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La Comédie Humaine #52
The Wrong Side of Paris
The Wrong Side of Paris, the final novel in Balzac’s The Human Comedy, is the compelling story of Godefroid, an abject failure at thirty, who seeks refuge from materialism by moving into a monastery-like lodging house in the shadows of Notre-Dame. Presided over by Madame de La Chanterie, a noblewoman with a tragic past, the house is inhabited by a remarkable band of men—all scarred by the tumultuous aftermath of the French Revolution—who have devoted their lives to performing anonymous acts of charity. Intrigued by the Order of the Brotherhood of Consolation and their uplifting dedication to virtuous living, Godefroid strives to follow their example. He agrees to travel—incognito—to a Parisian slum to save a noble family from ruin. There he meets a beautiful, ailing Polish woman who lives in great luxury, unaware that just outside her bedroom door her own father and son are suffering in dire poverty. By proving himself worthy of the Brotherhood, Godefroid finds his own spiritual redemption.
This vivid portrait of the underbelly of nineteenth-century Paris, exuberantly rendered by Jordan Stump, is the first major translation in more than a century of Balzac’s forgotten masterpiece L’Envers de l’histoire contemporaine. Featuring an illuminating Introduction by Adam Gopnik, this original Modern Library edition also includes explanatory notes.
From the Hardcover edition.
This vivid portrait of the underbelly of nineteenth-century Paris, exuberantly rendered by Jordan Stump, is the first major translation in more than a century of Balzac’s forgotten masterpiece L’Envers de l’histoire contemporaine. Featuring an illuminating Introduction by Adam Gopnik, this original Modern Library edition also includes explanatory notes.
From the Hardcover edition.
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1848
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609 people want to read
About the author
Honoré de Balzac
9,537 books4,368 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 - 30 of 56 reviews
February 12, 2020
This lesser-known, final finished Balzac novel comprises 2 halves and is the concluding segment of the Parisian Life chapter of the Human Comedy. There are 3 translations into English with alternate titles, this one being the most recent.
As in most of the author's work, there is a display of bottomless wisdom, an assured, master's touch, and an incredible condensation of narrative and pathos. It is, from the start, a condemnation of refined tastes, a repudiation of vanity and empty boasts, and a charming character study. Balzac acknowledged influence from Dickens' contemporaneous "The Cricket and the Hearth," and it is easy to see that he borrowed a bit of his English rival's whimsicality.
But Balzac delves deeper with his themes, I think, and challenges the reader in different ways. Dickens was also a master of capturing his time, of putting relevant themes to good use, but in much of his work, he wraps the literary innovation into the form of a fable. Some of his novels lack the immediacy of Balzac's work. Balzac's Realism feels more real. At least to me.
Here we have our hero putting on a show for propriety, cultivating an impressive reputation, but also failing at managing his finances. Finances are the great obsession of the human race, and Balzac's Comedy derives its modus operandi from this principle. Our main character must put on a brave face, as he faces ruin. All he wants is to make a splash on the Paris scene, but he is floundering. The inertia of the mediocre life assaults him with its inevitability.
The ruination of business ventures and disenchantment with hopeful works is also explored in the first part of the book. Dissolute children, wayward sons, prodigal offspring, the onslaught of melancholy, advantageous marriages, impending old age, the social plight of the invalid - these concepts are given their turn throughout. Finding success from the strength and works of others, the morality of wealth, making your own luck, society's inherent flaws, unbridled disdain for the historical precedents of class hierarchies, established orders and moral strictures - Balzac manages to incorporate far more imperatives than I anticipated.
Along with an analysis of ambition, failure, talent, perception, societal duties, expectations, the privileged versus underprivileged roles in their community, the unfair distribution of ability, wealth, fame and hardship, bitter familial relationships, false modesty, dandyism, and the values of the monastic life, envy and self-important rage, the impotent existence of ambitious youth - what, seemingly, has he left out? Godefroid, the drowning man, finds his saviors in an unexpected form. Not surprising, many of these literary views intercept one another. It would be a jumbled concoction, except Balzac is a consummate weaver of tales, and knows how to subtly introduce tributaries of meaning without drawing attention from center stage.
