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41st out of 51 books
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7 voters
A Passion in the Desert
A Passion in the Desert (La Comédie Humaine)
Do your students enjoy a good laugh? Do they like to be scared? Or do they just like a book with a happy ending? No matter what their taste, our Creative Short Stories series has the answer.We've taken some of the world's best stories from dark, musty anthologies and brought them into the light, giving them the individual attention they deserve. Each book in the series has...more
Hardcover, 46 pages
Published
November 1st 1983
by Creative Education
(first published November 1830)
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Balzac does not become lost in the sentimentality that many "man and beast" stories, especially those told by Disney, have succumbed to over the years, but the focus of the story is sharp and clear. He handles simply yet delicately the experience of unexpected love and friendship. The two central characters, a Napoleonic French legionnaire and a desert "panther", remain solidly representative of their respective places in the natural order, and while the story does betray that idealized natural...more
I read this story one night because I couldn't go to sleep no matter how hard I tried. I was in a terrible mood that had something to do with my thoughts on how humans are all selfish and cannot relate to each other and that "affection," "love," "compassion," etc is all bullshit. I get into that state of mind sometime because I have a tendency to brood over things and slowly let my mind wander to making massive generalizations concerning all of humankind. I had no idea where Balzac was going wit...more
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This is the story of man and beast, intent on satisfying the need for shelter and companionship in a stark environment. Set in the beautifully described Eqyptian desert, Honore de Balzac addresses the uninterrupted isolation, formidable unknowns, and dangers of the circumstances a French soldier finds himself in while waiting for Napoleon's troops to rescue him. It is a straight-forward, direct telling of the philosphy of primary man and secondary beast described in the Bible, a belief system in...more
The Atheist's Mass is my favorite story in this small volume, followed by A Passion in the Desert.
The writing is spare, yet rich. Not too much description of the environment, which usually bores me as I do not have an imagination that pictures scenes well. The characters are immediately available, allowing for climbing into their skins with ease.
Balzac's writing has been described as sentimental, but I did not find it so. Very straightforwardly, the characters of his stories tell their tales w...more
The writing is spare, yet rich. Not too much description of the environment, which usually bores me as I do not have an imagination that pictures scenes well. The characters are immediately available, allowing for climbing into their skins with ease.
Balzac's writing has been described as sentimental, but I did not find it so. Very straightforwardly, the characters of his stories tell their tales w...more
Upon leaving a "menagerie" show a woman remarks to her companion that she wonders by what means the beasts should have been so tamed that their affection was assured. Her companion says that he also felt that way the first time he saw the show until he happened to fall into conversation with an old trooper. This trooper told him the tale of a French soldier lost in the desert of Egypt. Fatigued by the heat and exhausted by his ordeal the soldier falls asleep under a palm tree. He is awakened by...more
Despite having been made into a dreadfully bad film, this short story is actually quite well done.
An unnamed Provencal soldier is relating a tale of his time during the Mameluk wars to the unnamed narrator (who, in turn, is telling it to his lady friend in order to impress her with his knowledge of animal training). The soldier gets lost in the desert and is befriended, for lack of a better term, by a female leopard. Their relationship is mutually dependent and, eventually, a little confusing fo...more
An unnamed Provencal soldier is relating a tale of his time during the Mameluk wars to the unnamed narrator (who, in turn, is telling it to his lady friend in order to impress her with his knowledge of animal training). The soldier gets lost in the desert and is befriended, for lack of a better term, by a female leopard. Their relationship is mutually dependent and, eventually, a little confusing fo...more
This story tells of a man who, while stranded in the desert, befriends a jungle cat. And while the story is certainly interesting – I mean, who wouldn’t want a big man-eating kitten who’ll purr and follow people around and save them from danger? – the plot is not what’s really important. This is a story about human emotion, human affection, and human relationships, and it is made to work on a more allegorical level. It actually sort of reminds me of the cautionary tales that parents used to read...more
Durant l'expédition de Napoléon en Égypte, un soldat français est capturé par l'ennemi. Lorsqu'il réussi à s’échapper, il se réfugie dans une grotte où il apprivoisera une panthère. Ce soldat verra plusieurs qualité féminine dans l'animal.
C'est une petit histoire agréable à lire mais très courte. Ce roman m'a un peu fait penser à Histoire de Pi que j'avais bien aimé.
Cette nouvelle se retrouve dans les scènes de la vie militaire dans la Comédie Humaine.
C'est une petit histoire agréable à lire mais très courte. Ce roman m'a un peu fait penser à Histoire de Pi que j'avais bien aimé.
Cette nouvelle se retrouve dans les scènes de la vie militaire dans la Comédie Humaine.
I saw the movie before I read the short story by Balzac. It was the only thing on TV one night in Costa Rica, and it was a French film with Spanish subtitles. Groan... It didn't matter though because it's a story about a soldier and a tiger so there's not much to say. Beautiful film. I had to read the story, and I tracked it down about three years later.
I think it's on my shelf if you want it.
I think it's on my shelf if you want it.
Who knew that Balzac was not only a great novelist but also a great short-story writer? Some of these--like the title story about a soldier who falls in love with a panther--are totally tongue in cheek; others have "clever" endings a la O'Henry; but Balzac's writing is so full of life that none of that matters. Just enjoy the ride!
"In the desert, there is everything and nothing," writes
Balzac who never saw any desert. His short story of a
French soldier lost in the Sahara - "an ocean without limit" -
is not what we expect fr the creator of la Comedie humaine.
The soldier's sole companion is a magnificent (female)
panther w lustrous yellow eyes whose coat has an imperial
splendor.
In this parable of love-friendship, jealousy-misunderstanding,
the outcome means only one will survive. A provocative story
that misses the emotional pu...more
Balzac who never saw any desert. His short story of a
French soldier lost in the Sahara - "an ocean without limit" -
is not what we expect fr the creator of la Comedie humaine.
The soldier's sole companion is a magnificent (female)
panther w lustrous yellow eyes whose coat has an imperial
splendor.
In this parable of love-friendship, jealousy-misunderstanding,
the outcome means only one will survive. A provocative story
that misses the emotional pu...more
Its a short novel ... but there is something special about it. I've read it many times but never felt tired...perhaps its the beauty of written word of Balzac or because it is about most strange emotions and circumstances one could ever imagine. Something strange but very very interesting.
Highly recommended.
Highly recommended.
Very brief story about a one of Napoleon's soldiers captured then lost in the Egyptian desert. There he meets a very special female but the story ends in misfortune.
This is the short story which brought me to the realization that Proust, while not becoming any less my favourite author, is not a complete original. I will read more Balzac.
One man. One female panther. Lots of desert. Read between the lines at your peril.
une passion dans le desert by Balzac (1994)
May 20, 2013
youness moslim
marked it as to-read
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Honoré de Balzac was a nineteenth-century French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of almost 100 novels and plays collectively entitled La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the fall of Napoléon Bonaparte in 1815.
Due to his keen observation of detail and unfiltered representation of society, Balzac is regarded as one of the founders o...more
More about Honoré de Balzac...
Due to his keen observation of detail and unfiltered representation of society, Balzac is regarded as one of the founders o...more
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Dec 19, 2012 09:33am