rival tulip grower so well that my only regret was that they were not within my reach so that I could strangle them for all the pain they caused to Cornelius and Rosa.

Although Cornelius is said to be the hero of the book, I felt there was a more active heroine at play in the character of Rosa. Her strong love for Cornelius drives her through all obstacles with a courage and strength of that of steel, never yielding and finally ensuring justice is done to him.

The start was tight with first few chapters touching on a bit of gruesome history but once past that, it was extremely interesting. I loved every moment of the read. Having read so many different books, it takes such a book to shake my composure, but this one certainly did. I really did not want it to end and quite sad that it finally ended.

The first time I came to know about 'The Black Tulip' was when I watched an animated version of the story, which our local English channel aired, as a child. I found it thrilling and ever since I have wanted to read the novel.

I finally read the novel this year and came to a realisation: the adult me did not find it as thrilling

"حق السعادة هو: لمن قاسى الكثير"
.
تدور أحداث هذه الرواية, عن شخص قرر أن يعتزل العالم وأن يقضي كل وقته في زراعة الزهور , وأن ينتج لوناً غريباً ومميزاً ..
ولكن بسبب غيرة وحسد الجار, وسوء حظه, سجن الرجل قبل أن يحقق حلمه , وكان على وشك أن يعدم وتنتهي جميع أحلامه ,,
ولكن فجأة, تتغير الأحداث ويكون هنالك أمل جديد في كسب كل شيء قد خسره.
.

طوال أستماعي لهذه الرواية, فكرة واحدة كانت تخطر على بالي ,,
لماذا لايتركون هذا الرجل البائس لوحده ,, لماذا الجميع يغار ويحسد علاقته اللطيفة مع زنبقته السوداء ..
أعني أين يمكن ان يذهب لينفرد مع زهرته دون أزعاج , حتى في السجن كانت هنالك "روزا" التي تغار من علاقته مع الزنبقة وتحاسبه حساباً شديداً عندما يذكرها أو يهتم بها.
.
الرواية كانت عادية ولامميز فيها.
كالعادة, قصة حب مبالغ بها , وأحداث كثيرة تحصل كما يشتهي أبطال الرواية ..
لاشيء جديد في هذا النوع من الروايات.
شعرت أن هذه الرواية مناسبة لليافعين , شخصياً لم أشعر بشيء عندما كنت أستمع لها, كانت الأحداث مبالغ بها وسهلة التوقع الى حد كبير.
هذا النوع من القصص ينفع فقط لأن يكون قصة ماقبل النوم تحكيها للصغار.

Set some years after the famous tulipomania in Holland, this story nevertheless revolves around the cultivation of that rarest of flowers the black tulip. Dumas conjures up the story of three fictional characters whose lives happen to intersect with those of real persons of the time, including William of Orange. It's a charming story, and provides cause to ruminate on the creation of art, but its chief value, in my opinion, is in giving the reader a broad glimpse into Dutch life of the period.