Yet, as side characters rail against the seductions of ordinary Parisian life and overflow with didactic, preachy critiques, Balzac's unorthodox Catholicism begins to take shape. Balzac has cherrypicked specific principles for a melange of hypothetical Good Samaritans. They pointed claim in the novel they are not Good Samaritans, but for lack of a better comparison, they could be called that for the sake of shorthand. Balzac crafts a compelling narrative around this secret society of charity. It's a simple formula: have them go out and put their faith into practice, and one wonders if Balzac would have lived longer, if he would have followed the adventures of these fellows for many more volumes. All we know is that this was a definitive end to the Parisian segment of his Comedy and of the 40 or so unfinished works he left behind, these characters did not return for encores.
The question of decency in the world is present throughout the Human Comedy. So far I have not found a better example in his corpus of backstory revealing the characters' motivations and relationship with society. The backstories were riveting, and served as a counterpoint to the main character's decision making.
The inevitable disappointment life has in store for the man of means: That sums up Godefroid. This being a reversal of the traditional harrowing upward struggle of rags-to-riches stories. Could this be an answer to Dickens' idealism?
Balzac lived in the long age of Chauvinism. But his female characters are well-rounded, thick-souled beings, very influential and heartfelt. Patriotism is omni-present - the point of the Human Comedy after all is to measure up to Dante's Divine Comedy, but to bring it down to the human level. The devotion to a life of goodwill toward men - Dante was familiar with the concept. But in Balzac's fabulous appraisal of the lives of selfish and selfless saints and sinners, he seems to understand the full impact one soul can have upon another. The subsuming of the baser instincts in Man is a common literary trope, but through obedience, subservience, meekness, the humble joys of service, industry and heartfelt relationships of Platonic love, we can observe a side of humanity we rarely see. This is an exquisite study of religion, which has wider application for its vague precepts. It is hard to live a life in this modern age without either patently ignoring or pursuing the allure of divinity. The only question that remains unanswered is whether or not it is another ambition born from a fear of death, a vain hope indeed. No matter where you find yourself on the question of faith, this book is a pure expression of humanness, and another notch on Balzac's amble belt.
As in most of the author's work, there is a display of bottomless wisdom, an assured, master's touch, and an incredible condensation of narrative and pathos. It is, from the start, a condemnation of refined tastes, a repudiation of vanity and empty boasts, and a charming character study. Balzac acknowledged influence from Dickens' contemporaneous "The Cricket and the Hearth," and it is easy to see that he borrowed a bit of his English rival's whimsicality.
But Balzac delves deeper with his themes, I think, and challenges the reader in different ways. Dickens was also a master of capturing his time, of putting relevant themes to good use, but in much of his work, he wraps the literary innovation into the form of a fable. Some of his novels lack the immediacy of Balzac's work. Balzac's Realism feels more real. At least to me.
Here we have our hero putting on a show for propriety, cultivating an impressive reputation, but also failing at managing his finances. Finances are the great obsession of the human race, and Balzac's Comedy derives its modus operandi from this principle. Our main character must put on a brave face, as he faces ruin. All he wants is to make a splash on the Paris scene, but he is floundering. The inertia of the mediocre life assaults him with its inevitability.
The ruination of business ventures and disenchantment with hopeful works is also explored in the first part of the book. Dissolute children, wayward sons, prodigal offspring, the onslaught of melancholy, advantageous marriages, impending old age, the social plight of the invalid - these concepts are given their turn throughout. Finding success from the strength and works of others, the morality of wealth, making your own luck, society's inherent flaws, unbridled disdain for the historical precedents of class hierarchies, established orders and moral strictures - Balzac manages to incorporate far more imperatives than I anticipated.
Along with an analysis of ambition, failure, talent, perception, societal duties, expectations, the privileged versus underprivileged roles in their community, the unfair distribution of ability, wealth, fame and hardship, bitter familial relationships, false modesty, dandyism, and the values of the monastic life, envy and self-important rage, the impotent existence of ambitious youth - what, seemingly, has he left out? Godefroid, the drowning man, finds his saviors in an unexpected form. Not surprising, many of these literary views intercept one another. It would be a jumbled concoction, except Balzac is a consummate weaver of tales, and knows how to subtly introduce tributaries of meaning without drawing attention from center stage.
Yet, as side characters rail against the seductions of ordinary Parisian life and overflow with didactic, preachy critiques, Balzac's unorthodox Catholicism begins to take shape. Balzac has cherrypicked specific principles for a melange of hypothetical Good Samaritans. They pointed claim in the novel they are not Good Samaritans, but for lack of a better comparison, they could be called that for the sake of shorthand. Balzac crafts a compelling narrative around this secret society of charity. It's a simple formula: have them go out and put their faith into practice, and one wonders if Balzac would have lived longer, if he would have followed the adventures of these fellows for many more volumes. All we know is that this was a definitive end to the Parisian segment of his Comedy and of the 40 or so unfinished works he left behind, these characters did not return for encores.
The question of decency in the world is present throughout the Human Comedy. So far I have not found a better example in his corpus of backstory revealing the characters' motivations and relationship with society. The backstories were riveting, and served as a counterpoint to the main character's decision making.
The inevitable disappointment life has in store for the man of means: That sums up Godefroid. This being a reversal of the traditional harrowing upward struggle of rags-to-riches stories. Could this be an answer to Dickens' idealism?
Balzac lived in the long age of Chauvinism. But his female characters are well-rounded, thick-souled beings, very influential and heartfelt. Patriotism is omni-present - the point of the Human Comedy after all is to measure up to Dante's Divine Comedy, but to bring it down to the human level. The devotion to a life of goodwill toward men - Dante was familiar with the concept. But in Balzac's fabulous appraisal of the lives of selfish and selfless saints and sinners, he seems to understand the full impact one soul can have upon another. The subsuming of the baser instincts in Man is a common literary trope, but through obedience, subservience, meekness, the humble joys of service, industry and heartfelt relationships of Platonic love, we can observe a side of humanity we rarely see. This is an exquisite study of religion, which has wider application for its vague precepts. It is hard to live a life in this modern age without either patently ignoring or pursuing the allure of divinity. The only question that remains unanswered is whether or not it is another ambition born from a fear of death, a vain hope indeed. No matter where you find yourself on the question of faith, this book is a pure expression of humanness, and another notch on Balzac's amble belt.
December 9, 2010
Balzac is an author whose individual works can run the gamut from ill-conceived and hastily constructed to sublimely powerful novels such as Pere Goriot, Lost Illusions, A Harlot High and Low, Cousin Bette, and Cousin Pons. And I would also have to add The Wrong Side of Paris, which required a re-reading to appreciate its power. Yet, even Balzac's inferior works have their place: This is because the Comédie Humaine is like a vast continuum illuminated by greater lights and lesser lights. A vast cast of characters jumps from stories to novels and back again, and the lesser lights frequently illuminate the greater ones.
In the 51 short years of his life, Balzac burned like a candle lit at both ends. He wrote with a passion that is wholly absent from literature in English. To miss having read him is to miss a unique perspective on the Promethean world that swings like a pendulum between the material and the spiritual. Reading him requires care, particularly when one is deeply involved in the minutiae of a grand conspiracy bringing together obscure points of French law and economic transactions of the period.
The Wrong Side of Paris is one of the author's few attempts to depict goodness triumphant. (The only other example I can think of at this moment is his The Country Doctor.) Just as the evil conspiracies in many of his most famous novels have a muscular drive to them, so also does the goodness of the secret group formed around Mme de la Chanterie. Influenced by the charitable work of St. Vincent de Paul and the society named after him in the 1830s, Balzac sees a secret, almost Masonic, order of powerful individuals who seek out people who are at one and the same time besieged by poverty and worthy of help.
In the first half of the book, the hero, known to us only by his first name, Godefroid, is drawn to this circle and becomes ever more involved as he becomes more fascinated with the story of Mme de la Chanterie. In the second half, he is sent to help a desperate former lawyer known at first only as M Bernard whose daughter Vanda has a rare nervous disease and who has not left her tenement room for many years. The daughter's room is elegantly decorated, even as her father and son live in slumlike conditions in the adjoining rooms. Godefroid manages to alleviate the conditions of M Bernard and his family, until he runs into a shocking revelation, which I will not reveal here.
