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Parisians in the Country
By the French author, who, along with Flaubert, is generally regarded as a founding-father of realism in European fiction. His large output of works, collectively entitled The Human Comedy (La Comedie Humaine), consists of 95 finished works (stories, novels and essays) and 48 unfinished works. His stories are an attempt to comprehend and depict the realities of life in contemporary bourgeois France. They are placed in a variety of settings, with characters reappearing in multiple stories.
236 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1843
About the author
Honoré de Balzac
9,697 books4,468 followersFrench writer Honoré de Balzac (born Honoré Balzac), a founder of the realist school of fiction, portrayed the panorama of society in a body of works, known collectively as
La comédie humaine
.
Honoré de Balzac authored 19th-century novels and plays. After the fall of Napoléon in 1815, his magnum opus, a sequence of almost a hundred novels and plays, entitled, presents life in the years.
Due to keen observation of fine detail and unfiltered representation, European literature regards Balzac. He features renowned multifaceted, even complex, morally ambiguous, full lesser characters. Character well imbues inanimate objects; the city of Paris, a backdrop, takes on many qualities. He influenced many famous authors, including the novelists Marcel Proust, Émile Zola, Charles John Huffam Dickens, Gustave Flaubert, Henry James, and Jack Kerouac as well as important philosophers, such as Friedrich Engels. Many works of Balzac, made into films, continue to inspire.
An enthusiastic reader and independent thinker as a child, Balzac adapted with trouble to the teaching style of his grammar. His willful nature caused trouble throughout his life and frustrated his ambitions to succeed in the world of business. Balzac finished, and people then apprenticed him as a legal clerk, but after wearying of banal routine, he turned his back on law. He attempted a publisher, printer, businessman, critic, and politician before and during his career. He failed in these efforts From his own experience, he reflects life difficulties and includes scenes.
Possibly due to his intense schedule and from health problems, Balzac suffered throughout his life. Financial and personal drama often strained his relationship with his family, and he lost more than one friend over critical reviews. In 1850, he married Ewelina Hańska, his longtime paramour; five months later, he passed away.
Honoré de Balzac authored 19th-century novels and plays. After the fall of Napoléon in 1815, his magnum opus, a sequence of almost a hundred novels and plays, entitled, presents life in the years.
Due to keen observation of fine detail and unfiltered representation, European literature regards Balzac. He features renowned multifaceted, even complex, morally ambiguous, full lesser characters. Character well imbues inanimate objects; the city of Paris, a backdrop, takes on many qualities. He influenced many famous authors, including the novelists Marcel Proust, Émile Zola, Charles John Huffam Dickens, Gustave Flaubert, Henry James, and Jack Kerouac as well as important philosophers, such as Friedrich Engels. Many works of Balzac, made into films, continue to inspire.
An enthusiastic reader and independent thinker as a child, Balzac adapted with trouble to the teaching style of his grammar. His willful nature caused trouble throughout his life and frustrated his ambitions to succeed in the world of business. Balzac finished, and people then apprenticed him as a legal clerk, but after wearying of banal routine, he turned his back on law. He attempted a publisher, printer, businessman, critic, and politician before and during his career. He failed in these efforts From his own experience, he reflects life difficulties and includes scenes.
Possibly due to his intense schedule and from health problems, Balzac suffered throughout his life. Financial and personal drama often strained his relationship with his family, and he lost more than one friend over critical reviews. In 1850, he married Ewelina Hańska, his longtime paramour; five months later, he passed away.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 29, 2020
Gaudissart ist eine sehr amüsante Geschichte. Ein ehemaliger Hut-Händler verkauft Versicherungen und Zeitungsabonnements in der Provinz. Unter andern an einen "Irren", der ihm im Gegenzug 2 Fässer Wein andreht, die er gar nicht besitzt.
Die Muse ist leider eher missraten. Eine Provinzschönheit, Dinah, widersteht den Verehrern der Heimat, gibt sich aber dem Pariser Halodri Lousteau hin. Und nachdem der sie schon verlassen hatte, folgt sie ihm schwanger nach Paris und bringt ihn dazu eine lukrative Geld-Ehe platzen zu lassen, um mit ihr in eheähnlichem Verhältnis zu leben. Allerdings auch aus Kalkül. Leider alles konstruiert und schlecht und unglaubhaft konstruiert. Am Schluß wird sie Gräfin, verlässt ihn, aber vielleicht auch nicht so ganz.
