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Cousin Bette (Poor Relations)

by Honoré de Balzac, Marion Ayton Crawford (Translator, Introduction)

3.86 of 5 stars 3.86 · rating details · 2,785 ratings · 170 reviews

Vividly bringing to life the rift between the old world and the new, Cousin Bette is an incisive study of vengeance, and the culmination of The Human Comedy.

Paperback, Penguin Classics, 444 pages

Published August 30th 1965 by Penguin Group Ltd (first published 1846)

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Nov 12, 2012 Petra X rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

This is a soap opera masquerading as a classic. It has all the right ingredients.

* A husband, a baron, who has spent all the family money on other women.

* A wife who justifies acting like a doormat by saying it is religious feminine submission.

* An in-law who threatens to put the kybosh on any potential "good match" marriage for their dowry-less but pretty (and rather boring) daughter Hortense if religious doormat doesn't sleep with him.

* Cousin Bette, the protagonist of the story, who is the...more

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Feb 14, 2013 J. rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: pomegranate fanciers

Shelves: city-of-light, france

"... there is, in the ocean of generations, an Aphrodisian current whence every such Venus is born, all daughters of the same salt wave..."

Can't say I'll be reading a long list of Balzac titles in my near-future. There is a longstanding tradition of the French bedroom farce out there, and while this is a close relation, that's not quite what it is. What's here, (and at some length), is a kind of mirthless, hectoring plot-loop, cautionary tales that vary little as they repeat, set in Paris, circa...more

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Feb 05, 2013 Doroti rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Единственото, което отличава епохата на Балзак от нашата, в крайна сметка се оказват кринолините и липсата на мобилни телефони. Човешките взаимоотношения, интриги, лъжи, заеми, драми - до известна степен са същите. И накрая: what goes around comes around... Но дали?
"Животът е невъзможен без забравяне."

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Apr 08, 2013 Sylvia rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I first read this book about fifty years ago and loved it. On the rich plot of the story rests a network of beautiful writing and many clever and surprisingly modern observations of life. Recently I suggested it to our book group and I think it was probably too time consuming as only four people came to the discussion.
From Balzac and Jane Austen I believe I came to think great literature must take into consideration the importance money plays in our lives. In this book, Balzac says the greatest...more

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Dec 05, 2012 Sara Dyck rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This sardonic view of Parisian society in the1840s depicts adultery and vengefulness in the family. In addition to these household dramas, we see official corruption, nepotism, bribery, and theft of government property. Balzac is denouncing the hypocrisy and the degraded values of the time – as Crevel says, the monarch of the time is “the holy, venerated,…and all –powerful five franc piece.” And there is an amazing authorial comment – “At the present moment the labouring classes are the fashiona...more

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Nov 21, 2011 Kate rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Thrilling and terrifying. Can women really be this heartless and greedy? And can men really be so criminally stupid? Anyone who says that drawing room novels are dry and boring should read this one, where most of the murderous, high-stakes, life-ruining action does indeed take place in someone's living room. Balzac's Paris is a ruthless jungle, and I'm fascinated. I'm totally going to read more.

The Cousin Bette of the title is an overlooked and resentful poor relation to the novel's central fam...more

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Jul 29, 2011 Catherine Woodman added it · review of another edition

This is my first Balzac novel (that I read--I have seen a couple of movies based on Balzac novels, so I have a sense of the period, and his priorities in writing--I also watched a 4 hour mini series on his life, where an extremely rotund Gerard Depardieu played Balzac)--but none of that actually prepared me for the intense examination of the lives of a family. Cousin Bette--Lisbeth--is at first quite quiet, and then quite perceptive, and then when the love of her life is scooped out from under h...more

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Dec 05, 2012 Mike rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have many classics on my want to read list, and before this book I had never read Balzac.
Set in the 1830s and 1840s in Paris, the book explores how the Hulot family (a political family with the husband in the ministry of defense) is brought low by the husband's supreme weakness with mistresses, set against the wife's long continued devotion despite knowing his weakness, the scheming of the wife's cousin to redress old grievances, and intrigues with the adult children and in-laws.
Balzak is typi...more

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Jun 25, 2012 Helen Kitson rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 19c, fiction

"Books and flowers are as necessary as bread to a very great many people."

