Блеск и нищета куртизанок

La Comédie Humaine #41

by Honoré de Balzac, Оноре де Бальзак

В громадном цикле Оноре де Бальзака "Человеческая комедия" книга "Блеск и нищета куртизанок" занимает особое место. Главы этого блестящего романа-фельетона с напряженной интригой, почти детективной фабулой и большим количеством действующих лиц печатались в парижских газетах на протяжении десяти лет. В итоге возник беспощадно-реалистический портрет Парижа накануне Июльской революции 1830 года с его блестящими балами и грязными, едва освещенными нищенскими закоулками, светскими красавицами и продажными женщинами, ростовщиками и юными честолюбцами, аристократами, банкирами, полицейскими, каторжниками. В этом городе на продажу выставлено все, даже любовь и добродетель, а мораль тех, кого называют сливками общества, мало чем разнится от нравов уголовного мира. Лирическая линия романа связана с преображением роковой красавицы-куртизанки, полюбившей честолюбивого поэта, предвосхищает основную тему "Дамы с камелиями" А. Дюма-сына.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, France, French Literature, 19th Century, Literature, Romance

608 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1838

About the author

French 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.

Reviews

[Manny · Rating 4 out of 5]

[Original review, Sep 1 2020]
What a strange book this is, a veritable crossroads of the French novel! I ordered a copy after seeing Michel Houllebecq recommend it several times in La possibilité d'une île, a novel which reprises one of the main themes in a cleverly inverted perspective. It's the sequel to the much more famous Illusions perdues, so I read that first. And as I reached the ending of Illusions, the diligent editor told me in a footnote that the meeting between Lucien and Carlos Herrera (as Lucien believes him to be), inspired Proust. Indeed, the male homosexual perspective and the disgust with the systematic rottenness of society on display in Sodome et Gomorrhe are all prefigured here - Baron de Charlus seems to owe more than a little to "Herrera".

But poor Balzac is writing the novel with one hand tied behind his back. Although the overarching theme is sexual desire and the crazy things it makes people do, the mores of 1840s France mean he's hardly allowed to show us anything and is obliged to do it all through indirect suggestion. I've got nothing against indirect suggestion, it's a powerful technique, but I don't think Balzac wanted it to be this indirect. It's just not made clear why Esther and Mme de Sérisy are so smitten with Lucien's charms that they're driven to madness and despair. As Balzac complains in a memorable passage near the end:

La hardiesse du vrai s'élève à des combinaisons interdites à l'art, tant elles sont invraisemblables ou peu décentes, à moins que l'écrivain ne les adoucisse, ne les émonde, ne les châtre.

Balzac evidently feels his text has been, as he puts it, castrated, and would have liked it to be rather more indecent.

I wonder if Flaubert read Splendeurs et misères? Given Balzac's enormous popularity and Flaubert's omnivorous reading, my guess is that he did, and maybe he wondered if he couldn't do a better job of portraying female desire. Madame Bovary came out less than a decade after the final installment of Balzac's book. It got Flaubert into legal trouble, but he solved the problem that was so upsetting the earlier author. What a shame that Balzac didn't live to see it.
_______________
[Update, Jul 4 2021]

I just noticed this passage from La possibilité d'une île - as already mentioned, Houellebecq is a huge fan. It's a pretty good one-sentence summary of Balzac's novel:

Le vie sexuelle des banquiers et des dirigeants d'entreprise, malgré tout leur argent, est en général absolument misérable, ils doivent se contenter de brefs rendez-vous payés à prix d'or avec des escort girls qui les méprisent et ne manquent jamais de leur faire sentir le dégoût physique qu'ils leur inspirent.

_______________
[Update, Jul 19 2021]

Rereading Sodome et Gomorrhe, I'm struck by the following conversation between the narrator and M. de Charlus:

Comme, après avoir regardé la belle reliure de son Balzac, je lui demandais ce qu'il préférait dans la Comédie Humaine, il me répondit, dirigeant sa pensée vers une idée fixe: «Tout l'un ou tout l'autre, les petites miniatures comme le Curé de Tours et la Femme abandonnée, ou les grandes fresques comme la série des Illusions perdues. Comment! vous ne connaissez pas les Illusions perdues? C'est si beau, le moment où Carlos Herrera demande le nom du château devant lequel passe sa calèche: c'est Rastignac, la demeure du jeune homme qu'il a aimé autrefois. Et l'abbé alors de tomber dans une rêverie que Swann appelait, ce qui était bien spirituel, la Tristesse d'Olympio de la pédérastie. Et la mort de Lucien! je ne me rappelle plus quel homme de goût avait eu cette réponse, à qui lui demandait quel événement l'avait le plus affligé dans sa vie: «La mort de Lucien de Rubempré dans Splendeurs et Misères.»

According to the footnote, "l'homme de goût" is Oscar Wilde.

[L.S. Popovich · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a singular "textual pleasure" in reading Balzac, once you've acquired the taste. It's decadent.

In this unofficial sequel to Lost Illusions, Balzac exercises his capacity to depict psychological tortures. Though I have not read the first novel in this sequence, the four parts of Harlot High and Low vary in quality. There are 43 characters in this volume, many of whom appear elsewhere in the Comedy under other aliases or simply the same name. It is a crucial work in the body of Balzac's writings, but probably not as important as Lost Illusions, which is his longest single book.

Has there ever been a time when the justice system was not in need of reform? Reading this got me thinking back to other books. People have a habit of writing about all the harm the prison system does to a person, rather than any good it might have ever accomplished. This has been true, seemingly to a greater degree, since Balzac's France.

How dismaying it is to see everyone, time after time, looking out for themselves in exclusion to everyone else. The author has cast light on the ugly bits of the human psyche before, but in this iteration, human vice is the modus operandi of the novel.

The ins and outs of financial corruption are also reminiscent of our own time. Have our human flaws remained consistent since 4000 BC? Balzac posits it is so. Every form of bribe, fudging the accounts, graft, and other financial trickery is represented here in spades.

The common subjects to be found in Balzac include: finance, business, history, fashion, drama, religion, ideal love, familial relations, and social hierarchies.

As usual, he is waxing poetic on every other page. His languorous prose, deep in pathos, gravitas, and dependably deep themes, is rapturous. Can a person be purified? We have been asking this question for millennia. Harlot High and Low explores the reasons why people fall into sin, despair, depravity, or how in turn they might ascend to the ideal, the divine, attain man's higher nature, the angelic, and what part, if any, money plays in the equation. Man's material obsession is inescapable, his lust for power and satiation, mingled with the chimerical forms of love correspond to our darkest discontents and our holiest dreams. The methodology of the devil, in human form, is expounded in the well-rounded characters, each of whom have their own stakes and motives for seeking to control others.

The very clear references and connections to Romeo and Juliet may seem trite nowadays, but there is also the oft-used archetype of Mephistopheles and Faust. This book is not simple enough to be summed up as a retelling of anything. It is in fact, quite convoluted. The structure of Balzac's human labyrinth fits in well with the style of what he calls the "severe luxury" of the aristocrats he satirizes.

The flitting play of vanity is occasionally amusing to watch, but after a while, the joke grows stale. Various incarnations of greed in endless forms, make their appearance throughout literature, and they must be expressed through interesting characters in order to be relevant. Most of the time, this book accomplishes that. These scandalous characters cultivate scandal like some people raise tomatoes.

Part of the author's method is contrast and juxtaposition: Sin and baptism, prostitution and marriage, crime and charity, often mingling virtue with vice in the same character. There is a prevalent double-standard, wicked dames and masters of disguise, to add intrigue and Dumas-ian grandiosity.

The male characters have a very serious weakness for women. No surprise there. And most of the women have a weakness for Lucien. This felt odd to me. Probably because I have not yet read Lost Illusions. Anyone who is human has a weakness for money, except for the Baron, for whom money is a defining character trait, a strength, mere bird seed to be distributed liberally to the flocking hordes.

The book also contains rich interpretation of Rabelais, mentions of Moliere, Dante, Shakespeare, and Cervantes. In these we can detect some of Balzac's literary idols. Then there is the satire on police, politicians, aristocrats, prostitutes, priests, and bankers.

Subtlety, where warranted, and ever-present humor of the dry, witty variety. The powerful men are in thrall to the women whose only source of power is their beauty. They wield it with the same ruthlessness as the men wield their inherited powers. It was nice to see the character of Asia play a major part. Her manipulations resulted in much of the novel's powerful interactions.

In Balzac's time, social status came with proscribed behavior. Etiquette was paramount. Class, wealth, position: these were the pursuits of men and "great" ladies, and so often led to a lack of virtue, sympathy, a dearth of wisdom and inflexible greed.

