Showing results by author "Honoré de Balzac" in All Categories

Hailed as the father of the naturalist novel, French author and playwright Honoré de Balzac left a legacy of treasured literary works that include Père Goriot and Cousin Bette. The daughter of a wealthy but miserly man, Eugénie Grandet falls in love with her penniless cousin, Charles. The two plan to marry, but at the behest of her father, Charles must first go overseas to make his fortune. Returning years later, Charles calls off the engagement, leaving Eugénie heartbroken and vengeful.

Inspiré à Balzac par son expérience dans l'imprimerie, Illusions perdues raconte l'échec de Lucien de Rubempré, jeune provincial épris de gloire littéraire. En contrepoint au parcours malheureux de ce "grand homme de province", alternativement héros et antihéros plein de faiblesses, l'histoire évoque les modèles de vertu que sont la famille de Lucien et le "Cénacle", cercle intellectuel de "vrais grands hommes".

Voici donc l'histoire de ce père Goriot, vermicellien ayant fait fortune et qui, tel l'Albatros de Baudelaire, se déchirera les entrailles pour élever ses enfants. Mais, malgré le titre du roman, en est-ce vraiment le héros où est-ce Eugène de Rastignac, jeune homme issu d'une noble mais pauvre famille, venu faire des études de droit à Paris et qui va essayer par tous les moyens de se hisser dans l'échelle sociale parisienne ?

Life has the capacity of great moments and attainment, of lives well lived, fulfilling for ourselves and for those we touch. But for others life is arduous. There is no spark to ignite the curiosity, to explore and achieve a stability and a growth to their lives. Indeed their lives, in their own eyes, become almost meaningless, their sense of themselves subsumed under a myriad of problems, whether real or imagined. Seismic events in a life might crush them; the loss of a loved one for instance. Coping is difficult, support hard to find and isolation abounds.

Impoverished young aristocrat Eugene de Rastignac is determined to climb the social ladder and impress himself on Parisian high society. While staying at the Maison Vauquer, a boarding house in Paris's rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve, he encounters Jean-Joachim Goriot, a retired vermicelli maker who has spent his entire fortune supporting his two daughters. The boarders strike up a friendship and Goriot learns of Rastignac's feelings for his daughter Delphine. He begins to see Rastignac as the ideal son-in-law, and the perfect substitute for Delphine's domineering husband. But Rastignac has other opportunities too....

This brilliant collection of France’s foremost nineteenth-century novelist and playwright delivers four of his most fascinating works - stories of love, rivalry, horror and adventure - all brought to life by a stellar cast included Stephen Fry and Alex Kingston. A huge influence on many of the most famous writers from Proust to Kerouac to Dickens, Balzac delivers beautifully observed and complex characters with an unsurpassed attention to the details of society at the time, making him an exemplary of realism in European literature.

The Bette referred to in this magnificent novel's title is Lisbeth Fischer, an excruciatingly cunning poor relation who both depends upon and nurses a terrible grudge against the family of her beautiful cousin, Adeline. That family is slowly being ruined by the uncontrollable sexual appetites of Adeline's husband, Baron Hulot - appetites that will, in time, give Cousin Bette opportunity to exact her vengeance.

Lisbeth Fischer has lived in the shadow of her beautiful cousin Adeline for much of her life. Pampered while Lisbeth works in the fields, Adeline makes an enviable leap in status when Baron Hulot offers her his hand in marriage. Out of kindness, they bring Lisbeth to Paris, where she falls in love with the artist Wenceslas, her protege. However, when she is jilted for Adeline's daughter Hortense, her jealousy and rage exponentially intensify, and she resolves to bring the Hulot family to ruin, employing the cold seductress Valerie Marneffe as her vehicle for revenge.

Brothers Philippe and Joseph Bridau are completely unalike: Philippe, braggart and soldier, formerly aide-de-camp to Napoleon, is their mother Agathe's favorite; Joseph, a poor and aspiring artist, is raised in his brother's shadow. When Agathe is reduced to poverty and Philippe accrues gambling debts, the family join forces to focus their attentions on Agathe's brother, Jean-Jacques Rouget, heir to the family fortune. The struggle for his inheritance pits the family against Rouget's beautiful maid Flore ("La Rabouilleuse"), the apple of her master's eye, and her crafty lover.