Set in 1840s Paris, the novel revolves around the family, friends and acquaintances of Baron and Baroness Hulot. The Baron is a kind-hearted womaniser who squanders all his money on the mistress of the moment, leaving his long-suffering and martyrish wife almost destitute. "The look with which the Baron rewarded his wife's fanatical devotion confirmed her in her belief that gentleness and submissiveness were a woman's most...more "Books and flowers are as necessary as bread to a very great many people."

Set in 1840s Paris, the novel revolves around the family, friends and acquaintances of Baron and Baroness Hulot. The Baron is a kind-hearted womaniser who squanders all his money on the mistress of the moment, leaving his long-suffering and martyrish wife almost destitute. "The look with which the Baron rewarded his wife's fanatical devotion confirmed her in her belief that gentleness and submissiveness were a woman's most powerful weapons. She was mistaken in this. Noble sentiments pushed to extremes produce results very like those of the worst vices".

In this novel Balzac is particularly interested in the nature of the new France, the age of the middle class. As Monsieur Rivet puts it, "Our times have seen the triumph of trade, hard work, and middle-class good sense". The Baron represents the generation who look back fondly to the Imperial past. "Madame Hulot dated her Hector's first infidelities from the final dissolution of the Empire".

The Baroness was born Adeline Fischer, and as the novel opens she is rejecting the advances of Crevel (her son's father-in-law), who threatens the Baroness that he will prevent her making a good match for her dowry-less daughter Hortense unless she submits to his amorous advances (partly in revenge for the Baron having stolen Crevel's mistress).

Hortense falls in love with a young sculptor whom Adeline's cousin Bette has taken under her wing. Bette loves the young man but he falls in love with and marries Hortense. Meanwhile the Baron takes a new mistress, the married Valerie Marneffe. Dangerous Bette is everyone's confidante and resentful of the fact that throughout their lives Adeline has been the lucky, petted one and she, Bette, always the poor relation. She wants her revenge, and she is terribly, frighteningly patient about getting it. "Madame Marneffe had recoiled in dismay when she found both an Iago and a Richard III in [Bette], who to all appearances was so harmless, so humble, and so little to be feared".

Bette and Valerie are, in their different ways, completely manipulative, ruthless and effective (until the final scenes of the book). They create havoc within Baron Hulot's family in particular. The Baron, charming but foolish about women, is finally undone by money, ruined by Valerie. (However, even in disgrace, in poverty, he takes a series of young mistresses.) Valerie achieves her aim of marrying Crevel (for his money, of course), but shortly afterwards the couple are poisoned by Valerie's jealous Brazilian lover. (I couldn't help thinking of Zola's Nana, who came to a similar pustulant end).

If this seems like vice getting its just desserts, the same does not apply to the Baron. He is invited home to his now-wealthy family, and the Baroness has every hope that her husband has seen the error of his ways or, at least, is now too old for chasing girls. She is wrong. The Baron is beyond saving: he is discovered by his wife in a compromising scene with the new kitchen maid. For the saintly Baroness, this is the final nail in the coffin of her marriage. Following her death, the Baron marries the kitchen maid. As his son so rightly says, "Parents can oppose their children's marriages, but children have no way of preventing the follies of parents in their second childhood".
[Oct 2004](less)

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Jul 27, 2012 Eccentrika rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: adult, classics, drama, psychology

Affrontare la lettura di questo famoso romanzo della commedia umana (che più che commedia lo definirei dramma) è come trattenere il respiro e calarsi in un abisso di sordidi complotti, manipolazioni e doppi giochi. La Parigi osservata sotto l'occhio acuto dell'autore Balzac, non ha niente di buono e di giusto, ma è circondata da personaggi vili, invidiosi, corrotti, crudeli e molto immorali. Sembra di assistere a una grande telenovela del vizio e della depravazione, dove tutto gira intorno al de...more

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Jan 06, 2010 Bettie rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: published-1846, france, winter20092010, classic, fraudio, revenge

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jan 21, 2010 Anascape Taylor rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

*Spoilers Inside* Sigh. It is a shame to give only 3 stars to a book so eloquently written, but what will linger in my mind about Cousin Bette 30 years from now will most likely be the rotten taste it has left in my mouth, not the honey-dipped words.

The first star was lost because I had to suffer through long sections of Balzac's rambling, misguided moralizing. His sermons seem to cover all topics, from the high-handed judgment of a variety of races to the merits of "good breeding." I like an a...more *Spoilers Inside* Sigh. It is a shame to give only 3 stars to a book so eloquently written, but what will linger in my mind about Cousin Bette 30 years from now will most likely be the rotten taste it has left in my mouth, not the honey-dipped words.

The first star was lost because I had to suffer through long sections of Balzac's rambling, misguided moralizing. His sermons seem to cover all topics, from the high-handed judgment of a variety of races to the merits of "good breeding." I like an author to fascinate me such that I feel like I would not be worthy to hold a conversation with them, if we were to meet. Unfortunately, I got the feeling that Balzac would be a remarkably loud and boring dinner guest who liked to listen to himself better than anyone else.

The second star was lost because I was left completely unsatisfied. Now don't tell me that if I want a happy ending I should go find a children's book. Here's the deal: the character who is "punished by the vengeance of God," as it was painted, Madame Marneffe of course, is not really the one I cared to see brought to justice. Yes, she was terrible and cruel. But who is to blame: the woman who mercilessly steals a family's honor and fortune, or the stupid and selfish man who hands it over to her willingly? No, I didn't really care about the Madame's fate. And Bette couldn't have been punished any more judiciously than she was in the end. But the Baron? What justice did he receive? None, of course. And while Adeline's character was honorable, on some level I see her impassioned hunt for him through the slums of Paris to be one of complete selfishness. He didn't want to come home, as he said and demonstrated to the very end. He even wished her dead, even more so when he came home, so she couldn't very well have saved him from God's wrath. I realize that she was supposed to have not seen this, but it certainly doesn't leave one impressed with Balzac's idea of perfect virtue. It seems that his definition of virtue boils down to martyrdom. And what a convenient bar to set for a woman of 19th century Paris. Furthermore, in the end Balzac glorifies Crevel, putting his vanity up on a pedestal as some mark of greatness. Well then, take me to the nearest Porsche dealer and find me a real genius! Really, the only two characters I respected in the whole thing were Hortense and Victorin. Hortense, for the most part, nips her husband's insults in the bud. She has the wherewithal to throw him to his transparent Madame and not suffer a lifetime of pointless martyrdom that makes no one the better. And Victorin pulls his family together in their time of "disgrace," proving to be the only thing standing between Lisbeth and her vengeance. So I feel that mine and Balzac's definitions of vice and virtue differ markedly, and not in ways that can be accounted for simply by the passage of 150 years.(less)

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Jul 07, 2012 Dagny rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 19th-century, balzac-honore-de, french, favorites

Cousin Bette is Lisbeth Fischer, a "poor relation" of the Hulots. The story opens in 1838, when she is in her early forties, a spinster--although she had turned down several proposals of marriage. When Bette was a young girl, her sweet and very beautiful cousin Adeline, five years older than Bette, came to live with the family in their small village. Lisbeth had to work in the fields while Adeline was pampered. Adeline made a spectacular marriage and moved to Paris. Always kind to Bette, Adeline...more

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May 17, 2013 John rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook, library_books

I had decided to listen to the book itself after recently seeing the 1971 video starring Margaret Tyzack and (a young) Helen Mirren; the novel moves at a slower pace, although the basic elements are the same. A good subtitle would be: "in which (almost) everyone gets what they deserve."