The obsession with money and beauty can only go so far in a novel. Luckily, there is charm and tension to spare. I won't lie and claim that parts of it did not bore me. It is a long book, and requires analysis to best be appreciated. One of the challenges is the fact that the 4 parts do not sync up perfectly. Balzac did not write them all at once, and their focus, where they do not intersect, can swerve far afield.

There are plenty of fancy dress balls and snooty operas if that's what you were hoping for. I preferred Part 3. It was both morbid and mundane.

Part 4 went on an interesting tangent about argot and its uses. This part either inspired a little of Les Miserables, or borrowed from the same sources. Mesmerism makes another appearance. Aliases come into play heavily in the latter part of the book. It was nice to finally leave the character of the Baron behind. His excessive display of groveling was unbearable. I greatly disliked this character and and hold him solely responsible for what might be considered the flaws in this near masterpiece.

Some police procedural segments occupy the second half as well. It relies more on Lucien and Herrera than our titular harlot. I plan to read Lost Illusions, to get a glimpse of some of these characters at earlier stages in their tragic careers.

The trope of the great police inspector was just emerging. Les Miserables made use of the same real life examples as did Balzac, as the translator claims. I would however, recommend Hugo's book over this one.

The unintelligible accent of the Baron, which the translator assures us, is just as execrable in French was the defining unpleasantness of my reading experience. It was the bird poop in the soup, the anchovies on the pizza. I consider it a flaw in translation. Even if Balzac made a mess of the Alsatian accent, the same accent can be approximated with verisimilitude and still be readable. It is not necessary to switch around the letters of every word to give the sense of an accent. Dickens offers many examples of how to switch a couple words in a sentence to convey just the right amount of accent.

As another examination of the animal in man, of the concept of the clothes make the man, there are few examples which shine as brightly as Balzac's. However, I would by no means consider this a must-read, even within the Human Comedy. I think he touches on most of these themes elsewhere more succinctly. Chivalry is not exactly thriving in Paris at this time. I felt the same sickness of boredom as his characters on occasion, but it was nonetheless pleasant to luxuriate in the atmosphere he flawlessly conjures in his fiction. The Torpedo is an entertaining character and her rippling affect on the men around her is highly amusing. This is, at bottom, an unconventional portrayal of prostitution for its time, which has been superseded by other novels which trade classical tropes for accuracy.

Men of action incline toward Fatalism, Balzac warns us. Watching Nucingen being bled dry was disheartening, considering how many of the upper-class elderly are so often preyed upon by the younger generation. But how much of his situation was his own fault, resulting from his petty animal instincts? "Prettiness conceals horror." This line stands out as representative of his plight, which he chooses over his own security.

"A bit of morality does nobody any harm. It's the salt of life to people like me, just as vice is to the pious." Lines like this make up the bulk of Balzac's dialogue. As impossible as it is to imagine real people speaking so eloquently, the conciseness adds to the rhythm. You can easily see the havoc a properly worded letter can wreak on a person's life in this book. It makes it easier to reflect on our own time, having perused the accounts from previous centuries. With our faces glued to our phones and screens, sending thousands of messages per day, receiving information from all sources like living computers, yet preserving many of our basic functions, our changing family structures, the differences in lifestyle, art and how we distribute our wealth. These comparisons keep Balzac relevant.

[Cindy Newton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't find out until I was well into this book that it is actually part of a series, so I feel that I missed out on a deeper level of meaning that exists for people who read the books in order. That being said, it was still an engrossing read. It is the tragic love story of a beautiful prostitute, her adored, socially-ambitious poet, and the cunning escaped convict who controls them like a puppet-master. The novel is chock-full of keen insight into human nature, society, the politics of power, greed, and lust, and the venal behavior that often masquerades as justice.

***Spoilers ahead****

Carlos Herrera (one of his aliases) is an escaped convict who poses as a priest and nurtures Lucien de Rubempre in a grand scheme to marry him off to the daughter of a wealthy duke. This is complicated by Lucien's passion for the lovely Esther, the harlot mentioned in the title. Herrera manipulates both of these lovesick young people, guiding their steps precisely to fulfill his ultimate goal--Lucien's marriage and embrace by the highest of French society.

This plot requires Esther's alliance with a infatuated older nobleman, the Baron Nucingen. She reluctantly allows herself to become the kept woman of this enormously wealthy man, milking him of hundreds of thousands of francs in the process--all in service of her beloved Lucien's social aspirations.

I'll leave you to discover the rest, but the plot careers between the drawing rooms and boudoirs of the cream of French society to the meanest cells of the Conciergerie, the dreaded French prison. During the course of the story, Balzac's clever pen reveals that there is very little difference to be found between the behavior of the elite of the French aristocracy and the desperate ruffians incarcerated in the prison. People are people, he seems to say with a cynical smirk.

I'm going to seek out the other volumes in this multi-novel epic, and try to forget that I already know what happens to Lucien and Esther. :(

[Carlo Mascellani · Rating 4 out of 5]

Romanzo particolarmente denso, intrecciato, ricco di colpi di scena. Una storia che, quando si crede di averla capita e interpretata, sembra sempre condurre in una direzione diversa, se non addirittura opposta. Sebbene, in molti punti, la narrazione e le considerazioni espresse da Balzac sembrino avanzare la convinzione che non si possa cambiare, in vita (Chi è cattivo resta cattivo e chi buono buono), in realtà, numerose sono anche le attestazioni contrarie, che lasciano supporre la possibile redenzione di molti personaggi "negativi".

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally finished this novel about the Parisian underworld and police in 1830s Paris. The character Vautrin who has many aliases, Jacques Collins, the priest Carlos Herrera or Dodgedeath. Vautrin is perhaps the greatest villains of French literature. In short, when people say crime does not pay should read this novel. The ending was completely unexpected.

The novel follows the life of Lucien Chardon/de Rubempré who is about to kill himself but instead is saved by Carlos Herrera and becomes his protege. He lives a life of luxury and falls in love with the harlot, Esther known as the Torpedo. She also loves him and will do anything for him.

This novel shows the deception, corruption, and chicanery, at every level of society. Herrera is the consummate puppet master where he plays everyone at every level of society.

Herrera needs money for him to make Lucien a Marquis and to marry into high society. He uses Esther as a cash cow when the elderly, German banker billionaire Nucingen falls head over heels in love with her. This is amusing and boy do they fleece him. It is also funny how Balzac captures Nucingen’ a crazy French accent. For example,

"Ha'f a million, and not yet efen gaught zight of her legs. It is too zilly

However, the house of cards built by Vautrin threatens to collapse with the suicide of Esther and arrest of Lucien. Lucien foolishly confessed and then kills himself when he would have been freed. Vautrin is also arrested and this is where Balzac is at his best in what happens to this artful villain.

Not Balzac’s best novel but up there with the best. The story explores what motivates people to fall into sin, despair, depravity and also how they aim to improve their lives. Of course, the key driver is the role of wealth and money.

[Gary Inbinder · Rating 5 out of 5]

The title Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes, is typically translated into English either as The Splendors and Miseries of Courtesans or as A Harlot High and Low.

Courtesans appear prominently in this novel, especially the beautiful and tragic Esther Gosbeck aka La Torpille. As for harlots “high and low” this presumably refers to the many women, both low (actresses and courtesans) and high (countesses and duchesses) who fall madly in love with the angelically handsome poet and journalist, Lucien Chardon de Rubempré (see Lost Illusions).
Lucien and the women play their assigned roles, but they do not constitute the powerful force that drives Balzac’s intricate plot. That part is played by one of the most complex and fascinating creations of 19th century literature. Balzac’s great project La Comédie humaine contains many recurring characters including Jacques Collin aka Vautrin aka Abbé Carlos Herrera aka Trompe-la-Mort (literally the death-cheater). He is the true protagonist of this novel, the grandmaster who dictates the rules of the game.

At the end of Lost Illusions, following a spectacular rise and fall as a journalist in Paris, Lucien returns to his home in Angoulême. Despondent following the failure of his career, financial ruin and the death of his mistress, Coralie, Lucien contemplates suicide. He is about to kill himself when he encounters the Abbe Carlos Herrera, a priest in the diplomatic service of the King of Spain. In fact, Herrera is Jacques Collin in one of his many assumed identities. Collin talks the young man out of suicide and draws him into a Faustian bargain. Lucien will re-conquer Paris society as the sham diplomat-priest’s protégé.

“Collin never failed to cement the compacts he had made, for like the devil himself he was possessed with the passion of recruiting.”

I won’t summarize the entire plot. Suffice it to say that the bargain doesn’t turn out as well for Lucien as it did for Faust in Goethe’s play. Rastignac, another recurring character who appears in this novel, had in an earlier novel (see Le Père Goriot) the will to resist a similar temptation from the Mephistophelean Collin.

