[.ca] The Scroll of Seduction: A Novel of Power, Madness, and ... (ISBN 0060833130)

Joan the Misunderstood:
Manuel, a 40 something good looking, history professor, meets a school girl named Lucía, when visiting a museum. The professor is obsessed with Joan of Castile, known in history as Joan the mad of Castile; Lucía happens to look like the alleged mad queen so Manuel, blown away by the resemblance, invites Lucía to hear Joan's story. From then on they meet every afternoon, and soon enough Joan's story consumes, not only Lucía, but you as well. It is fascinating. I've read interviews by Gioconda Belli and she delivers what she promises: To understand Joan once and for all, and arrive to the conclusion that history judged her wrong and that far from being crazy, she was just a very passionate woman. Joan of Castile was the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic monarchs. Joan, got her education from the best tutors in Europe. She was intelligent, yet a bit moody...and who wouldn't be? She was the daughter of some people nicknamed "the Catholics" That would put anybody in a bad mood, let alone years of therapy. At 16 years old she is sent off to Brussels to marry another teenager, Philip of Hasbourg, a Flemish archduke nicknamed "The handsome". History recalls the first time they laid eyes on each other was like putting off fire with gasoline. They fall in love immediately. At least Joan did. I would imagine that "the handsome" probably just fell in lust with his new queen and that for him, seduction, was the game: Soon enough he starts cheating on her majesty, left right and centre. Obviously Joan, who truly adored him, did not like to be royally humiliated in such manner and had no qualms to demonstrate in front of everybody, that his behavior displeased her. She also had no qualms to demonstrate how hot and bothered she was for him and because of those two things, she began to be called "MAD" If one can still use the word and not be kicked in the groin for being politically incorrect, then I certainly will say that Joan of Castile was a victim. She was a victim of infidelity and betrayal of the first order. Being the most powerful queen of her day, she could not reign in her own home, let alone her own marriage. I think that we can all agree that that fact alone would make anybody feel unbalanced. After listening to the evidence in the gorgeous prose of Ms. Belli, in my opinion, she suffered from the classic symptoms of an abused wife. As I said, being a queen and all, she put her husband's "career and fame" ahead of her own very palpable talent and legitimate power. Even in these days is not unusual for a woman to sacrifice her own ambition in order to keep a marriage, or please a guy. In any average "power couple" more often than not, it is the woman who does the "giving up". Sometimes just so her partner doesn't feel less than her. Even when she is the only one with the goods. There is no question that she put up with her husband's infidelities and cut her husband a lot of slack and she did it willingly but nothing is free, and even in the best of marriages, and partnerships when we give, we expect some modicum of respect in return. If history was told from an impartial point of view, history would have been on her side. Yes, she may have been difficult to a large degree and moody as hell, but how does that make her different from anybody else? Everyone has their moment of stadium self pity and difficulty and stickiness. We all have those hot button issues. History's view of Joan didn't allow for such human qualities. The woman was not crazy. She was just a woman, and that did not allowed her to behave as a human being with a full spectrum of emotions. In summation, Joan The mad of Castile's persona was invented at the same time her person was destroyed. Thanks to Gioconda Belli for seducing me into realizing that. Long live Joan, the passionate!

Junging La Loca:
"Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other." Carl Jung The scroll of seduction is about Juana the mad of Castile, the Spaniard queen who spent most of her life imprisoned in a castle because she allegedly became crazy for love. It is also about Manuel, a middle aged history professor who is an expert on Juana and is consumed with her tale; and about Lucía, a 17 years old student who can bring her majesty's spirit in the material world, when induced by the power of the word and by putting on a red dress that belonged to the queen. One could say that the novel is structured as the babushkas Russian dolls: A story within a story that depend on one another yet can stand on its own. It's a hallucinating world within a world which genesis and main character is the word, the love for the story, beautifully told by the sensuous prose of Gioconda Belli. Manuel meets the young student at the El Escorial museum by Juanass portrait. Lucía looks just like her, and Manuel invites her to learn all about Juana. Their relationship brings up the issue of an older man-younger woman romance. I would say Manuel is a slightly psychotic and perhaps amoral character who, in the course of teaching the story of Joan of Castile to the 17 years old orphan, embarks on a series of actions that reveal him seducing her. Although Lucía is willing, Manuel takes advantage of his experience, guile, and Lucia's youth and status as an orphan foreign student to dominate her (even as she learns to dominate him).In other words, he uses his position to extort sexual favours from the adolescent girl. However, we learn that youth is not as helpless in the story of Lucía as it was in Juana's. At one point she takes complete command of herself and the situation: the slave becomes the master, so to speak; but while the young do bring their own weapons into their relationships with older people, the older member of a couple is inherently more powerful, therefore, I find the liassion of Manuel and Lucía a bit disturbing, yet sinfully enthralling and a necessary device to be able to experience in your own flesh, the passion Juana de Castilla felt for her husband Phillip the handsome. At the end of the novel we arrive to a fascinating plot twist that sees Manuel and Lucia's roles utterly reversed: She gets the upper hand. And we can conclude that both Lucía and Juana were victims of misplaced love and unrestrained passion. Now, even if only Lucía gets actually vindicated in the "real realm", Juana deserves that history also gives her the chance to be redeemed from the "crazy" adjective. Gioconda Belli is certainly on the right track.