I dislike reviews that rehash plots, but in this case I'm going to have to do that myself to comment on what to expect for folks considering tackling this classic. Poor plain Bette snaps when her niece Hortense, d...more

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Apr 24, 2013 Anna Steinbrecher rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

While I enjoyed this book, I'll just list a few things that caused me to give it three stars. Perhaps I am judging it too closely from a modern perspective, but since Balzac was so moralizing in his descriptions, I don't feel so bad doing it.
1) His moralizing: I have no doubt that this was an effective social critique at the time, but it's dense and frequent.
2) Adeline: I just find myself saying "you can't be serious" over and over again. Of all the weaknesses in all of Balzac's characters, her...more

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Nov 24, 2011 Ensiform rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, french

Translated by (maybe) J. Waring. This is, as the editor’s preface says, a disagreeable work, not because of the style but the content. An Iago of a courtesan and an overlooked old maid (Betty) conspire to ruin the latter’s family, and for a long while they succeed, aided unwittingly by Baron Hulot, the head of the family, and his insane obsession for young mistresses.

Love of money runs through this book, and some moralizing about the lack of restraint and religion these days. And of course there...more

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Dec 30, 2008 Louise rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Envy. Raging envy. The story of a woman (Bette) who has lived bitterly in the shadow of her successful, beautiful cousin, Adeline. Till the opening of the story, she has been content to be the fifth wheel in the Hulot family, accepting their kindness grudgingly. However, when her niece Hortense sets her sights on the man that Bette believes to be her own, she becomes a formidable foe, obsessed with bringing down the entire Hulot family.
Interesting, a bit predictable, evil is evil and good is ang...more

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Jan 28, 2012 Robyn Blaber rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: french-literature

I don't know what can be said about Cousin Bette that hasn't been said over and over again. Critics love it and hate it and the reason is because the characters, though mashed together somewhat haphazardly are powerful, intriguing and thoroughly flawed. When Paris is the background of a novel, we know that good people will die, bad people will prosper and innocent bystanders will be trampled underfoot. It is the Parisian way... or at least it is in novels.

For me, the joy of not knowing what will...more

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Jan 23, 2011 Stephanie added it · review of another edition

Deeply strange and fascinating. Erik and I just finished this as bedtime reading. Cousin Bette is the bitter maiden aunt in a family whose destruction she plots, by conspiring with a lovely and greedy courtesan, Valerie Marneff. The family patriarch has ruined himself financially by keeping Valerie (actually he had already spent his money on his previous mistress, but he went into debt for Valerie). Overall the family seems pretty miserable, but Bette would like to see them brought lower yet. I...more

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Nov 02, 2012 Megan Chance rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

No one does stupidity, venality, selfishness, pure nastiness, myopia, vanity and perversity like Balzac, and this story is no exception. Not all of his characters are bad; some of them are very, very moral and good, but Balzac is clearly more interested in the bad--which I don't mind. I love to read him if for no other reason than he arouses emotion in his reader. That much of that emotion is frustration and dread over the fates of his characters doesn't make it less addicting. I didn't like Cou...more

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Nov 28, 2010 Adam Calhoun rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Like seemingly every French novel of the period, Cousin Bette's first hundred pages are boring tidbits of backstory that could have been condense to only a few pages. Fortunately, the remainder of the book makes up for that fact. Cousin Bette is the story of a bitter family member who decides to bring down the relatives that she sees as having done her wrong. Since she takes slights easily, this is quite a few of them.

