by Christopher Prendergast, Honoré de Balzac, Sylvia Raphael
Classics, we are told, are books that “stand the test of time” – that, even after the society that birthed them has passed away, continue to enthrall readers with their complex and relatable characters, their insight into universals of human nature, their artful command of language. I read Eugenie G...
bookshelves: summer-2014, series, france, fradio, radio-4, published-1833, filthy-lucre, lifestyles-deathstyles, play-dramatisation, suicide, translation, love, lit-richer, cousin-love, families Recommended for: BBC Radio Listeners Read from July 30 to August 05, 2014 Classic Serialhttp://www.bbc...
Eugenie Grandet is one of the signature works of French literature, and Flaubert, who wrote Madame Bovary and is arguably the most celebrated French novelist, was supposedly greatly influenced by Balzac. It's easy reading Eugene Grandet to trace the line of realism in French lit...
This story takes place in the town of Saumur. That's where Eugénie and her very normal family lives. Her father is a miserly former cooper that hides his fortune from her wife and daughter and made them live in an old, cold and poor house that he doesn't want to repair because, well, money must be s...
Avarice trumps love--Balzac is so 21st century.
First, this is a super fast read, and what makes it so engaging is its somewhat unconventional style. Balzac is a realist, or a proto-realist. He writes in a fairly straight-forward, restrained manner. But, his way of piling detail upon detail to reveal just barely three-dimensional characters is ho...
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