Ebook The Human Comedy Selected Stories New York Review Books Classics Honore de Balzac Peter Brooks Linda Asher Carol Cosman Jordan Stump Books

Product details Series New York Review Books Classics Paperback 464 pages Publisher NYRB Classics; Main edition (January 21, 2014) Language English ISBN-10 1590176642

The Human Comedy Selected Stories New York Review Books Classics Honore de Balzac Peter Brooks Linda Asher Carol Cosman Jordan Stump Books Reviews

• This new translation of 9 dazzling stories and novellas is a wonderful way to become reacquainted with Balzac. His ability to lure his reader into the story, often a story within the story, is a challenge and inspiration to any writer. Despite the radically different society his characters inhabit, their humanity always strikes true. Spend some time with this author to more deeply appreciate the human comedy.
• Often his prose is a trudge but here there be pleasures. In "Another Study of Womankind," the rhetorical passages on French society. In "Adieu," the flight from the Battle of Berezina that leads from one horror of war to the next. In "Z. Marcas," the crushing mediocrity of a political system that consigns a superior man to oblivion. In "Gobseck," the view that modern life is usury and nothing but "Life is a machine fueled by money, is it not? The truth is this means are always tangled up with ends; you can never separate the soul from the senses, spirit from matter. Gold is the spiritual ground of your contemporary societies." Lengthy but for the most part worth it "Duchesse de Langeais" - dedicated to Liszt! - falls short of masterpiece for want of a single element Henry James. But then it wouldn't be Balzac, would it? Plus Henry would never have thought of those cannonballs.
• It would be impossible to collect all of Balzac's writings into one volume, but this one gives a good sense of the breadth of Balzac's work, with selections in a variety of genres and settings. Not included in this volume but highly recommended in addition would be his story "The Ball at Sceaux". I found this volume enjoyable and will definitely be tracking down other selections of Balzac's work, from The Human Comedy and elsewhere.
• How could anyone not love Balzac? A single paragraph - sometimes a single sentence - can have deeper insights into human nature than most authors' entire books.
• Interesting reading a book from the early 19th c. I'm sure it lost a bit in the translation but very enjoyable. Great observer of the human condition.
• GREAT DESCRIPTIVE WRITING SKILL; ANTI-CLIMATIC ENDINGS ON ALL STORIES.
• Balzac can do no wrong in my eyes. A consummate storyteller.
• To call this "The Human Comedy" is a bit of a misnomer, since the tales here, all short stories, only represent a small part of Balzac's Human Comedy. Nonetheless, it's a fine collection that is part classics, and part hard-to-find stories, all of them exceptional. Many of them involve hopeless love, most of them involve some kind of passion, obsession, or madness.
  
  "Facino Cane" is an odd adventuring tale of a blind Venetian musician who recounts his strange tale of fall from grace, murder, adventure and hidden treasure. The tale contains wonderful long passages of gruesome gothic description, just terrific stuff. As epic as the tale of the title character is, the epic adventure he proposes is even more so. The story ends bluntly, highly a propos. Possibly one of Balzac’s best tales.
  
  "Another Study of Womankind" a tale of a long dinner after an evening of entertainments… various speakers talk of female intrigues… the last recounts the tale of a bitter betrayal that follows “La Grande Bretache” nearly word-for-word.
  
  "The Red Inn" is an amazing tale, and a proto-detective story of two murders at the Red Inn, events which are told in fascinating drama and detail, but through a strange staging device of storytelling... or meta-storytelling! The final line is another mystery!!
  
  "Sarrasine" is a fascinating tale of an obsessed artist – he’s a sculptor, but he falls in love with the wrong opera singer. The tale comes to a dramatic conclusion that’s unexpected on several levels… bravo!
  
  "A Passion In The Desert" an absolutely fascinating, surrealistic tale of a lost French soldier who wanders through North African deserts to discover an oasis, a leopard’s lair, and eventual deliverance. This may be one of Balzac’s greatest tales, and reflects the eventual torments of Armand de Montriveau, a key character among the Thirteen.
  
  "Adieu" Perhaps one of the most haunting of Balzac’s tales, and one to never quite be repeated. A pastoral tale, a discovery in the woods, leads to one of the protagonists rediscovering a link to a terror of the French defeat after Moscow 1812 (which is recounted in horrifying detail) in the skin of a mad French beauty. The results of the tale’s developments are nearly unparalleled!!
  
  "Z Marcas" is a fantastic tale of squalor and intellect – as two young students (we’ve seen them before, we’ll see them again), come across another intellectual, slightly older, and learn what he has to say about the way things happen in the world, his amazing brain, and his iron-clad morals. Wow!
  
  "Gobseck" is a wonderful tale of a young student, bound in poverty, who meets his neighbour, an old man who turns out to be… Gobseck! The early pages, with their descriptions of student living, recount some of Balzac’s other books, such as Pere Goriot, and indeed this is a type of sequel to that book, recounting as it does the fall from glory of that character’s daughter, Anastasie de Restaud, née Goriot (and Gobseck himself is a relative to the infamous Esther Van Gobseck, the Torpedo). A very plot-driven book that contains plenty of irony and just desserts.
  
  "The Duchesse de Langeais"