But it's really an exploration of changing social mores, as nouveau riche gain...more Like seemingly every French novel of the period, Cousin Bette's first hundred pages are boring tidbits of backstory that could have been condense to only a few pages. Fortunately, the remainder of the book makes up for that fact. Cousin Bette is the story of a bitter family member who decides to bring down the relatives that she sees as having done her wrong. Since she takes slights easily, this is quite a few of them.

But it's really an exploration of changing social mores, as nouveau riche gained power in mid-century France, when the upper class aristocrats were invaded by successful merchants. The conflicts that arise between different ideas of proper social behavior vis a vis the aristocrats and nouveau riche are fascinating and deserve careful scrutiny. The theme of the importance of hard work and the artistic temperament seen through the actions of Fortinbras are still relevant. And the behavior of an irresponsible man-child, the Baron Hulot, analogizes powerfully with the plight of a class of debt-ridden pleasure addicts that are so often scrutinized today.

As characters are developed only to be dropped and picked up again briefly later - a technique that is possibly useful in developing a setting rather than a tight plot - the morals of the day are clearly evident. Baron Hulot, who in a story today would surely be one of the villains, gets off exceedingly lightly in this morality tale; his punishment seems to be a series of affairs with hot teenage girls who give him money. Perhaps you can see why he never learns his lesson until Deus Ex Machina forces him to. Things that are considered bad in the book: being a woman, not having socially-defined "taste", and not letting your husband do whatever he wants. Things that are okay: having affairs (if you're a man), having sex in exchange for a nice house and jewelry (being a mistress; prostitution, not okay), and selling your children in marriage for money.

This is quite a good book; I read it just after Daisy Miller and the two combined gave me a one-two punch of a type of society that is utterly alien and, hopefully, dead and outdated.(less)

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Jul 20, 2010 Ann rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I actually read this on my Sony e-reader. I downloaded the free version from Google - it's one of the "messier" versions of these books that I've read, but I got by. That's pertinent because I chose it because it was a classic I've never read.

This is one that I didn't have to get too far into it to realize why it has stood the test of time. When he described certain men as "perambulating coffins" containing the souls of an earlier time held in check by their current ambitions, I knew that the au...more

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Jul 27, 2012 Martin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Funny, engaging and outrageous. Balzac brings you the extremes of human boneheadedness and depravity somehow without making you lose empathy for the characters - even the evil ones. As social commentary, it's a lament on the dissipation of the aristocracy and the rise of the vulgar bourgeoisie. As parody, it sends up the Prodigal Son parable by asking the question, where are the limits of forgiveness? The main theme here of course is vengeance, and the deliciousness of the novel is in finding ou...more

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Dec 30, 2012 Gabriel C. rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012

In the afterword it says that Balzac is the best reference we have today for the differences in income level and expenses for the upper and lower classes is Paris in the time periods about which he was writing. If that's so, I can't help but bring him to task for not making a clearer moral case. I'm probably misunderstanding authorial intent, but I feel that I am supposed to sympathize with some of the characters-- Adeline, Hortense, and Victorin. Whether or not it is successful, I find this app...more

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Jun 13, 2011 Tyler rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Fans of Literature

Shelves: 19th-century

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Oct 23, 2012 Leah rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: masters-reading-list

I really really liked the first half of the book. The whole premise just seemed so delicious: a jealous, vengeful spinster filled with envy and hate sets out to destroy an entire family by taking advantage of their weaknesses. But about two thirds of the way through things really started to drag for me. I realized this is more a story of an entire group of people who destroy themselves through their own vices and weaknesses, as opposed to the story of one woman's carefully crafted revenge. It is...more

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Jan 20, 2010 Pamela rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Oh, my. What melodrama. A quite enjoyable read, but occasionally preposterous. It was hard to feel that the characters were full flesh-and-blood beings, but they had a vitality that kept me reading. Cousin Bette, poor relation to the aristocratic Hulot family, watches helplessly as the young man she's fallen for is stolen from her by the beautiful Hulot daughter. Afterwards, she says Enough. The rest of the book details her ingenious plotting, aided by M. Hulot's almost diabolical mistress, to b...more

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Jul 07, 2010 Frank rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: french

Schitterend.
Melodrama, maar groots melodrama.
De vertaler vergelijkt de toenmalige populariteit van feuilletons als deze met die van tv-series in onze tijd. Het hééft ook iets van een soap.