"The possession of power, no matter how enormous, does not bring the knowledge how to use it." Raphael, a failed writer, deep in debt, and unrequited in love, is about to take a suicidal plunge into the Seine River. Just in time, he discovers the "Magic Skin" in an antiquity shop. Its supernatural powers grant every wish but it extracts a terrible toll! This parable depicts the malaise of 19th century France.

Honoré de Balzac uses his classic style of detail to describe a most controversial setting in his novel Le Pere Goriot. The story takes place in Paris just after the fall of Napoleon in 1819. The story focuses on three characters, Rastignac, a student who wants to try and make it big in the capital, Vautrin, an interesting and funny character who is also quite mysterious, and the main character, Goriot, that carries a heavy burden that only a loving parent would endure.

One of the greatest of French novelists, Balzac, trained as a lawyer, was a great judge of human nature. In 1833 he conceived the idea of linking together his novels so that they would comprehend the whole society in a series of books. This plan eventually led to 90 novels and novellas (including more than 2,000 characters) that he called "The Human Comedy". Balzac's huge and ambitious plan drew a picture of the customs, atmosphere, and habits of the bourgeois France.

At the beginning of the story the heroine lives an unfulfilled life in rural France, her nature crushed by a domineering and miserly father. Gallant cousin Charles arrives and acts as a catalyst on Eugénie's personality and emotions. Will her love survive the strong self-opinion of the young man and the selfishness of her father or is Eugénie's reward destined to be in heaven?

C'est le premier portrait de femme profondément destructrice, rancunière et laide que Balzac ait produit. Elle se voit apparentée à un animal malfaisant : "ses sourcils épais réunis par un bouquet, sa face longue et simiesque laissent deviner derrière la paysanne des Vosges un caractère de sauvage". Et c'est bien d'une sauvage dont il s'agit. La cousine est animée d'une rage et d'une passion impuissante. Telle une araignée tissant sa toile, elle gaspille une énergie folle à nuire sans recueillir les fruits de ses intrigues, pourtant patiemment élaborées.

Par cette fresque aux allures de roman policier, Balzac dépeint et fustige les incohérences sociales, politiques et judiciaires de son époque. Paru sous forme de feuilleton entre 1838 et 1847, "Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes" est un roman foisonnant de personnages hauts en couleur mêlant intrigues amoureuses et policières dans le Paris interlope du XIXème siècle. Le jeune et beau Lucien, monté à la capitale avec des ambitions littéraires sera confronté aux milieux du crime et de la prostitution, tombera sous l'emprise d'un ancien bagnard.

Dans la ville de Saumur vit modestement la famille Grandet : le père Felix Grandet ex-tonnelier devenu richissime après de fructueuses spéculations, son épouse, sa fille Eugénie et Nanon la servante. Ces trois femmes subissent au quotidien son avarice sordide, ses colères de despote.

In the brutal Prussian winter of 1807, Emperor Napoléon Bonaparte’s Grande Armée suffered massive losses to the Russians in the Battle of Eylau. Many thousands died. Young Colonel Chabert falls heroically, his actions having turned the tide of the battle, but he is buried anonymously on the battlefield in a mass grave. Incredibly, he is alive, but severely injured, and digs himself out. On his eventual return to Paris, he finds his wife, the beautiful and ambitious Rosine, now remarried, and his fortune gone.

Deux récits enchâssés, au croisement du réalisme et du fantastique ; une nouvelle presque oubliée, que sa redécouverte classa parmi les plus grands textes de la littérature ; un jeu complexe d'imbrications entre sculpture, musique et littérature : Sarrasine est un des textes les plus séduisants de Balzac. Une jeune femme ne peut s'empêcher de remarquer le vieillard décharné, pareil à un spectre, qui hante un coin d'une brillante soirée parisienne.

C'est en 1833 qu'Honoré de Balzac écrit "La duchesse de Langeais". A la base de ce roman, le désir de se venger de la marquise de Castries dont il était amoureux et qui l'avait joué. Dans cette transmutation de la réalité en fiction, l'idée de vengeance se perd, et s'élève un chant qui porte l'amour au-delà des règles communes.

Dans "La Peau de chagrin", un de ses premiers romans à coloration fantastique, Balzac nous dévoile le mythe sans doute le plus central dans "La Comédie Humaine"...