Balzac is believed to have modeled Collin on Eugène-François Vidocq, the infamous criminal turned detective who rose to the office of Chief of the Sûreté. Lucien provides a detailed impression of his sinister mentor.

“Their very games are so perilous that at length they kill the meek dog which they have chosen for a companion, for an idol. When God so wills it, these mysterious beings are Moses, Attila, Charlemagne, Mohammed, or Napoleon; but when he lets these gigantic instruments rust at the bottom of the ocean of a generation, they are but Pugatcheff, Fouché, Louvel, or the Abbé Carlos Herrera. Endued with boundless influence over sensitive souls, they attract them and grind them to powder. It is great, in its way it is beautiful. It is the venomous plant of gorgeous colors which fascinates children in the woods. It is the poetry of evil. Men such as you should dwell in caverns and never come forth. You have made me live this giant life and I have finished my full measure of existence.”

Collin often declares his love for Lucien. He calls the poet his “son.” He lives vicariously through his creation, a projection of his idealized self. In a sense, Collin is Frankenstein and Lucien becomes his beautiful monster. There is indeed something terrible and godlike about Trompe-la-Mort. However, despite Collin’s great physical and mental powers, like all humans he suffers from the vagaries of Fortune. To paraphrase Robert Burns, the best laid schemes of mice and men are often fouled up.

In La Comédie humaine Balzac bequeathed a vivid historical panorama of France during the time of the Bourbon Restoration and the July Monarchy (1815-1830 & 1830-1848). To my knowledge, no other writer has described an era in such detail and from so many different perspectives. He portrayed the culture of Paris and the provinces through characters drawn from all classes and backgrounds, from various trades, professions, the arts and sciences, politics, finance, those who made the laws, those who enforced them and those who broke them. A generation after Balzac, Zola came close to the scope of La Comédie humaine with the Rougon-Macquart series. Did he equal or surpass Balzac? I can’t say for sure. However, as a writer I can honestly state that I am in awe of both their achievements.

[Michael Finocchiaro · Rating 5 out of 5]

The sequel to Illusions Perdues, Splendeurs et Misères des Courtisanes is a breath-taking story of intrigue and features one of literatures greatest villains of all time Vautrin at the height of his perfidy. It is a must read and one of the greatest books by the already splendid and prolific Balzac.

[Davide · Rating 4 out of 5]

...e così il giudice Camusot era il figlio di papà Camusot, quello che manteneva Coralie quando incontrava Lucien...

[agosto 2017]: e in La Maison du Chat-qui-pelote, uno dei primissimi testi della Comédie, già si citava, di passaggio, un «monsieur Camusot, le plus riche négociant en soieries de la rue des Bourdonnais».

e già negli Chouans come dicevo compariva un certo Corentin...

Si sa... come diceva Victor Hugo nel discorso funebre: «Tous ses livres ne forment qu’un livre, livre vivant, lumineux, profond, où l’on voit aller et venir, et marcher et se moivoir, avec je ne sais quoi d’effaré et de terrible mêlé au réel, toute notre civilisation contemporaine, livre merveilleux que le poète a intitulé Comédie et qu’il aurait pu intituler Histoire».

[Steve R · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published in 1847, this work is ostensibly a continuation of Lost Illusions but could actually stand alone, especially since its focus is so centered on Paris as opposed to the largely provincial setting of its prequel.

The Abbe Carlos Herrera, (also known as Trompe le Mort, Jacques Collin, Dodgedeath and the Dab) who had previously appeared in Le Pere Goriot as Vautrin certainly dominates the flow of events in this one, although it is through his subtle manipulation of others that he carries out most of his actions. Esther, Nucingin, Contenson, Corentin, Conquoelle, Peyrade, Rastignac, Bianchon, Lydie, Asie, Europe, Mme. de Serizy, Clothilde Grandlieu, Bibi-Lapin and even the examiner Camusot as well as many others act almost as marionettes to Herrera’s pulling of their strings. Inevitably there are thousands and at times even millions of francs involved in their schemes, as well as a more than requisite amount of libido-driven lust in the old and wealthy for the young, beautiful women of the story. Dinners, plays, operas, nightly assignations, confrontations at the doorsteps of the rich after getting out of one’s carriage and many other situations are always described with vibrant detail.

Several deaths occur quite suddenly just past the halfway point, and from there on the focus shifts to a minutely detailed examination of the processes of French justice, as carried out in its prisons by its lawyers. Still, one’s sympathies remain firmly rooted with Collin, as nefarious and seemingly black-hearted as he is. It was as if Balzac was trying to show that the greatest criminals have the most ability to dispense a truly honourable form of justice.

About a quarter of my through reading, I started noting down the pithy generalizations with which Balzac characteristically developed his portrayal of the complexity of Parisian life in the early nineteenth century. Just a few:

- to look for gratitude from a moneylender is as vain as to try to touch the heart of the wolves of the Ukraine in winter
- a child is a hostage given to misfortune
- lovers, like martyrs, feel a brotherhood in their sufferings
- Paris justice that is to say, the most suspicious, keenest, cleverest and most omniscient type of justice
- in Paris, extremes are made to meet by passions. Vice is constantly the rich to the poor, the great to the mean
- the viler a man’s life is, the more he clings to it; it becomes at every moment a protest and a revenge
- in politics, as at sea, a calm be deceptive.
- suppers, like plays and books, have their good and bad luck
- the knowledge of a man’s countenance is, to the woman who loves him, like the sea to a sailor
- the bad taste that ruins everything in the provinces
- there is nothing more fatal than etiquette to those who regard it as the most formidable arm of social law
- great ladies are great just because they can do their duty on every occasion and do it nobly.
- haughtiness is dignity without a solid basis
- sudden transitions from a state of complete demoralization to one in which the human forces so tauten it is almost metallic, are a distinct phenomenon of the life of thought

Although a fragmented plot with Hugo-like digressions of expostulation and description detracting from the flow of the narrative, still a highly enjoyable read.

Highly recommended.

[Jonfaith · Rating 4 out of 5]

So Balzac's father added the "de". It was invented not inherited. Actually it the author himself, not his bourgeois father.Such utility is brought to bear in the two novels Lost Illusions and A Harlot High and Low. Both chronicle the verve of self-creation, first in Lost Illusions in a literary/journalistic context and later in this novel with simple grift. The entire novel is serial cons against the Church, society, the bourgeois and finally the Courts. I obviously didn't swallow this novel whole. This approach necessitated ongoing rereading to reorient. I'd like to think this enriched the experience.

[Anachronist · Rating 4 out of 5]

Balzac explores the artistic life of Paris in 1821-22, and furthermore the nature of the artistic life generally. He does it in a great way. He starts a simple story of a weak young man helped by an older, more experienced and cunning tutor and then it explodes into a multi-novel epic. The narrative is powerful enough to carry readers past any of the flaws – I wasn’t bored for one single second. The deception, corruption, and trickery, at every level of society are brilliantly displayed, often almost off-hand, in casual conversation because everyone expects nothing different. There's a great cast of secondary characters, too, from the maids Herrera uses in his carefully orchestrated plans to various members of high society.

I liked this book especially because, although Balzac doesn't do badly with the romance he builds his novel around, he doesn't really have much patience for it. He, like me, is not a romantic person at heart, believing in more primal instincts – survival, cunning, logic. Love doesn’t conquer all: no one is ever allowed to forget that Esther is a whore and likes her job, that it's practically in her blood and that she can be little else, no matter how hard she tries and no matter how much she adores her poor, infatuated, ambitious Lucien. Criminals are perceived similarly – the author even admires them for being true to themselves and their instincts. Small wonder Vautrin steals the show in every part of his series.

Balzac's writing, even at its messiest, it's never less than forceful. The best thing about him is that he never offers a didactic or 'social' novel (mind you we are dealing here with an 19th century writer!), and ultimately it's for the best that he lets himself get carried away by the nasty criminals so readily. A novel meant to be about prostitution, with a courtesan (or harlot) in the title, manages to dispense with her services for its entire final part: that's a bit odd but entirely deliberate. Balzac knows where his strengths lie and when Esther (or, especially, Lucien, the weakest link in the chain) no longer serves her/ his narrative purposes the author is quick to brush them aside and concentrate on the anti-hero he can have the most fun with.


A Harlot High and Low is part of Balzac's grand 'Human Comedy' series, and like many of his novels it's one that seems to get out of hand. It seems too long; what's more the author simply doesn’t have any patience to describe good moments in full – the happy four-year period Lucien and Esther were granted by Herrera occupies...one paragraph.

And speaking of that period…I do wonder how Esther managed such a long seclusion. During that time she led a life of a vampire and should have succumbed to serious depression – think about vitamin D deficiency among other things…also the obsession of the rich old banker with a prostitute was presented a bit over the top. Well- different times, different criteria.