Maar telkens als je gaat twijfelen of je eigenlijk een bordkartonnen soap zit te lezen, stuit je weer op zo'n fragment, dat je in GTST niet meteen zult tegenkomen: twee hoofdpersonen zijn getroffen door een vreselijke, dodelijke ziekte. De artsen doen hun best, maar verwachten niet dat ze veel kunnen uithalen....more Schitterend.
Melodrama, maar groots melodrama.
De vertaler vergelijkt de toenmalige populariteit van feuilletons als deze met die van tv-series in onze tijd. Het hééft ook iets van een soap.

Maar telkens als je gaat twijfelen of je eigenlijk een bordkartonnen soap zit te lezen, stuit je weer op zo'n fragment, dat je in GTST niet meteen zult tegenkomen: twee hoofdpersonen zijn getroffen door een vreselijke, dodelijke ziekte. De artsen doen hun best, maar verwachten niet dat ze veel kunnen uithalen. Het is voor hen wel een interessante zaak:

'Hoe dan ook, de autopsie zal prachtig zijn,' zei een van de opponenten, 'en wij zullen twee lijken hebben om met elkaar te vergelijken.'

Ook het compromisloze tamelijk unhappy end is erg sterk. En natuurlijk het portret van de schurken, en van de onverbeterlijke, ziekelijke erotomaan baron Hulot (die in de wanhoop van zijn dwangmatige rokkenjagerij soms doet denken aan een hoofdpersoon uit de film Sideways).

Verder begrijp ik van Balzac dat Wilders ook in de negentiende eeuw al stemmen zou hebben getrokken. In de vertaling van Hans van Pinxteren:

‘Nu, beste mijnheer Rivet,’ zei ze, toen zij de deur achter zich op slot had gedaan, ‘u had gelijk, de Polen... dat is allemaal tuig... ze kennen God noch gebod.’
‘Die mensen willen Europa platbranden,’ zei de vreedzame Rivet. ‘Ze richten de handel en de kooplieden te gronde voor een land dat naar het schijnt een en al moeras is en vol rotjoden zit, om maar niet te praten van de Kozakken, de boeren en ander loslopend wild dat ten onrechte tot het menselijk ras wordt gerekend. Die Polen lopen achter de feiten aan. Wij zijn geen barbaren meer! Oorlog is uit de mode, lieve juffrouw, daar hebben wij genoeg van, net als van de koningen. In onze tijd triomferen handel en industrie, het burgerlijk gezond verstand waar Holland groot van is geworden. Ja,’ zei hij, zijn stem verheffend, ‘wij leven in een tijdperk waarin de volkeren alles moeten verwerven door de wettelijke ontwikkeling van hun vrijheden en door het vreedzaam functioneren van de constitutionele instellingen. Daar begrijpen de Polen niks van, en ik hoop... Wat zei u, lieve juffrouw?’ onderbrak hij zijn betoog, want aan het gezicht van zijn handwerkster zag hij dat de hogere politiek niet aan haar was besteed.

(less)

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Jul 05, 2012 Rozzer rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: france, favorites, own, reviewed, fiction

The best that Balzac ever wrote, and that means Cousin Bette is one of the two or three finest French novels of the Nineteenth Century. Yet we here in the U.S. are now (2012) light-years away from 19th Century French points of view. Which creates an interesting problem for the reader. Balzac paints a wonderfully colorful and nuanced picture, but it's as if he paints sometimes on the far ends of the spectrum, in colors that we can't see. Kind of a dog-whistle.

