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Article: A French Marquis' Adventures: Dandy Stuff for Biography.(Arts&Entertainment)
- Article from:
- The New York Observer (New York, NY)
- Article date:
- November 22, 1999
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 The New York Observer. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: Benjamin Anastas
A Taste for Freedom: The Life of Astolphe de Custine, by Anka Muhlstein, translated from the French by Teresa Waugh. Helen Marx Books, 391 pages, $16.95.
One of my failings as a reader-and as a citizen-is a tendency to sympathize with doomed aristocrats. Given a choice between the democratic hordes at the barricades and the timorous fops hiding in the wine cellar, I'll take the cowards in the basement every time. What a boon for readers who share my weakness, then, that narrative is a privilege of the ruling classes and privilege imperiled a recurrent literary theme. I'm thinking of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's The Leopard, ...