Zanoni
In the smoke and chaos of the French Revolution, a being named Zanoni walks the earth. He has lived for centuries, possessing secrets that could reshape civilization, immune to death itself. Yet he is not untouched by human longing. When he encounters Viola Pisani, the daughter of a struggling Neapolitan musician, her extraordinary voice and innocent soul stir something he believed long dead: the desire to be truly known, truly loved, even at the cost of his immortality. Zanoni must choose between the cold serenity of his ancient wisdom and the devastating, glorious ruin of mortal passion. This 1842 novel emerged from a dream and reads like one: lyrical, strange, and unsettlingly prescient. Bulwer-Lytton, a practicing Rosicrucian, weaves actual esoteric teachings into a narrative that feels less like Victorian fiction and more like a portal. The famous "Dweller of the Threshold" chapter remains one of literature's most terrifying encounters with the boundary between the seen and unseen worlds. For readers who crave fiction that demands everything of them.
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“He never conversed upon his own origin and history, nor have I ever been able to penetrate the darkness in which they were concealed. He seemed to have seen much of the world, and to have been an eye-witness of the first French Revolution, a subject upon which he was equally eloquent and instructive. At the same time he did not regard the crimes of that stormy period with the philosophical leniency with which enlightened writers (their heads safe upon their shoulders) are, in the present day, inclined to treat the massacres of the past: he spoke not as a student who had read and reasoned, but as a man who had seen and suffered.””
— Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron Lytton
“I will believe him to have been a very respectable man, who only spoke the truth when he boasted of his power to be in two places at the same time." "Is that so difficult?" said the old gentleman; "if so, you have never dreamed!””
— Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron Lytton
“Sinto que nas minha veias arde um desejo mais ardente do que o de amor: é o Desejo de não me assemelhar aos da minha espécie, mas de excedê-los, o desejo de penetrar no segredo da sua própria existência e de participar dele, o desejo de um conhecimento sobrenatural e de um poder supraterrestre.””
— Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron Lytton
“Há momentos, na vida, em que a sabedoria vem da imaginação e não da prudência.””
— Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron Lytton
“E era apenas o contraste dessas duas entidades: o Ser e a Sombra, a Luz e as Trevas, que impressionara o jovem com a diferença que havia entre elas, ou seja, o homem e o sobre-humano.””
— Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron Lytton
“A sabedoria, contemplando o género humano, só conduz a estes dois resultados: ao desdém ou à compaixão.””
— Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron Lytton
“If at times thou canst not comprehend the language of my thoughts, at times also I hear sweet enigmas in that of thy emotions.””
— Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron Lytton
“This confession leads me to the sentence with which I shall conclude: If, reader, in this book there be anything that pleases you, it is certainly mine; but whenever you come to something you dislike,”
— Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron Lytton
“I, artist in words, dedicate, then, to you, artist whose ideas speak in marble, this well-loved work of my matured manhood. I love it not the less because it has been little understood and superficially judged by the common herd: it was not meant for them. I love it not the more because it has found enthusiastic favorers amongst the Few. My affection for my work is rooted in the solemn and pure delight which it gave me to conceive and to perform.””
— Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron Lytton
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Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron Lytton. Zanoni. Lex, lex-books.com/book/zanoni-64144893-a6fc-4437-a157-bb0314e62ee4.Edward Bulwer Lytton, B. L. (n.d.). Zanoni. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/zanoni-64144893-a6fc-4437-a157-bb0314e62ee4Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron Lytton. Zanoni. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/zanoni-64144893-a6fc-4437-a157-bb0314e62ee4.