To get the most out of this book we...more The best that Balzac ever wrote, and that means Cousin Bette is one of the two or three finest French novels of the Nineteenth Century. Yet we here in the U.S. are now (2012) light-years away from 19th Century French points of view. Which creates an interesting problem for the reader. Balzac paints a wonderfully colorful and nuanced picture, but it's as if he paints sometimes on the far ends of the spectrum, in colors that we can't see. Kind of a dog-whistle.

To get the most out of this book we have to absorb and acknowledge not just the color and the action, but the social and interpersonal attitudes as well. And that's just hard. We have never, in the United States, since the very beginning of the colonies, entertained the kinds of values and historical experience that shaped (and shape) French minds and personalities. France was (but is no longer) the ultimate social zero-sum game. And the social and personal echoes of that fact produced interpersonal conflict of a kind and flavor entirely unlike those to which Americans are accustomed.

One reviewer here on GR even said: "Interesting, a bit predictable, evil is evil and good is angelic," which totally misses the point. The point is that that specific kind of splitting, that Manichean view, all good on one side and all bad on the other, is not some stultifying, pedestrian, moralistic imposition by the author but a very, very accurate and realistic portrayal of traditional French personalities and attitudes. Cousin Bette is BY NO MEANS some kind of strait-laced Victorian morality play. No, no, no. The human interactions shown in this book, including all values of the participants, are absolutely realistic. Yes, Virginia, there really are (or were) people who actually lived out these points of view, these feelings, these hatreds and these revenges.

Cousin Bette is available for free in English here: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1749 And in French here: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6....(less)

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Nov 01, 2010 Coincidence F rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

قرأتها منذ مدة طويلة ربما قبل 13 سنة من الآن ،كانت طويلة لكنّي أذكر أني استمتعت بها كثيراً ، هي باكورة قراءتي لبلزاك ، كنت وقتها تحت وطئة الإعجاب بالأدب الفرنسي الكلاسيكي ، وحتى أصْدق القول تقريباً انمحت الأحداث الأساسيه من ذاكرتي ، لكني أذكر انها تتمحور عن امرأة عانس تسمى بت تهوى الثرثرة والنميمة ، سأعاود قراتها ان شاء الله مرة أخرى

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About Honoré de Balzac

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 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 of realism in European literature. He is renowned for his multi-faceted characters; even his lesser characters are complex, morally ambiguous and fully human. Inanimate objects are imbued with character as well; the city of Paris, a backdrop for much of his writing, takes on many human qualities. His writing influenced many famous authors, including the novelists Marcel Proust, Émile Zola, Charles Dickens, Gustave Flaubert, Henry James and Jack Kerouac, as well as important philosophers such as Friedrich Engels. Many of Balzac's works have been made into films, and they continue to inspire other writers.

An enthusiastic reader and independent thinker as a child, Balzac had trouble adapting himself to the teaching style of his grammar school. His willful nature caused trouble throughout his life, and frustrated his ambitions to succeed in the world of business. When he finished school, Balzac was apprenticed as a legal clerk, but he turned his back on law after wearying of its inhumanity and banal routine. Before and during his career as a writer, he attempted to be a publisher, printer, businessman, critic, and politician. He failed in all of these efforts. La Comédie Humaine reflects his real-life difficulties, and includes scenes from his own experience.

Balzac suffered from health problems throughout his life, possibly due to his intense writing schedule. His relationship with his family was often strained by financial and personal drama, and he lost more than one friend over critical reviews. In 1850, he married Ewelina Hańska, his longtime paramour; he died five months later.
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Trivia About Cousin Bette

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Quotes from Cousin Bette

“A ignorância é a mãe de todos os crimes, porque um crime é, antes de mais, uma falta de raciocínio.” — 2 people liked it

“Hortense was a wife; Valerie a mistress.
Many men desire to have these two editions of the same work, although it is proof of deep inferiority in a man if he cannot make his wife his mistress. Seeking variety is a sign of impotence.” — 1 person liked it

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