At last, Balzac's inability to make Esther and Lucien more forceful heroes, do prevent A Harlot High and Low from being a great novel, but it's nevertheless a very good one.

[Aïsha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un roman… splendide hehe. Une fin digne de la trilogie. La boucle est bouclée, mais elle est surtout inattendue. J’aime la plume de Balzac de tout mon cœur : c’est drôle, émouvant et poétique à la fois. Je suis fan de Vautrin, qui est (et restera) l’un de mes personnages préférés, tout romans confondus.

Le roman est long, lent à démarrer au début… mais qu’il est beau.

[Bettie]

Description: Finance, fashionable society, and the intrigues of the underworld and the police system form the heart of this powerful novel, which introduces the satanic genius Vautrin, one of the greatest villains in world literature.

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1660

Produced by Dagny, Bonnie Sala, John Bickers, and David Widger

Opening: In 1824, at the last opera ball of the season, several masks were struck by the beauty of a youth who was wandering about the passages and greenroom with the air of a man in search of a woman kept at home by unexpected circumstances. The secret of this behavior, now dilatory and again hurried, is known only to old women and to certain experienced loungers. In this immense assembly the crowd does not trouble itself much to watch the crowd; each one's interest is impassioned, and even idlers are preoccupied.

Original title: Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes.

[Justin Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

Peak Balzac: a throbbing plot, but also scores of pages you can skim over without any loss to the novel whatsoever.

[Armin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Balzac, obwohl politisch konservativ (in diesem Roman sogar ein Reaktionär), war in vielem seiner Zeit voraus, als Vorbild für den Naturalismus oder auch in Sachen Gesellschaftsroman, die erste Hälfte erweist sich als Vorlage für die Kameliendame, die zweite Hälfte mit ihrer präzisen Schilderung des Gefängnisalltags weist auf den Naturalismus voraus. Zudem fungieren die Haft- und Intrigenkapitel als Korrektur zu den allzu romantischen Geheimnissen von Parishttps://www.goodreads.com/review/show..., die zwischendrin für reichlich Furore gesorgt hatten. Herzoginnen wie Blumenmädchen rissen sich um die jüngsten Fortsetzungen des Überraschungserfolgs, mithin die Welt, die Balzac in ihrer Totalität dargestellt hatte. Es muss ein krasses Gefühl gewesen sein, wenn das eigene Personal den den auf schlecht miteinander verbundene Schockszenen kalkulierten Reißer eines minder begabten Schreiberlings verschlingt, wiewohl die erste Hälfte von Glanz und Elend auch ziemlich zusammen gestoppelt und romanhaft im schlechten Sinne wirkt, die Prosaklamotte um den erstmals verliebten legalen Kriminellen und Millionenpreller Nucingen und die schöne Esther ist 150 Seiten zu lang, daran ändert auch die in den Romantext eingebaute Erklärung über die Macht der bürgerlichen Emporkömmlinge nichts, die Neureichenkomödien wie Lesages Tucaret verbieten würden, weil Tucaret jetzt Frankreich regiert. Auch das Finale des zweiten Teils mit einer Romeo-und-Julia-Variante von Anno 1830 mit einem denkbar unglücklich verpassten millionenschweren glücklichen Ende, hat mich eher geärgert als gerührt. Auch wenn Balzac noch mal das komplette überlebende Personal der Comédie humaine in Bewegung setzt und durch bereits bekannte Schauplätze und Liebesnester hetzt, die erste Hälfte des Finales bleibt weit unter den Möglichkeiten, die vielen Verkleidungsnummern sind für später geborene (Sue- oder Karl-May-vorgeschädigte) Leser nur noch schwer erträglich, auch wenn die Wiederholungstaten des Maysters 40 bis 50 Jahre später fabriziert wurden.

Balzac war seiner Zeit voraus, - auch im Schlechten, sprich das Phänomen des enttäuschenden Staffelfinales nimmt Glanz und Elend schon mal vorweg, auch wenn der Roman Lust auf bislang übersehene Vorgeschichten von bekannten Größen und allerlei Halb- und Viertelpromis der CH macht.
Die im Gefängnis angesiedelte zweite Hälfte nervt die Leser zwar anfangs mit allzu ausführlichen Schilderungen der Lokalität, die einmal der Palast von Ludwig dem Heiligen gewesen ist, aber das Notre-Dame-de-Paris-Gefühl hält nicht allzu lange vor. Im weiteren Verlauf überzeugt der Fortgang des Romans als Tragödie wie als Komödie, sogar beim Vorwissen um gewisse letale Ausgänge entsteht bei den Verhören eine großartige Spannung.
Noch meisterhafter ist der Umschlag von Triumph in Tragödie beim Verhörspezialisten Camusot, der gerade den Verbrecher des Jahrhunderts enttarnt und nebenbei noch seinen Vater gerächt hat, dem der Schönling Lucien einst die Geliebte abgenommen hat. Denn das Ergebnis passt so vielen mächtigen Leuten nichts ins Konzept, dass der Untersuchungsrichter sämtliche sonst miteinander verfeindeten Lager der guten Gesellschaft gegen sich aufbringen würde. Das atemberaubende Tempo von Intrige und Gegenintrige unter Adelskreisen und Kriminellen auf beiden Seiten des Gesetzes hält bis zur allerletzten Seite, allem Allgemeinwissen über gewisse Karrieren zum trotz.
Fazit: Vater Goriot - Verlorene Illusionen - Glanz Elend der Kurtisanen bilden so etwas wie eine Trilogie um den Superschurken Vautrin/Collin, der als flüchtiger Verbrecher beginnt und am Ende sogar Polizeipräsident wird.
Der Auftakt um den König Lear von Paris hat als Keimzelle zum Zyklus eine unwiderstehliche Frische und entwickelt einen Sog, der ein rasches Lesetempo garantiert. Der jugendliche Held Rastignac macht als Unschuld vom Lande zwar seine Fehler, widersteht aber den Versuchungen Vautrins, wird aber nicht nur zum Liebhaber der schönen Baronin Nucingen (die schönere Tochter Vater Goriots), sondern auch zum Werkzeug des Bankiers (Das Haus Nucingen) bei dessen größtem Finanzbetrug.
Verlorene Illusionen spannt den Bogen deutlich weiter in Sachen Charakterzeichnung wie bei der Darstellung des Verlagswesens und der Meinungsmache in der Hauptstadt, bzw. dem Innenleben der Clique, die bestimmt, was gerade angesagt ist. Der Provinz-Poet Lucien Chardon-de-Rubempré ist das unglaublich viel schönere, aber lebensuntüchtigere Gegenstück zu Rastignac. Eine Art Glückspilz, der sein Umfeld ruiniert, ein opportunistischer Lump, dem das Format zum Schurken fehlt und seinen kometenhaften Aufstieg mit einem noch tieferen Absturz bezahlt, der den Schönling mit Selbstmordgedanken unter die Fuchtel von Vautrin/Collin bringt. Dabei wollte der mit einer frischen Identität versehene Schatzmeister der Kriminellen eigentlich einen früheren Liebhaber aus dem Gefängnis befreien. Beim Finale von Glanz und Elend kann Collin noch mal auf das ursprüngliche Vorhaben zurück kommen, dabei beginnt der Roman mit Luciens verfrühter Rache und zwei weiteren brillanten Kapiteln, in denen der Mephisto den Selbstmord eines ehemaligen Mädchens für alle im Journalitsten-Politikerklüngel verhindert und der ehemaligen Dirne ein neues, reineres Ich verpasst, dessen Ende sie nicht einen Tag überleben will, wenn sie sich schon für Luciens Aufstieg an den lange genug genarrten Nucingen verkaufen muss. Dieser letztlich sinnlose Liebestod einer ahnungslosen Millionenerbin, auch wenn Vautrin/Collin bei der Schadensbegrenzung das Maximum für sich herausholt, schmeckt ein wenig nach den Heldinnen Victor Hugos. Trotzdem, die ersten drei Kapitel des ersten Teils und der zweite Teil sind absolut fünf Sterne wert. Dazwischen klafft leider eine Lücke, die den umfangreichsten Roman einen Stern kostet.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the third time I have read Honoré de Balzac's A Harlot High and Low. For almost half a century, I have revered the work of this great author. Re-reading him, I become aware how I have changed in the intervening time. The one constant is that I continue to find in Balzac one of a handful of super-greats. He is not "perfect": There are moments where the work becomes too complicated to be comprehended, but always there is the magnificence of a valiant attempt. No writer can, in the end, do more.

The novel begins with Lucien de Rubempre, who was first introduced in Lost Illusions, in which the young man goes to Paris, fails spectacularly, returns to Angouleme, and fails again. He is about to hurl himself into the river when he is "saved" by a Spanish cleric named the Abbe Carlos Herrera, whose carriage just happens to roll by at that moment.

At the beginning of A Harlot High and Low, we see Lucien as the accomplice of the same Spanish Abbe, who is in reality the French master criminal Jacques Collin, also known as Vautrin and Dodgedeath. What Herrera aims at is to accumulate an estate worth a million francs, at which point Lucien can marry Clotilde de Grandlieu and be made a marquis. Due to the work of a trio of French police spies, Herrera and Lucien's efforts end in failure. Both are arrested.

Suddenly, Balzac throws us into the police milieu of the Conciergerie. The police intend to prove that Herrera is actually the criminal Collin. In the meantime, Collin changes the whole dynamic around until we find him in the police himself.

[Elizabeth (Alaska) · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Harlot High and Low, sometimes called Scenes From a Courtesans Life, is the sequel to Lost Illusions which should be read first. It is also a tetralogy comprised of:

Esther Happy: How a courtesan Can Love
What Love Costs an Old Man
The End of Evil Ways
Vautrin's last Avatar

Should you come across these as separate works, be sure to read them in the above order.

Some readers prefer Harlot/Courtesan over Lost Illusions, but I did not. This volume is so plot-driven that, for me, most of the characters existed two-dimensionally at best. By the time the story reached the last 100 or so pages, I cared so little for the main character that I didn't really care what happened. I had invested enough time that I wouldn't give it up, but I was sorely tempted. In spite of that, Balzac remains high on my list of authors to enjoy.

At the same time, in the large middle sections, I could easily see this being made into a movie and many enjoying it. Several of the characters were adept at disguise, able to move about freely to accomplish a grand goal. And, evil as much of this goal was, because it was to benefit the main character, I was sympathetic to it.

I read a translation by James Waring, which is included in the
Works of Honore de Balzac. There were references within the text to see other works in the Comedie Humaine, such as Louis Lambert or A Double Family. I plan also to read The Firm of Nucingen and Gobseck which are names that cropped up in this one and will form a more complete picture of the characters that people this book.

[AiK]

Блестящий писатель и знаток человеческих характеров и душ, Бальзак, в этом романе абсолютно нелогичен. Нусинген поражает своей наивностью и беспомощностью. Вы видели таких олигархов? Эстер, п��оститутка, внезапно превращается в свою противоположность, демонстрируя верность и жертвенную любовь. Люсьен ожидаемо эгоистичен, тщеславен и слабоволен. Но почему же он, узнав в конце о наследовании миллионов Эстер, всю свою жизнь шагая по головам к титулу и богатству, вдруг кончает жизнь самоубийством из-за того, что выдал Жака Коллена?

[Comte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Monumental, mais si je dois encore une fois devoir décrypter l'accent de Nucingen... ce sera trop.
(Beaucoup de passages chiants mais aussi beaucoup de passages tout bonnement INCROYABLES et terriblement prenants.)

[Adriana Scarpin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pobre Lucien! Se viu enredado pelo que Mefisto_Vautrin_Herrera_Jacques tinha o oferecer, deu uma volta enorme para terminar exatamente onde havia estado ao final de Ilusões Perdidas! Fechando a trilogia de Jacques Collin, começada por Goriot e Ilusões, Esplendores mantêm a qualidade do primeiro e fica aquem do segundo, mas aqui temos a certeza de que se as mulheres de Balzac são estupendas, o seu melhor personagem é mesmo o maquiavélico Collin.

[Linda]

After carrying this book around for a few weeks at 33% through, I was finding it harder to pick back up again. Maybe, just maybe, someday I'll pick it up again, if only to be able to delete the "DNF" shelf I created specifically for this book.

[Jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quick note on translation: Frustrated and disappointed, I've put aside the old Heppenstall translation published under the title A Harlot High and Low in favor of the older, more faithfully-titled Scenes from a Courtesan's Life from the always remarkable Ellen Marriage aka James Waring, a far more readable edition that's in the public domain. After fighting through an obnoxious, circular, and simply unhelpful introduction by Heppenstall, I braved the first several dozen pages of his Balzac, rendered with 1) a distracting and needless paucity of paragraph breaks that defies logic and good reading sense (Balzac wasn't ever going for avant-garde typography), 2) an awkward anachronistic narrative voice, and 3) a severely tin ear for dialogue, which qualities alone would make me put down one translation and attempt another and be done with it. But my curiosity drove me to do some second-rate web homework about the man and turns out he wrote some pre-Robbe-Grillet nouveaux romans in the 30s and 40s (that I'm curious to read despite this momentary disenchantment), once fist-fought with George Orwell (!), screenwrote for the BBC for decades, was apparently something of a notorious snob and bigot. And, hey, this is all fine, some of it's even compelling. But his edition of this novel, and its lack of apparatus, is just bad. (Let me underline here that I blame the man, not the publisher.) Now, I don't need a doctoral thesis for every introduction to a Classic; but I really don't need a scholarly preface from a smug novelist who name-drops three of his own books in the space of a dozen pages, has difficulty threading a coherent thought in one end of a paragraph and out the other, tries to pass off achingly false modesty as candor, and (and this is a function of Time and the currents of political correctness, yes, but) resorts to denial and becomes aggressively apologetic for the possible homosexuality of one of Balzac's most glorious characters. (Read: If Vautrin's gay, it's okay.) And there are no footnotes or endnotes, an almost non-existent rarity in trade Classics publishing, which leads me to think the omission was an angry capitulation of the editor 40 years ago to an either lazy or uncaring Heppenstall. (I'd love to have a look at the contract.) Whatever, plenty of us can slog our way thru old or referential or abstruse texts with no flashlight, it's fine, but no one knows everything, and… anyway. Rant achieved. I apologize.

Whatever. Hepp bad, Marriage good. Someone please retranslate this soon? Is Lydia Davis available? Could she take a crack at 20 of Balzac's other novels and novellas while she's at it?

[Ferda Nihat Koksoy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Balzac'ın 7 yılda yazdığı ve zirve denebilecek kitaplarından biri, şaheser.

***

Çevirmen Cemil Meriç'in kitap kahramanlarından biri hakkında yazdıkları:

"Vautrin (Jacques Collin), âdetleriyle sefaletleri sonsuz olan kalabalıkların suçlu ve karanlık dehasıdır. İblis'le, Promethée ile romantizmin bütün büyük maceraperestleriyle akrabadır. Çok okumuş, çok görmüş, uzun uzadıya düşünmüştür. Bağrında yaşadığı cemiyetin sefil iştihalarla zincirli miskin ve şuursuz bir sürü olduğuna inanır; kanun "büyük sineklerin yırtıp geçtiği, küçüklerin takılıp kaldığı bir örümcek ağı", mesuliyet, fazilet, vicdan azabı... budalaları ürküten bir korkuluktur. Rönesans kahramanları gibi, tabiat kanunlarından gayri yasa tanımayan Vautrin, örs olmaktansa çekiç olmayı tercih eder. Machiavelli'nin hayranıdır. ...Ne alkole esir, ne kumara tutkun, ne lükse düşkündür. Kadını, hayatından çıkarmıştır. Kaybolan Cennet'in Lucifer'i neyse İnsanlığın Komedyası'nda Vautrin odur. Hem Jean Valjean'ı hatırlatır, hem (müfettiş) Javert'i. Bütün beşerî kuvvetleri hulasa eden bu şeytan çehre; hayalle hakikatin izdivacından doğdu.

"Flaubert, "Madam Bovary, benim," demişti. Sanatı psikanalizin ışığında inceleyenlere göre, yazar, eserlerini kendi iç kompleksleriyle örer ve sanat, realite kapısından geçen rüyadır. Bu kurama dayanarak, Vautrin'in de Balzac olduğu iddia edilebilir. Vautrin, yazarın cemiyete karşı duyduğu hıncın kelimeleşmesi, şuur altında çöreklenen isyanın zekâ merceği ve sanat imbiğinden süzülen ifadesidir. O da (Vautrin gibi) çalışma masasına zincirlenen bir kürek mahkûmu değil miydi? Etrafındakiler, dehasının fecrini, yıllarca küçümseyerek seyretmediler mi?"

(Basın dünyasındaki) "Bu iğrenç dalavereleri idare eden mali kombinezonlardır. "Modern cemiyetlerin dini" olan matbuat, finans kurtlarının elinde korkunç bir tahakküm vasıtası olmaya adaydır. Gazeteciler endüstriyel şöhretlerin ve fikirlerin ücretli eşkıyalarıdır. Samimiyet ve hüsnüniyetten mahrumdurlar. Cümleler bir emtiadır, onunla geçinirler.
Basın, 'küçük kinlerin harekete geçirdiği büyük bir mancınıktır' (Balzac'tan); bu mancınığı kuran, harekete geçiren, ücretini ödeyen zengin burjuvalar ve bankacılardır."