Weder ist einem an ihr noch an ihm irgenwie, geschweige am Gatten, gelegen. Am ehesten für sich eingenommen hat mich noch der liebende Staatsanwalt-Verehrer. Da gibt es jede Menge Versatzstücke, die Balzac einfügt, um Seiten zu machen. Natürlich, wie immer, blitzt das Genie durch, aber das macht das Ganze umso trauriger.
[In der Goldmann-Gesamtausgabe in Übersetzung, sigh, gelesen.]
Die Muse ist leider eher missraten. Eine Provinzschönheit, Dinah, widersteht den Verehrern der Heimat, gibt sich aber dem Pariser Halodri Lousteau hin. Und nachdem der sie schon verlassen hatte, folgt sie ihm schwanger nach Paris und bringt ihn dazu eine lukrative Geld-Ehe platzen zu lassen, um mit ihr in eheähnlichem Verhältnis zu leben. Allerdings auch aus Kalkül. Leider alles konstruiert und schlecht und unglaubhaft konstruiert. Am Schluß wird sie Gräfin, verlässt ihn, aber vielleicht auch nicht so ganz.
Weder ist einem an ihr noch an ihm irgenwie, geschweige am Gatten, gelegen. Am ehesten für sich eingenommen hat mich noch der liebende Staatsanwalt-Verehrer. Da gibt es jede Menge Versatzstücke, die Balzac einfügt, um Seiten zu machen. Natürlich, wie immer, blitzt das Genie durch, aber das macht das Ganze umso trauriger.
[In der Goldmann-Gesamtausgabe in Übersetzung, sigh, gelesen.]
June 6, 2021
Comment l’Illustre Gaudissart manquât de se faire rouler à Vouvray…
March 3, 2024
The first of these titles is a satiric story about a traveling salesman, whom Balzac depicts as the representative of a depraved epoch but who meets his comeuppance at the hands of clever provincials.
The second is a long and meandering novel about an intelligent young woman with the biblical name of Dinah, because she comes from a long line of Protestants, though she herself has converted to Catholicism. This novel is in the category of "Scenes of Provincial Life," and emphasizes the contrast between Parisian sophistication and provincial backwardness.
The plot meanders along until it abruptly stops.
Balzac's attitude toward his heroine is inconsistent. Sometimes he makes fun of her pretensions, and sometimes he admires her.
Dinah is married to a tiny apparently impotent man (Balzac constantly emphasizes his diminutive stature), whom she doesn't love, and the indifference is reciprocal. She eventually is seduced by a Parisian literary hack, whom Balzac more or less despises.
Until the end of the novel, it's not clear what her fate will be.
Her complacent and husband is indifferent to his wife's conduct, including the birth of two children to her lover, whom he accepts as his own progeny (it's unclear whether he is capable of having sex with his wife). On the other hand, he is wildly ambitious and successful both in making money and gaining official status, eventually becoming a count and a peer, despite his plebian origins.
Money is magical in Balzac's world. The rich wield tons of it, and the poor barely scrape by.
Every time I finish a book by Balzac, I say to myself, "What a strange book."
The second is a long and meandering novel about an intelligent young woman with the biblical name of Dinah, because she comes from a long line of Protestants, though she herself has converted to Catholicism. This novel is in the category of "Scenes of Provincial Life," and emphasizes the contrast between Parisian sophistication and provincial backwardness.
The plot meanders along until it abruptly stops.
Balzac's attitude toward his heroine is inconsistent. Sometimes he makes fun of her pretensions, and sometimes he admires her.
Dinah is married to a tiny apparently impotent man (Balzac constantly emphasizes his diminutive stature), whom she doesn't love, and the indifference is reciprocal. She eventually is seduced by a Parisian literary hack, whom Balzac more or less despises.
Until the end of the novel, it's not clear what her fate will be.
Her complacent and husband is indifferent to his wife's conduct, including the birth of two children to her lover, whom he accepts as his own progeny (it's unclear whether he is capable of having sex with his wife). On the other hand, he is wildly ambitious and successful both in making money and gaining official status, eventually becoming a count and a peer, despite his plebian origins.
Money is magical in Balzac's world. The rich wield tons of it, and the poor barely scrape by.
Every time I finish a book by Balzac, I say to myself, "What a strange book."
September 2, 2014
"The Illustrious Gaudissart," 4.5, another brilliant Balzacian character, and I'm guessing literature's first traveling life insurance salesman, circa 1833.
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September 7, 2018Another masterpiece from the great French Realist novelist who always draws his characters with Shakespearian precision. In all his works Balzac seems to leap effortlessly from peak to peak.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews