"...saisi d'une illusion..."
LE COUSIN PONS
Honore de Balzac
Finished this one a few weeks back but could only now get to it. I could tell precisely where it morphed from a wonderfully ornate character study and treatise on the proto-bromance into a lamenting social criticism. It's the same point at which a plot becomes discernible. Pons was delightful to read, though his forays into a social order that had long since left him in the dust were perhaps intentionally cringe-worthy. The ending hurt a bit more than I was expecting it to, and the more I think about the book, the more impressed I am by not only the occasional feats of lyrical gymnastics but also the thematic pyrotechnics. Of course, this was read in conjunction with Balzac's Traité de la vie élégante, so just behind Pons's pseudo-marriage to Schmucke are all these thoughts on what this generation would come to call swag, whether it can be bought, the role of money in discerning and producing art, and all sorts of ancillary ideas. Played out along the landscape of this novella-cum-novel, it's interesting to note how art is valued and how much social worth is afforded to those who can correctly and incorrectly discern that value. Glad I finally got to some Balzac in this lifetime, and in the original French, no less!
MADAME BOVARY
Gustave Flaubert
A unique foray into my foreign language reading in that this was the first French novel I ever read wherein I distinctly noticed a recognizable prose style. And oh how lovely it was!
A canonical work for sure, and I can see why. In the tragic tale of Emma Bovary (who, in my mind, raised startling parallels to a certain disillusioned Russian wife), one finds the effective marriage of the psychological realism that was so novel to the times and a luscious prose style that is, in and of itself, a pleasure to experience. Even on the level of syntax and dependent clauses, the writing was wonderful.
The countryside is deftly realized through the secondary characters, all of whom embody, in one way or another, the battle between Romanticism and Realism as literary movements and worldviews, and all of whom orbit a protagonist whose interior life is of more than ample brilliance to match the spotlight shined upon it.
I think it was Flaubert actually who praised Balzac's social critiques but lamented his prose. ("What a man he would have been had he known how to write!")*
Nonetheless, a much enjoyed read. Another classic can be checked off the list.
I know, as far as personal preference, Flaubert feels like the realization or the concretization of a dream Balzac had: filled out, properly delineated, much more deepened. And I look forward to noting the felt influence of both writers in more contemporary French literature.
* Robb, Graham (1994). Balzac: A Biography. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, pg. 422
Honore de Balzac
Finished this one a few weeks back but could only now get to it. I could tell precisely where it morphed from a wonderfully ornate character study and treatise on the proto-bromance into a lamenting social criticism. It's the same point at which a plot becomes discernible. Pons was delightful to read, though his forays into a social order that had long since left him in the dust were perhaps intentionally cringe-worthy. The ending hurt a bit more than I was expecting it to, and the more I think about the book, the more impressed I am by not only the occasional feats of lyrical gymnastics but also the thematic pyrotechnics. Of course, this was read in conjunction with Balzac's Traité de la vie élégante, so just behind Pons's pseudo-marriage to Schmucke are all these thoughts on what this generation would come to call swag, whether it can be bought, the role of money in discerning and producing art, and all sorts of ancillary ideas. Played out along the landscape of this novella-cum-novel, it's interesting to note how art is valued and how much social worth is afforded to those who can correctly and incorrectly discern that value. Glad I finally got to some Balzac in this lifetime, and in the original French, no less!
MADAME BOVARY
Gustave Flaubert
A unique foray into my foreign language reading in that this was the first French novel I ever read wherein I distinctly noticed a recognizable prose style. And oh how lovely it was!
A canonical work for sure, and I can see why. In the tragic tale of Emma Bovary (who, in my mind, raised startling parallels to a certain disillusioned Russian wife), one finds the effective marriage of the psychological realism that was so novel to the times and a luscious prose style that is, in and of itself, a pleasure to experience. Even on the level of syntax and dependent clauses, the writing was wonderful.
The countryside is deftly realized through the secondary characters, all of whom embody, in one way or another, the battle between Romanticism and Realism as literary movements and worldviews, and all of whom orbit a protagonist whose interior life is of more than ample brilliance to match the spotlight shined upon it.
I think it was Flaubert actually who praised Balzac's social critiques but lamented his prose. ("What a man he would have been had he known how to write!")*
Nonetheless, a much enjoyed read. Another classic can be checked off the list.
I know, as far as personal preference, Flaubert feels like the realization or the concretization of a dream Balzac had: filled out, properly delineated, much more deepened. And I look forward to noting the felt influence of both writers in more contemporary French literature.
* Robb, Graham (1994). Balzac: A Biography. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, pg. 422