***

"Zalim mecburiyet; başkalarının kötülük yaptığını göre göre gözümüz alışır, "ne üstümüze lazım" der, önce kabul eder, sonra biz de aynı şeyi yaparız. Bu çirkin, bu sürekli uzlaşmalarla lekelenen ruh, zaman geçtikçe soysuzlaşır, asil düşünceler paslanır, bayağılıkların menteşesi gevşer ve kendiliğinden dönmeye başlar. Dürüst ve erdemli olanlar uysal ve duruma göre davranır hale gelir, karakterler gevşer, kabiliyetler piçleşir."

"Hollandalılar elması nasıl elmasla aşındırırlarsa, kudreti ne olursa olsun büyük bir siyasi de kadına karşı koymak için başka bir kadına muhtaçtır."

"Tövbekâr orospu, kilisenin uydurduğu bir masaldır, böyle biri bulunsa muhakkak, mutlak cennette tekrar alıştığını yapardı; ...insan dünyada neyse o kalır."

"Zenginler ancak mobilyalarıyla rekabet edenleri, gözlerinin önünden ayrılmayanları,
üzerlerine oturdukları sedir gibi kendileri için zaruri bir eşya halini alanları korurlar."

"Hilekârlıkta pervasızlığı, tetikte duran kurnazlığı temsil eden birine Paris'te rastladınız mı, bilin ki o bir insan değil bir manzaradır. O artık bir ömrün bir ânı değil, bütün bir hayat, hatta hayatlar mecmuasıdır."

"Kristal olabilirdik, halbuki kum tanesi olmaktan kurtulamıyoruz, mesele bundan ibaret."

"Muazzam sermaye kayıpları olmadan, başka bir tabirle ötekinin berikinin servetinden çarpıp çırpılmadan, devrimizin ticari, siyasi endüstriyel inkılapları arasında fevkalade servetlerin kazanılması, artırılması, muhafaza edilmesi imkânsızdır. Bütün dünyanın hazinelerine eklenen yeni kıymetlerin miktarı pek azdır. Her yeni vurgun, genel servet dağılımında yeni eşitsizlik ifade eder.
Avrupa devletlerini yüksek yüzdelerle borçlanmaya mecbur etmek, bu yüzdeleri halkın sermayesiyle kazanmak, ham maddeleri ele geçirmek suretiyle endüstriyi haraca bağlamak, boğulmak üzere olan bir iş adamına ip uzatarak girişimini istismar edinceye kadar onu suyun yüzünde tutmak, hülasa kazanılan bütün bu altın savaşları, kapitalistlerin yüksek siyasetini teşkil eder."

"İngiltere'deki altın ve gümüşün, dünyanın her tarafındakinden daha güzel olduğunu iddiaya kalkışmayacak pek az İngiliz vardır. İngilizler Normandiya'dan Londra pazarlarına yollanan piliçler ve yumurtalar sayesinde, Londra'daki piliç ve yumurtaların Paris'tekilere üstün (very fine) olduğunu iddia ederler, halbuki Paris'tekiler de aynı yerdendir."

"İnsanın yaşayışı ne kadar aşağılıksa, canı da o kadar kıymetlidir"

"Deha her sahada bir seziştir ve dikkate değen bütün eserler zekânın, yeteneğin ürünüdür. Birinci sınıf insanlarla ikinci sınıftakileri ayıran belli başlı fark budur işte!"

"Sorgu hâkimleri de ressamlara benzerler. Kuzeyden gelen muntazam bir ışığa muhtaçtırlar. Zira, karşılarındaki suçlunun çehresi, her an incelemeleri gereken bir tablodur. Bunun için de aşağı yukarı bütün sorgu hâkimlerinin odaları, gün ışığının sorguladıklarının çehrelerine vurduğu bir mekandır. Altı ay meslek icra ettikten sonra dalgın ve lakayt bir çehre takınmayan hâkim hemen hemen yok gibidir. Bu kısa izah, anlayışı en kıt kimselere dahi bir cinayet sorgulama mücadelesinin ne kadar keskin, ne derece meraklı, ne mertebe dramatik ve korkunç olduğunu göstermeğe kâfidir; şahitsiz cereyan eden fakat daima kâğıda aktarılan bir mücadele! Lakin, ruhu donduracak kadar ateşli olan, gözlerin, aksanın, çehrede bir titreyişin, en ehemmiyetsiz bir kızarışın, birbirini görüp öldürmek için gözetleyen vahşiler arasındaki savaş kadar tehlikeli bir hal aldığı bu sahnelerden kâğıda geçen, soluk bir yansımadır. Böyle bir zabıt belgesi, olsa olsa yangının külleridir."

"Kadınlar, aristokratların eşi güzel kadınlar, Fransız medeniyetinin şımarık çocuklarıdır. Şayet, başka memleketlerdeki kadınlar, Paris'teki zengin, asil ve gösterişli bir hanımın ne demek olduğunu bilselerdi, bu muhteşem saltanatın zevkini sürmek için hepsi de oraya gelmeye kalkışırlardı. Yalnız görgü kurallarına ve İnsanlığın Komedyası'nda "Kadınlar Kitabı" diye sık sık adı geçen o minimini kaideler koleksiyonuna boyun eğen hanımlar, erkeklerin kurduğu kanunlarla alay ederler.
Dilediklerini söyler, hiçbir hata, hiçbir hafiflik önünde irkilmezler. Çünkü hepsi de, mükemmelen anlamışlardır ki ...çocukları hariç hayatta her türlü mesuliyetten uzaktırlar. En münasebetsiz lakırdıları gülerek söylerler."

"Terfi... İşte zamanımızda, hâkimi memur derecesine indiren korkunç kelime ve korkunç fikir.
Eskiden, hakim ne olabilecekse zaten olmuştu. Bir mahkeme azalığı memnun kalmalarına yeterdi, Paris için de hal böyle idi, Dijon için de! Bütün bir servet olan bu makamı layıkıyla işgal için büyük bir servet sahibi olmak şarttı.
1829'da maaşından başka serveti olmayan bir krallık mahkemesi (istinaf) üyesiyle, 1729'daki bir hâkimin durumlarını mukayese edin: Ne muazzam fark! Bugün para tek evrensel sosyal garanti sayılırken hâkimlerin büyük bir servet sahibi olmayışı normal sayılıyor. Onun için de makam üstüne makam kazandıkları, başka rütbeler sayesinde nüfuz ve önem kazanmaya çalıştıkları görülüyor. Halbuki bütün prestijlerini hâkimliklerine borçlu olmalıydılar.
Sözün kısası, hâkimler orduda, yahut idari memuriyetlerde olduğu gibi, sırf terfi gayretiyle kendilerini gösteriyorlar ve meslek, kamuoyunda heybet ve azametinden kaybediyor. Hükümetin verdiği maaş, rahibi de hakimi de memur derecesine düşürüyor.
Kazanılacak rütbeler ikbal hırsını artırıp iktidar makamındakilere hoş görünmeyi lüzumlu kılıyor."

(Balzac komünist ve sosyalistlere taş atıyor:) 
"Hırsız yanıltmacalı kitaplar yazıp, mülkiyetin, mirasın, toplumsal garantilerin tartışmasını yapmaz, düpedüz yok eder onları. Ona göre çalmak kendi malını geri almaktır. O evliliği tartışmaya açmaya, itham etmeye kalkmaz. Hayallerini yayınlatıp, yaygınlaşması mümkün olmadığı halde ruhların karşılıklı anlaşmasını, sıkı fıkı kaynaşmasını savunmaz.
Modern ünlü insanlar karmakarışık, dumanlı teoriler yahut hümanist romanlar karalarlar ama hırsız tatbik eder, bir olay kadar sarih, bir yumruk kadar mantikidir o.

Başka bir gözlem: Orospular, hırsızlar ve katiller dünyası erkekli dişili altmış binle seksen bin arasında bir nüfus teşkil ederler. Düşünün ki adliye, jandarma ve emniyet teşkilatı da hemen hemen ayni yekuna varan bir memur zûmresi kullanır, garip değil mi? Birbirini arayan ve birbirinden çekinen bu insanlar arasındaki düşmanlık tam manasıyla dramatik, muazzam bir duello doğurur ve bu yazılanlar, o mücadelenin kabataslak bir tasviridir."

"Kadın zincirsiz bir kaplandır, konuşkan ve aynada kendini süzen bir kaplan."

"İnsanın kendini mahvetmesi öyle tatlı ki! Ruhun şehvetidir bu..."

