Finished: The Charterhouse of Parma (Stendhal)...finally! This was a hard book to "get into" and it certainly doesn't belong on MY top 100 list, even though it is on the top 100 list I'm trying to read through. There were a few entertaining moments, but not enough to keep me from leaving my reading to go do other things for the past 10 days. It's the story of young Italian boy, Fabrizio del Dongo, who as he grows up, goes on many spontaneous adventures and is adored more by his aunt, the Duchessa, than his own parents. Set during the Waterloo years of Napolean's war, I think we are supposed to find Fabrizio to be the hero and his antics to be endearing, however I just found him to be utterly self-centered and rather dense. His aunt is another main character who moves heaven and earth to get him out of his various scrapes, while she also falls for the most decent character in the book. Count Mosca. However, she always loves Fabrizio more than the Count who adores her. Meanwhile, Fabrizio gets in fights, leads with his little head, brandishes bravado at all the wrong times, goes to prison, is nearly poisoned, falls in love with the prison keeper's beautiful daughter, Clelia, pursues her relentlessly, and on and on. Finally, through the machinations of the Duchessa, Count Mosca and Clelia, Fabrizio is able to escape from prison, and then have a real trial where he is pardoned, but his actions continue to be completely narcissistic. I truly find nothing endearing about the character, or his aunt's character for that matter, though she's a little more understandable. I just don't get why everyone in the book falls so hard for the two del Dongos! In the end, the Duchessa and Count Mosca end up happy together, but Clelia marries another man, who she doesn't love but must marry for her father. Fabrizio becomes "the youngest Archbishop" who can't marry anyway, but he laments away in his self-involvement. He and Clelia have a secret affair which produces a young son. Out of his selfishness of wanting to raise his own son, he convinces Clelia to pretend that the boy is ill and dies so he can spirit him away from the man who THINKS he is his father to a secret house, which Clelia can visit every day. Clelia doesn't want to do this, but Fabrizio talks her into it. And, of course, the worst happens....the little 2 year old boy really does get sick and die, followed by his mother who dies of a broken heart. All because Fabrizio wanted it. Ugh!! So, just not my favorite of books and really hard to get into the writing of this one! Whew! Glad to be done.