Book: Betsy and the Emperor by Staton Rabin

A friend recommended this book to me, and since I’m such a sucker for historical novels, I easily agreed to read it. The cover itself had an appeal, it showed the face of an 19^th century girl, complete with her blond curls and gown, and by her side, the face (half of it anyway) of Napoleon Bonaparte. Oh, but the image I posted here is the Indonesian edition, Betsy dan sang Kaisar. Anyway, I always welcomed novelized version of historical figures’ biographies, I really enjoyed the manga The Rose of Versailles by Ryoko Ikeda, which portrayed the life of Marie Antoinette. I must confess I haven’t read many writings about Napoleon, perhaps only a few in-depth articles about his love life in a woman magazine many years ago.

Ahhh, I remembered now, I actually own a manga series based on Napoleon’s life, Eroica. Sadly, this 13 volumes (if I’m not mistaken) collection was incomplete, only by one volume (and get this, the one I didn’t get was the last volume!!!) But since the illustrations were not as appealing as Ryoko Ikeda’s, I’ve lost the appetite to complete such an old manga.

Okay, hold your horses! (What horse? you’ll say. Hahaha) I have a point here, I’m not just blabbering pointlessly ;-p. Speaking about Eroica, the articles and now this book, I noticed one similar thing about Napoleon that seemed to inspire many writers: his deep love for his first wife, Josephine. In Betsy and the Emperor this tradition lingered and several times, rather vividly, and was spoken out in Napoleon’s expressions while talking about her.

The story took place at the early of 19^th century, 1815, in the island of St. Helena. Young and full of spirit, Betsy always looked at everything with the passion for adventure. Even though she had to return to the desolated island after having her education, she actually felt glad because she despised her dorm-school. The peaceful St. Helena was getting its spotlights when the notorious Napoleon arrived at the island. Betsy and her family was the one getting a bigger surprise because the emperor was going to stay at their mansion while waiting for his appointed “cell”.

Like any other story, at first Betsy was both agitated and intrigued with their new curious guest. But after a while, they somehow had become card playing and horse riding friends. Betsy even tried to help the emperor escape from the island. Their friendship was facing challenges when the new governor arrived and made new more restrictions for Napoleon.

Maybe I should’ve realized that I couldn’t expect too much intrigue from a teenage novel. After all there was enough portion about how Betsy was gossiped to be Napoleon’s newest love affair (a 14 year old girl was considered to be mature enough at that time, right?). With Napoleon reputation as a love adventurer, the novel pictured his relationship with Betsy quite modestly; thank god it didn’t go too far, and after all too much would be too gooey for me! I was quite—even tough not much—entertained. For what its worth, this book made me browsed more information about Napoleon in the Encarta Encyclopedia—a good sign for a book for me.

There was one trivia remained: How do you pronounce Bonaparte anyway?--the right way for it. Is it with a silent “e” or the vocal must be pronounced clearly? I have asked several persons (even a friend who studied French). But even she was dumbfounded, saying that the Indonesian way of saying that name was unfortunately already rooted deep in her head. Hmmm…

Image: Thx to Donna