This is one of Balzac's last completed novels and a kind of Valentine to the Polish Countess, Eveline Hanska, whom he was pursuing and eventually married -- only to die shortly after. Perhaps for this reason he employed more care in The Wrong Side of Paris than in many of his earlier novels. Even so, there are a few slip-ups, which translator Jordan Stump documents in his excellent end notes.
In the 51 short years of his life, Balzac burned like a candle lit at both ends. He wrote with a passion that is wholly absent from literature in English. To miss having read him is to miss a unique perspective on the Promethean world that swings like a pendulum between the material and the spiritual. Reading him requires care, particularly when one is deeply involved in the minutiae of a grand conspiracy bringing together obscure points of French law and economic transactions of the period.
The Wrong Side of Paris is one of the author's few attempts to depict goodness triumphant. (The only other example I can think of at this moment is his The Country Doctor.) Just as the evil conspiracies in many of his most famous novels have a muscular drive to them, so also does the goodness of the secret group formed around Mme de la Chanterie. Influenced by the charitable work of St. Vincent de Paul and the society named after him in the 1830s, Balzac sees a secret, almost Masonic, order of powerful individuals who seek out people who are at one and the same time besieged by poverty and worthy of help.
In the first half of the book, the hero, known to us only by his first name, Godefroid, is drawn to this circle and becomes ever more involved as he becomes more fascinated with the story of Mme de la Chanterie. In the second half, he is sent to help a desperate former lawyer known at first only as M Bernard whose daughter Vanda has a rare nervous disease and who has not left her tenement room for many years. The daughter's room is elegantly decorated, even as her father and son live in slumlike conditions in the adjoining rooms. Godefroid manages to alleviate the conditions of M Bernard and his family, until he runs into a shocking revelation, which I will not reveal here.
This is one of Balzac's last completed novels and a kind of Valentine to the Polish Countess, Eveline Hanska, whom he was pursuing and eventually married -- only to die shortly after. Perhaps for this reason he employed more care in The Wrong Side of Paris than in many of his earlier novels. Even so, there are a few slip-ups, which translator Jordan Stump documents in his excellent end notes.
July 1, 2018
داستان کتاب جالب بود ولی ترجمه بنظرم خیلی بد و سخت خوان بود یعنی خیلی جاها مجبور بودم دوباره و چندباره متن رو بخونم تا بفهمم.
December 10, 2025
If anyone wants to start a secret do-good society, lmk!!!
February 14, 2008
WOW. Probably the best book I've read on the essence of charitable giving and the why and the how and the who that recieves the "charity". Probably a great model for today for anyone who has the resouirces to execute such a comples and somewhat "risky" approach to giving. It certainly makes you understand the critical nature of what is given and who it is given too. Worth all the time it takes to understand.
May 3, 2011
Penetrating look into Paris of the early 1800s. Balzac proves to be a keen observer of human nature and societal structure and writes in a very entertaining manner. I waffled between three and four stars only because of the ending, which appeared a hurried attempt to wrap up the story in a fairy-tale finale.
Don't think that I'll be reading more of Balzac, as I suspect that his novels are all cut from the same cloth.
Don't think that I'll be reading more of Balzac, as I suspect that his novels are all cut from the same cloth.
October 6, 2007
I guess I'm just a sucker for stories of Christian piety and virtue.
Read
November 17, 2010My all-time favorite author. This was one of his last books to be translated I believe. Beautiful story.
May 30, 2013
Beautiful literature. Has such fond memories for me.
September 4, 2025
"فرشتگان این چنین انتقام میگیرند"
وقتی سرگذشت مادام دو لا شانتری رو میشنوی، دلت میسوزه؛
وقتی زندگی موسیو برنار رو میبینی، فلاکت و بدبختیشون قلبت رو به درد میاره؛
وقتی میفهمی موسیو برنار همون بارون بورلاکه که باعث و بانی اون همه بدبختی واسه مادام دو لا شانتری بوده، به کارما اعتقاد پیدا میکنی، شایدم یکم جیگرت خنک بشه از بلاهایی که سرش اومده.
ولی وقتی میبینی مادام دو لا شانتری، تو اوج قدرت و ثروت میتونسته زندگی بارون و دختر و نوهاش رو نابود کنه، جوری که هیچ اسم و رسمی ازشون رو زمین باقی نمونه، ولی بهجاش دستشونو میگیره و از زمین بلندشون میکنه، میفهمی که هرکسی نمیتونه مادام دو لا شانتری باشه؛ تازه میفهمی چرا پیروانش اونقدر قدیسوار میپرستنش.
این کتاب مجبورت میکنه تو جاده اخلاق قدم بذاری، دائماً بین بخشش و انتقام درگیر باشی و با بخشهای تاریک ذهن و وجودت روبرو بشی؛
ولی اگر خوب فکر کنی، مفهوم حقیقی "کمدی انسانی" رو درک میکنی.
وقتی سرگذشت مادام دو لا شانتری رو میشنوی، دلت میسوزه؛
وقتی زندگی موسیو برنار رو میبینی، فلاکت و بدبختیشون قلبت رو به درد میاره؛
وقتی میفهمی موسیو برنار همون بارون بورلاکه که باعث و بانی اون همه بدبختی واسه مادام دو لا شانتری بوده، به کارما اعتقاد پیدا میکنی، شایدم یکم جیگرت خنک بشه از بلاهایی که سرش اومده.
ولی وقتی میبینی مادام دو لا شانتری، تو اوج قدرت و ثروت میتونسته زندگی بارون و دختر و نوهاش رو نابود کنه، جوری که هیچ اسم و رسمی ازشون رو زمین باقی نمونه، ولی بهجاش دستشونو میگیره و از زمین بلندشون میکنه، میفهمی که هرکسی نمیتونه مادام دو لا شانتری باشه؛ تازه میفهمی چرا پیروانش اونقدر قدیسوار میپرستنش.
این کتاب مجبورت میکنه تو جاده اخلاق قدم بذاری، دائماً بین بخشش و انتقام درگیر باشی و با بخشهای تاریک ذهن و وجودت روبرو بشی؛
ولی اگر خوب فکر کنی، مفهوم حقیقی "کمدی انسانی" رو درک میکنی.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 13, 2016
When I was laid up with back trouble in the late 1970s, I set myself a project to read 19th century French fiction, and my favorite was Balzac. I read all of the novels in translation in Penguin, and I read many more from the Rutgers library, but I never read this book, the last novel he published, and I'm reminded why I liked Balzac so much. Adam Gopnik's introduction helped me understand that liking -- despite B's convictions -- Catholic and monarchist -- his form is anything but traditional. Gopnik calls it a kind of magic realism, where his best novels are always grounded in a dense social reality, but also can have at their center something that defies realism, in this case, an anonymous secret Catholic group that's dedicated to doing good for the poor. If that were all the novel were about, it would be boring, but the back stories of the older characters are so fascinating that I'm reminded of Faulkner's having written that the "past is never dead. It's not even past.” Two of the back stories intersect in the conclusion of the novel in a way that's starling and unsettling.
December 26, 2013
A bit different from the usual Balzac fare. I loved the idea - a man joins a secret charitable society and gets caught up in the lives of a family that has fallen on hard times. Not a thing wrong with this book, only I wish there had been more of it! Not just the one family - more, more, more! Balzac ends it quite abruptly,something he occasionally does, and I only forgive him because his writing is so wonderful, his descriptions of character, interiors, the Parisian city-scape - all so skillfully done, and transport this 21st Century Canadian into an otherwise unattainable world! I recommend as a short read for fans of Balzac.
September 19, 2017
Like in The Wild Ass's Skin, this is Balzac at his most eccentric (mysticism, magic, secret societies) though that's not a good thing at length (and Balzac is always over-long anyway). For a Balzac novel, there aren't nearly enough trivial furniture descriptions, and in English, this practically reads like an English translation of a French translation of mashed up bits from Chesterton and Wells.
January 24, 2008
Make you question your own ideas of materialism & charity and who will really be there for you in the end.
June 6, 2021
Great guide on how to start a beneficent cult!
October 25, 2017
It would appear that far too many great minds go the way of Rochester and find themselves dominated by thoughts of god at the end of their lives. It astonishes me that the man who brought us vibrant characters like Rastignac and the Bridau brothers managed to sink so far into maudlin religious apologism. The whinging bleeding heart who wrote this book bears no resemblance to the Balzac of former years. It would be more at home on the bookshelf of a doddering Catholic granny than on one accompanied by Zola, Diderot, and Maupassant. It's full of jabs at Napoleon, the Revolution, and revolutionary spirit-- instead choosing to portray the malignant royalists as victims. At one point, a kindly Christian goes off to quash a labor movement at a local factory where the workers are suffering in poverty and despair. Why? Because the disturbance to the economy and the violence of protest would be an even greater sin! Is this Balzac?! Is this France?! I can only say with Voltaire, "Ecrasez l'infame!"
October 16, 2024
One of the last novels of the Comedie Humaine, cobbled together from two novellas. A feckless youth reforms by becoming a member of a small secret society that does good works amon the poor. It foregrounds Balzac’s conservatism with an extreme defense of the church and monarchy, its disparagement of liberalism and its insistence on charity as the only means for social reform. The problem is that it’s very ecstatic, even gushing, in tone. The title, in both French and English, could have been better not least because there’s no sense of Paris as a whole; for that you have to read Balzac’s other novels.
August 2, 2024
Je veux être madame de la chanterie.
November 24, 2009
THE SEAMY SIDE OF HISTORY is certainly not Balzac’s greatest production, but it still captures the attention and is written with Balzacian charm.
Godefroid, a young man who has squandered both his opportunities and his fortune, goes to live in the sparse household of Mme. de la Charterie and is charmed by both her and his fellow lodgers. Although he does not know it at first, all the members of the household once held positions of power but have come together to live frugally and dedicate themselves to secretly performing acts of charity.
As Godefroid gradually learns their stories of long hardships, he becomes interested in helping them. His first assignment is to determine the worthiness of an elderly man and his incurably ill daughter and then to rescue them.
The man and his grandson have devoted their lives to making the daughter happy, and that, along with the machinations of evil publishers who are aided by his unscrupulous landlady, has driven the family into poverty.
Along with tending to his daughter, the man, who was once a high-ranking judge, is writing a lengthy legal treatise on which he pins his hopes of escaping from poverty.
Through the aid of Godefroid, his colleagues, and their wealthy and influential friends, the daughter is remarkably cured, the debts are repaid, and the old man’s book is published by a fair and honest publisher, thereby enabling the man to regain his position in the world.
THE COMMISSION IN LUNACY, which is also included in the volume, does not end so well. A woman unjustly tries to have her husband declared incompetent. Although all appearances are against the husband, the judge investigating the case discovers that he is not only competent but honest to an unusual degree. Through the wife’s machinations, however, the judge is removed from the case and forced to retire, and the husband is left in the lurch.
Godefroid, a young man who has squandered both his opportunities and his fortune, goes to live in the sparse household of Mme. de la Charterie and is charmed by both her and his fellow lodgers. Although he does not know it at first, all the members of the household once held positions of power but have come together to live frugally and dedicate themselves to secretly performing acts of charity.
As Godefroid gradually learns their stories of long hardships, he becomes interested in helping them. His first assignment is to determine the worthiness of an elderly man and his incurably ill daughter and then to rescue them.
The man and his grandson have devoted their lives to making the daughter happy, and that, along with the machinations of evil publishers who are aided by his unscrupulous landlady, has driven the family into poverty.
Along with tending to his daughter, the man, who was once a high-ranking judge, is writing a lengthy legal treatise on which he pins his hopes of escaping from poverty.
Through the aid of Godefroid, his colleagues, and their wealthy and influential friends, the daughter is remarkably cured, the debts are repaid, and the old man’s book is published by a fair and honest publisher, thereby enabling the man to regain his position in the world.
THE COMMISSION IN LUNACY, which is also included in the volume, does not end so well. A woman unjustly tries to have her husband declared incompetent. Although all appearances are against the husband, the judge investigating the case discovers that he is not only competent but honest to an unusual degree. Through the wife’s machinations, however, the judge is removed from the case and forced to retire, and the husband is left in the lurch.
September 13, 2018
When I picked up this translation at the local annual library book fair, I was confused. The cover and title have a distinctly late-twentieth century feel to them, but the author's name was vaguely familiar in an old-timey sort of way. Those contradictory characteristics, plus the unambiguously moralistic nature of the plot summary on the back jacket, convinced me to buy it.
As someone with translation studies background, translated literature will always hold a special place in my heart. And, likewise, when a translated novel is denied the dignity of a proper translator's note, my heart breaks a little. Happily, Jeremy Stump wrote an absolutely phenomenal translator's note that was even longer than the preface (hurrah!) and reading it before I began the novel itself was extremely useful.
I'm not going to write about the history of Balzac's collection of La Comédie humaine, because I am nowhere near an expert in French literature or Balzac. My French history is also apparently rubbish because I relied heavily on this edition's end notes to provide the much needed additional information. As do most authors who write for their contemporaries about their present, The Wrong Side of Paris is full of references to all sorts of cultural and social factoids that were lost on me. I remember very little from my AP European History course, apart from a vague idea of when the Revolution occurred, the approximate years of Napoleon's reign and a faint recollection that at one point the Bourbons were briefly placed back on the throne.
Instead, I'll just add a quick note for why I gave this four instead of five stars, even though I really did enjoy this. As much as I love dramatic, last-minute plot twists (in this sense, TWSOP felt like reading a French Dickensian novel), the story was slightly too caricatured. It was interesting to read about Paris as it was in the early/mid-nineteenth century, though.
As someone with translation studies background, translated literature will always hold a special place in my heart. And, likewise, when a translated novel is denied the dignity of a proper translator's note, my heart breaks a little. Happily, Jeremy Stump wrote an absolutely phenomenal translator's note that was even longer than the preface (hurrah!) and reading it before I began the novel itself was extremely useful.
I'm not going to write about the history of Balzac's collection of La Comédie humaine, because I am nowhere near an expert in French literature or Balzac. My French history is also apparently rubbish because I relied heavily on this edition's end notes to provide the much needed additional information. As do most authors who write for their contemporaries about their present, The Wrong Side of Paris is full of references to all sorts of cultural and social factoids that were lost on me. I remember very little from my AP European History course, apart from a vague idea of when the Revolution occurred, the approximate years of Napoleon's reign and a faint recollection that at one point the Bourbons were briefly placed back on the throne.
Instead, I'll just add a quick note for why I gave this four instead of five stars, even though I really did enjoy this. As much as I love dramatic, last-minute plot twists (in this sense, TWSOP felt like reading a French Dickensian novel), the story was slightly too caricatured. It was interesting to read about Paris as it was in the early/mid-nineteenth century, though.
August 2, 2008
I gather Modern Library has been trying to ride coattails of NYRB by reissuing their own selection of "forgotten masterpiece(s)" by famous authors. If this selection is any indication of their editorial process, they should fold the tent and slink out if town under cover of darkness. I love Balzac -- Cousin Bette and Pere Goriot are among my all-time favorite works -- but this novel was a real disappointment. It starts out with some promise, with a mysterious charitable organization that seems potentially more shady than philanthropic -- or at least that's a what a truly classic Balzac would create -- but in fact turns out to be a group of genuine do-gooders. So why does B. create such an air of hidden menace about them for a good bit of the novel? Beats me.
Along the way, there are some nice touches in descriptions of poor and sickly family trying desperately to survive and sinking lower all the time that seem right out of -- well, a real Balzac novel -- but by the end, it all lapses into maudlin melodrama with a happy ending. "Is that it??" I wondered when I finished. I turned the book upside down and shook it, assuming more pages would fall out. No such luck.
According to the back cover blurb, the work was the final volume in the massive Human Comedy. Well, it shows. The old master had clearly run out of steam. Balzac cranked out a fair amount of mediocre stuff just to pay the bills. I dont' know what he got paid for this one, but it whatever the amount, it was too much. It's nothing more than a curiosity for the die-hard Balzac fan, and I'm not sure it merits even that label. If you've read the great Balzac, I'd skip this one; if you've never read Balzac, start with Pere Goriot or Eugenie Grandet.
Along the way, there are some nice touches in descriptions of poor and sickly family trying desperately to survive and sinking lower all the time that seem right out of -- well, a real Balzac novel -- but by the end, it all lapses into maudlin melodrama with a happy ending. "Is that it??" I wondered when I finished. I turned the book upside down and shook it, assuming more pages would fall out. No such luck.
According to the back cover blurb, the work was the final volume in the massive Human Comedy. Well, it shows. The old master had clearly run out of steam. Balzac cranked out a fair amount of mediocre stuff just to pay the bills. I dont' know what he got paid for this one, but it whatever the amount, it was too much. It's nothing more than a curiosity for the die-hard Balzac fan, and I'm not sure it merits even that label. If you've read the great Balzac, I'd skip this one; if you've never read Balzac, start with Pere Goriot or Eugenie Grandet.
December 5, 2012
As a creative individual, one of my favorite quotes come from this book. "The right to be rude is the salary that artists exact for telling the truth."
I really enjoyed the book. I originally didn't think I would get sucked in but eventually I couldn't put it down. I found the book at a used book store for a couple of bucks. Its not a perfect book but the writing is great. Its mostly a social commentary on the nature of charity. Its set in France after the revolution. After hitting rock bottom the main character gets accepted into a secretive organization of good doers run by an enamoring older woman who has a rough background story that has led her to a life of charity. He makes his life purpose to fit into and conform to this group, not really knowing what is going on. The last half of the book is him figuring out the true nature of the group and charity.
I really enjoyed the book. I originally didn't think I would get sucked in but eventually I couldn't put it down. I found the book at a used book store for a couple of bucks. Its not a perfect book but the writing is great. Its mostly a social commentary on the nature of charity. Its set in France after the revolution. After hitting rock bottom the main character gets accepted into a secretive organization of good doers run by an enamoring older woman who has a rough background story that has led her to a life of charity. He makes his life purpose to fit into and conform to this group, not really knowing what is going on. The last half of the book is him figuring out the true nature of the group and charity.
August 11, 2021
My first HdB. Forgiveness and grace following a time of political division, upheaval and violence. Even if fantastical in parts, very enjoyable and uplifting.
October 31, 2011
Balzac can't help himself, despite a didactic premise about a society of selfless people doing anonymous works of charity he can't help but let his characters, intrigues, and places shine through. This is a recent translation of the rarely translated last book in the Human Comedy. While it's certainly nowhere near the top of that set of works it is well worth reading -- and a sad reminder that there must be dozens of other Balzac novels that are just as good that haven't been translated in over a century.
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August 6, 2020I love anything by Balzac and had read every book by him that my local library owned. This new translation of Balzac’s Human Comedy appeared on the shelf. The title and picture on the front cover, a dark glimpse of the subway in Paris, made me ask, “Just what did this character get himself into?” I absolutely loved it. I could barely put it down. I do not know the subway in Paris, but I know Madrid’s and I know Tokyo’s. Good title and a compelling front cover, and a great new translation.
November 5, 2007
I really wanted to like this book more. I have wanted to read Balzac for a while and so jumped on this book when I found it on sale at the book store. There were some great descriptions and interesting commentaries, but the story was not that engaging and then truncated once things started to get interesting. I am a religious person, but I found the religion a little heavy-handed, especially in the first part of the book.
October 28, 2019
balzac's last novel, never published in its entirety during his lifetime, and as such feels in places like handful of half-finished episodes strung together. its certainly good, and has its moments of greatness, but overall seems like a cut below the rest of the work that i've read by him
August 16, 2014
Really enjoyed it. I have only read a few of the books in the Human Comedy series but have enjoyed them all.
March 18, 2020
Balzac may have been first omong the realism novelists of 100 years ago, but his writing is still hard to beat, or put down.
May 29, 2020
I was taken aback by how peculiar this book is. A secret society devoted to helping the deserving poor, some convoluted back stories and a walloping coincidence. I loved it.
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