"Vasattan aşağı bir adamı yükseltmek... bu krallar için olduğu gibi kadınlar için de büyük bir zevktir. Birçok büyük aktörü cezbeden, fena bir piyesi yüz defa oynamaktan ibaret haz. Egoistliğin sarhoşluğudur bu.
İktidar, gücünü kendi kendine ispat etmek için garip bir suiistimale başvurur: El uzatamayacağı tek kudret olan dehâya hakaret olsun diye budalaca işleri zaferle taçlandırmak.
Caligula'nın atını Tanrı ilan etmesi, bu şahane fars, asırlar boyunca defalarla temsil edildi ve edilecek."

[Flarne · Rating 3 out of 5]

*3.5 stars*
Before reading this, keep in mind that christiniaty, sex works, misogynistic society were all in an exponentially worse state than currently.

The decisions made by the characters and the personalities they have, seem to be imbibed profoundly as something trivial and “normal”; so instead of judging how the authors wrote their personalities, I took value from educating myself in the immoral forces that governed the lives of sex workers during the early 19th century.

Not only that, but balzac’s prose contains such delightful worldview, the one that makes you dream the way he describes things was the actual reality.





This might be a touchy topic but it makes us more aware of why, everyone is strict with never allowing this to happen again, immersing us into the depth of how wretched the life of a prostitue was, both inwardly and outwardly. Her inner life is intrinsically twisted due to the misogynistic society she has been brought up by;

She sees herself as “lucky” to have been “saved” by Lucien from a life of prostitution.

The novel presents the mindset of how it was in former times. An introspection of her misery was recurrently highlighted through letters, and more than ever on her suicide note.

and Balzac *knows* how to make her distress and her blind affection towards Lucien so adorable to the point that, even the most ethical of readers would forget her insane adoration to just go in “awe” at those thoughts full of cuteness.


“It bothers me to go to hell,

I wished i could see the angels to know if they look like you 🥲 »



Fiinally, Jacques Colin’s final part giving us an authentic and emotive introspection when It comes to life after being in prison; calling out the judicial system for indirectly forcing old prisonners to resort in commiting the same crimes if they want to survive, because life after prison was just so poorly handled back then, leaving no room, for proper reintegration into Society.
He felt like “being a steering wheel between two rackets, one of which is called the penal colony, and the other the police”



Relatability doesn’t always matter.

Show me an experience personal to you that can educate me on a life experience that I don’t usually see, but that exists.

But, Make such portrayal with enough immersiveness that would make anyone acquainted to it, and treat it with realism.

Never take advantage of it to cheaply cover up an underdeveloped plot line.

The portrayal needs to be done intricately enough.

People only seeking for relatability in art are robbing themselves from the educational purpose that stories can allow.

-Splendeurs et Misères des Courtisanes by Honoré de Balzac : 7.5/10

[Stephen Brody · Rating 5 out of 5]

Balzac has a quality which lately has been largely lost: he's a marvellous story teller, and as a story this example is one his his best and most exciting and you have to stay alert to every detail. All levels of early nineteenth century Parisian life are explored and most of it is as sordid as it's colourful; the characters are ruthlessly impelled by the same motives with which we are all too familiar, sex, the acquisition of money and the jostling for social eminence, and all that is welded together in an ingeniously diabolical plot of high stakes and unexpected twists and double-turns. If to some present-day readers it might seem a shade improbable that's because people generally have in the meantime become more circumscribed and therefore less individual and interesting: in whatever such 'high society' any longer exists elegance, polish and wit are not to be found, and the poor have been reduced to an unrelenting round of passive monotonous drabness. In one area, however, Balzac's world is startlingly recognizable - that revolving around the activities of the financier Baron Nucingen, of which the author has this to say, for example: “Not many new securities are created in the common treasury of the globe. Every corner made represents a new inequality in the general distribution of wealth. What the State demands it gives back but what a house of Nucingen takes it keeps. When it stabs someone in the back there are no legal consequences...”

In the briefest possible summary, two rival master-minds in ferocious competition, one a former Napoleonic police spy and the other an escaped convict and both based on real-life figures, attempt under a variety of disguises and each with pawns of his own to sell for a high price to the gullible banker a passingly-valuable commodity – the exceedingly desirable harlot of the title. “In this way, all in ignorance of each other, Jacques Collin, Peyrade and Corentin were being drawn together without knowing it; and poor Esther, Nucingen and Lucien were to become involved in the battle already begun; to which the special vanity of the policemen would add its own terror”. There's one little awkwardness to my mind: in the fashion of early nineteenth century novelists generally, including Scott, Hugo and Dickens and even to some degree George Elliot, as an ideal of man's better self there has to be a heroine of saintly ignorance, self-sacrifice and pure love, even if she's a prostitute, or perhaps particularly if she is. Psychoanalysis and feminism having destroyed that quaint illusion here the unconvincing character therefore is the harlot herself, along with her predecessor Coralie, girls who in appalling circumstances slip uneasily between the roles of naively-impulsive maidens and rapaciously vulgar tarts. Fortunately, they're disposed of before their true colours, whatever they might be, are revealed, or before they become insupportable and while they're barely more than children. That Esther, becomingly arranged on her death-bed and given her background presumably illiterate, manages to write a highly articulate and indeed high-minded testimony is one especially implausible detail; however, that's by-the-by, art has its own logic and it's only fair to add that Balzac balances these paragons against other female characters – notably here the brilliantly-drawn 'Europe' and 'Asia', a thief and a procuress respectively and even more vicious and dangerous than the male scoundrels. The vainly handsome and weak Lucien with his corruptible sensibilities is a figure universal to all time. His Mephistopheles is probably now a vanished species; ambitious schemers always abound but rarely on that scale of intelligence, worldliness and cunning perceptiveness. Did contemporary prudery mask the real nature of his and his protégé's fascination for each other, as Proust suggested? Balzac is quite unambiguous towards the end of the novel, when the older man's love for the younger undoes him, though - again before the trivialization of human conduct and motivation by psychoanalysis etc - very delicately and touchingly. M. de Rastignac (featured here only incidentally) perhaps has a story he'd prefer to keep to himself, just as Mme Nucingen, as we know from Le Père Goriot, has very good reasons of her own to let her buffoon of a husband have his head.

I've now read this masterpiece three times. Like all the greatest art there's always something new. Above all it's what used to be called a cracking good yarn, spun out with immense ingenuity over many pages, and if the exciting 'detective' action appears to fizzle out two-thirds of the way through that's only to open the way in the rest to the author himself as psychologist and philosopher - aspects in which he was equally accomplished - in the course of delineating his anti-hero's astonishing quasi-tragic destiny. Here the drama moves almost to a metaphysical plane, the forces of law and order eternally in compromise with those of regulation and expediency: “These were the attackers and the defenders, theft and property, the dreadful question of the social and natural states confronting each other in the narrowest possible space.” Ordinary lust and greed give way to subtle blackmail and affairs of state at the highest level. A large part of Balzac's genius, as is true of any literary genius, lay in his detachment, he sees everything and judges nothing; his business is in portraying what he aptly called with ironic intent La Comédie Humaine.

Because many of the characters re-appear elsewhere in different guises and situations throughout the pageant, a familiarity with Balzac's other novels, especially 'Lost Illusions' in this case, adds to the understanding and the enjoyment; nonetheless like this one each stands in its own right, although the reader captivated by one will be unable to resist exploring the rest.

[Marmott79 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Balzac mi ha stregata.
Ho fatto la sua conoscenza la prima volta nel 1993 grazie a "Eugenie Grandet", non mi aveva impressionata. Ci ho riprovato con il "Colonel Chabert" ma ancora nulla...
forse non ero pronta io.
L'anno scorso mi capita tra le mani "Le illusioni perdute", lo leggo tutto d'un fiato e rimango incantata dalle raffinate descrizioni degli ambienti urbani di Parigi e provincia e dai ritratti dei personaggi degni del miglior Toulouse-Lautrec. Alle ultime battute s'insinua nel racconto l'abate Herrera con queste parole:

"
-->Io vi ho ripescato vi ho restituito la vita, e voi mi appartenete come la creatura è del creatore, come, nei racconti delle fate, l'afrite è del genio, Ficoglane del sultano, come il corpo è dell'anima! Io vi sosterrò, io, con mano potente nella via del potere, e nondimeno vi prometto una vita di piaceri, d'onori, di feste continue... Il denaro non vi mancherà mai... Voi brillerete, vi pavoneggerete, nel mentre che, chino sul fango delle fondamenti io renderò solido il brillante edifizio della vostra fortuna. Amo il potere per il potere io! Sarò sempre felice dei vostri godimenti, che a me sono vietati. Insomma, io mi farò voi!..."

Il libro finisce e io rimango come un'idiota.
Va bene il finale aperto ma qui manca tutto un pezzo.
Casualità: in uno dei miei giri per librerie a prezzo scontato trovo un'edizione di "Splendori e miserie delle cortigiane", una di quelle edizioni senza commento e senza introduzione... la porto a casa e decido di leggerla. Subito si affaccia Lucien de Rubempré, il protagonista delle "Illusioni perdute"... quanto è bello ritrovare da un libro all'altro personaggi conosciuti e amati.
In quest'opera si svela progressivamente anche il personaggio dell'Abate Herrera come Male nella più affascinante e seducente delle sue forme. Non si può restare indifferenti: c'è un po' di tutto in lui, di Faust e di Montecristo, di generosità ed egoismo.
Molti dei personaggi di questo libro fanno riferimento a un'opera precedente di Balzac: "Père Goriot" e io che faccio allora? Mi leggo pure questo in una sorta di dipendenza balzacchiana.
Eccolo lì l'abate Herrera, già Vautrin, già Jacques Collin... già Trompe-la-mort.
E' lui il vero protagonista, la vera anima di Parigi, lo specchio della società borghese del primo Ottocento francese... mi piace rivelarlo tramite le sue stesse parole:

Papà Taillefer è un vecchio briccone, e si dice che abbia assassinato un suo amico durante la rivoluzione. E uno di quegli uomini arditi, indipendenti nelle loro opinioni. È, un banchiere, principale socio della ditta Frédéric Taillefer e, Soci. Ha un figlio unico, al quale vuoi lasciare tutte le sue sostanze, a discapito di Victorine. Io non posso approvare simili ingiustizie. Sono come Don Chisciotte, mi piace prendere la difesa del debole contro il forte. Se la volontà di Dio fosse di portargli via il figlio, Taillefer riprenderebbe con sé la figlia perché vorrebbe un erede qualsiasi, sciocchezza suggerita dalla stessa umana natura, e d'altra parte non può più avere figli, lo so. Victorine è dolce e bellina, e farà presto a conquistare suo padre. Lo farà girare su se stesso come una trottola, con lo spago del sentimento! E sarà troppo sensibile al vostro amore per dimenticarvi; e voi la sposerete. Io mi incarico di assumere la parte della Provvidenza, farò il volere del buon Dio. Ho un amico, per il quale a suo tempo mi sono molto prestato, un colonnello dell'armata della Loira, da poco passato nella Guardia Reale. È uno che segue i miei consigli, ed è divenuto ultra-realista: non è uno di quegli imbecilli che tengono alle proprie opinioni. Se vi pos¬so dare un altro consiglio, mio caro, è di non tenere né alle vo¬stre opinioni né alle vostre parole. Quando ve le chiederanno, vendetele. Un uomo che si vanta di non mutare mai opinione è un uomo che si impone di camminare sempre in linea retta, un ingenuo che crede all'infallibilità. Non ci sono principi, ci sono soltanto accadimenti; non ci sono leggi, ci sono soltanto circostanze: l'uomo superiore sposa gli accadimenti e le circostanze per dirigerli. Se ci fossero principi e leggi stabili, i popoli non li cambierebbero come noi facciamo con la camicia. L'uomo noi ha il dovere di essere più saggio di tutta una nazione. L'uomo che ha reso il minor numero di servigi alla Francia è un feticci' venerato per aver sempre visto rosso; è buono tutt'al più per esser messo al Museo, fra le macchine, con la sua brava etichette La Fayette. Invece il principe contro cui tutti scagliarono qualche pietra, e che disprezza abbastanza l'umanità da sputarle i viso tanti giuramenti quanti ne chiede, ha impedito lo smembra mento della Francia al congresso di Vienna: gli si dovrebbero offrire corone invece gli si getta addosso fango. Oh! So ben come vanno le cose, io! E posseggo i segreti di parecchi uomini.

E' meraviglioso il modo in cui Vautrin attira la completa attenzione del suo interlocutore, le parole si fanno magneti che generano orrore e disgusto ma risvegliano i più nascosti desideri. Mi sento attratta, ipnotizzata, completamente in balia di questo sedicente don Chiscotte, di questo uomo che si fa Dio non per desiderio di giustizia come Montecristo, ma per volerne eguagliare la potenza, l'onnipotenza. E' il lato oscuro di Parigi che insinua la sua melma nei quartieri alti del Faubourg Saint Germain, che li obbliga a specchiarsi nel fango.
Il ragazzotto di provincia cui è rivolto questo discorso si lascia ammaliare dalle sue parole come Faust di fronte al demonio.
In realtà è Parigi il vero demone , un mostro che mette alla prova i suoi abitanti. Chi supera le sue prove vince ed emerge dal fango, chi fallisce soccombe. Parigi fagocita i suoi uomini, si nutre delle sue anime per aumentare il proprio splendore e le parigine sono i suoi emissari, sirene ammaliatrici che con il loro canto attirano gli uomini nelle fauci del mostro.

https://marmott79.blogspot.it/2008/08...

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Someday I am going to read all of Balzac's novels in order. Someday. I'm also planning on reading all of Zola's novels in order - someday. For now, I read them as I find them. And this week I found A Harlot High and Low by Balzac. This has also been translated as The Splendors and Miseries of Courtesans, or as Lost Souls. I was leaning toward calling it Lost Souls but that's a little too close to Lost Illusions, the book before this (I think), so to save myself from confusion I'll go with A Harlot High and Low. Honoré de Balzac wrote the novel somewhere between 1838 and 1847, and initially in four separate parts:

Esther Happy (Esther heureuse, 1838)
What Love Costs an Old Man (À combien l’amour revient aux vieillards, 1843)
The End of Evil Ways (Où mènent les mauvais chemins, 1846)
The Last Incarnation of Vautrin (La Dernière incarnation de Vautrin, 1847)

That is way too much time between parts for me to remember what happened in the previous part, I'm glad I waited and read the entire thing at one time. All this, and much more, was part of Balzac's The Human Comedy which was Balzac's 1829–48 multi-volume collection of interlinked novels and stories depicting French society in the period of the Restoration (1815–30) and the July Monarchy (1830–48). I wonder if it was really like in his novels.

La Comédie humaine consists of 91 finished works (stories, novels, or analytical essays) and 46 unfinished works (some of which exist only as titles). It does not include Balzac's five theatrical plays or his collection of humorous tales: "Les Cent Contes drolatiques" (1832–37). I haven't made it through 91 works or the 46 unfinished works and I can't imagine I ever will. Perhaps those that are only titles I'll get to eventually.

The book I just read continues the story of Lucien de Rubempré, who was a main character in Lost Illusions, a preceding Balzac novel. I read that too, I just didn't write the review yet. Lucien wanted to be a poet in the first book, he still does. In Lost Illusions he meets sham Jesuit priest, the Abbé Carlos Herrera. He is the escaped convict Vautrin who was in the book Le Pere Goriot. I read that too, I should have reviewed them in order I suppose. Vautrin is still in this book with Lucien, so this is his third book, I think - and now we have Esther, the harlot. I'm not sure what her highs and lows are, it all seems low to me. She falls in love with Lucien, poor girl, and Lucien falls in love with her, poor girl. They are even allowed to be happy together for a chapter or two. Then it's back to business, the business of being unhappy. One thing you can't be in a Balzac novel is happy. Lucien needs money and Vautrin needs money, and Esther is a harlot, so she should be able to make them some money. And no one is happy, it's Balzac after all.

[Sylvester (Taking a break in 2023) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Balzac is one of the greats. He made me fall in love with French translations. His characters go deep. Loved this book.

1st read:4*
2nd read: 3*

Very surprised to find that I didn't like it as much the second time around. I mean, the plot itself is good, the characterization sometimes microscopic, the characters reminded me of Hugo - a criminal mastermind dressed up as a priest, a prostitute as a saint...and there were no good guys, it was almost modern in that aspect. The thing that got in the way of it all was the political details, the details of the court system, the details of other very boring things that didn't add to the story (in my opinion). I realize this is intended to portray a section of society at that time, as part of The Human Comedy he was compiling, but it irritated me.

I loved how Balzac took the two opposite poles of society and showed how similar they were - the aristocrats and the criminals - and how he mixed them and had them interact. Lucien and Esther were neither one of them very appealing to me. Esther's obsessive "love" for him - everyone's obsession with him, in fact, seemed completely unfounded in every way. But! I love Balzac! When he is good, he is fabulous.

[Lady Clementina ffinch-ffarowmore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part I of this book was a little slow but it really begins to pick up from Part II onwards when the Abbe Herrera/ Vautrin begins to put his plans into action. It is interesting to see how he manages to overcome every obstacle that comes in his way. The book also gives some fascinating glimpses into the French Criminal Justice System.

[Laura]

Free download available at Project Gutenberg.

The original French text is available at La Bibliothèque électronique du Québec.