Jim’s Reviews > The Prodigal Genius: The Life and Times of Honoré de Balzac > Status Update

Not until more than a century after his death has it finally dawned on students of Balzac that he was basically a reporter, a man endowed with remarkable perception and sensitivity, an observer who not only completely understood both his own era and human nature, but who possessed an uncanny ability to write objectively about people and the world in which they lived.

It was in precisely this period that he wrote with a blinding speed greater than any he had previously achieved, and in precisely one month and ten days turned out what was to become one of his greatest and most enduring masterpieces, PERE GORIOT.

It appeared to be true that Eveline fulfilled all of the secret requirements that had been his dream since he started to write... In book after book he had spelled out his ideal wife-mistress, a great lady of warmth and sensitivity, intellect and common sense, someone who would be, in turn, a mother, a sister, a daughter--and who behaved like a reckless wanton in bed.

He went to bed at eight o'clock every evening, and was awakened at midnight, when he started to work. With nothing but the usual gallons of coffee to sustain him, he labored without stopping until eight o'clock in the morning. Then he paused briefly for a light meal, and after a respite of no more than 30 minutes he went back to work again, continuing until four in the afternoon.

"I feel sorry for Balzac," Alexandre Dumas is alleged to have said. "He presents such a sorry spectacle that he ought to stay at home behind a closed door"

"You're mistaken," the great Victor Hugo supposedly replied. "It is Balzac who feels pity for all the rest of us, and he'll be remembered long after those who mock him are forgotten."