Having recently read two biographies - this one and Anthony Summers' Goddess about Marilyn Monroe - I have come to the conclusion that there are few kinds of books that are as hard to review as a biography. Before you know it - like in my abortive review of Goddess - you're just retelling the subject's whole life story, instead of talking about the writer's merits or lack thereof. And either you know a lot about the subject already - in which case the biography probably isn't as interesting a read anymore - or you don't, in which case it may be fascinating but you have no way of comparing and evaluating the quality of the author's research. I'm glad we put it on our list, because I read two very interesting books because of that, and I hope others will as well, but I'd be surprised if we see a lot of reviews of biographies... (and yes, by all means, do prove me wrong).

Still, I'll make an attempt here, since I really did enjoy this book and I'm sure others here would as well, even if the book has its flaws.

Bonaparte is actually the first of two volumes in Castelot's biography, the second being called Napoleon. If it strikes you as odd to name the first book after a man's surname and the second after his first name, I had the same thought. It took me a surprisingly long time to figure out the reason: the split between the two volumes is placed in December 1804, the moment Napoleon Bonaparte crowned himself emperor and officially became known as Napoleon the First, emperor of France. Of course, most of the key moments people remember about Napoleon and the Napoleonic Wars - Austerlitz, Trafalgar, the campaign into Russia, Waterloo - are situated after that moment, in the second volume which I haven't read yet. Despite that, or perhaps because of that, I suspect the second volume won't prove as fascinating as the first.

This first volume is, after all, one of the most extreme rags to riches stories in world history. Napoleon wasn't exactly a pauper at birth, but still a completely insignificant foreigner, born in a Corsica that was still fighting for its independence against France - and somehow he went on to become emperor of a nation that had killed its king less than fifteen years before, and one of the greatest military commanders in world history. He has become something of a legend, particularly but not only in France, which to a biographer must be a bit of a mixed blessing. He is assured of interest in his subject, and can afford to get carried away, but on the other hand he has to strip the myth from the man, give the man his due without engaging in hero-worship.

That challenge, probably the most important one all in all, I think Castelot handles rather well. He shows us a man with exceptional gifts and some notable weaknesses, always capable of surprising the people around him - and the reader - in both positive and negative ways. Castelot devotes ample attention to Napoleon's love life, particularly his besotted and often highly entertaining letters to his wife Joséphine de Beauharnais - which arguably offers us a better view of the evolution of his character than the political and military parts of the book. Those are handled fairly well, though specialists of the period will no doubt expect more depth and more detail. Their main weakness, though, is that Castelot only ever has eyes for Napoleon Bonaparte.

It is perhaps natural enough that a French historian assumes his reading audience to have a certain amount of knowledge about the historical background of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods. Even if he sometimes seems to expect rather a lot, most notably in the way he constantly employs the French Revolutionary Calendar and only occasionally translates it to the normal Gregorian calendar - good thing the names of the Revolutionary Calendar months indicate fairly clearly in which season they are. But that is no excuse to ignore everything Napoleon isn't personally involved in, almost literally. The other major players in French politics of the period, the foreign powers, even the countries conquered by Napoleon, they are only ever mentioned when somehow interacting with or relating to Napoleon himself. After Bonaparte's two Italian campaigns, a large part of Italy became a de iure independent republic with him as president, but that is mentioned perhaps two times in the entire book, and the Low Countries don't fare much better.

At the risk of making the book even longer and needing three volumes (with a less neat split), Castelot really should have done more to flesh out the background and give his readers at least a basic idea of the other players - persons and states - in the game. Or he could have done this and kept the current length, by cutting some of the more ridiculous details. When describing crucial moments like the coronation, or the mock trial and execution of the Duke d'Enghien (a scion of the royal family), it's fair to mention what the weather was like, to recreate the atmosphere and all. But I think the reader could've lived without knowing what temperature it was when the young student Napoleon traveled southwards from Paris.

There are other flaws, though they are mostly little things. Among them is Castelot's irritating habit of regularly referring to characters as "the future duchess X", "the future king Y" and the like. Perhaps this is helpful to some French readers who have heard the later titles without knowing these persons' original names, but to me it was confusing and really not helpful at all. There are enough characters to keep track of without having to remember their future titles as well. Another - I have a suspicion Tom in particular would find this even more annoying than I did - is Castelot's (or his editor's) prudishness when quoting Napoleon's swearing and obscenities, censoring all but the first letter. Some I could guess, others not so much. Though I suppose I should give him credit for quoting them in the first place, even censored.

All in all, this is a solid biography (even if I can't compare it to other biographies of Napoleon, not having read any) and a captivating read. I definitely want to read the second volume now, and other books about the period. It's very far from being self-sufficient, though, as readers with less familiarity with the Napoleonic period than I have will get well and truly lost unless they constantly look things up, and only those with a significantly larger knowledge of it will really get everything. If you're looking for a book to learn about Napoleon and his time, this probably isn't the best one. But purely as a biography, as a description of the man behind the myth, I do recommend it.

(Note: I read the French original, Amazon informs me there's an English translation by Guy Daniels, but doesn't make clear whether that translation, titled "Napoleon", covers both volumes, or only the second one. Would be strange, but the page count doesn't seem high enough for both volumes.)