Honore de Balzac

Gebundenes Buch

The Girl with the Golden Eyes

Beschreibung

One of those sights in which most horror is to be encountered is, surely, the general aspect of the Parisian populace - a people fearful to behold, gaunt, yellow, tawny. Is not Paris a vast field in perpetual turmoil from a storm of interests beneath which are whirled along a crop of human beings, who are, more often than not, reaped by death, only to be born again as pinched as ever, men whose twisted and contorted faces give out at every pore the instinct, the desire, the poisons with which their brains are pregnant; not faces so much as masks; masks of weakness, masks of strength, masks of misery, masks of joy, masks of hypocrisy; all alike worn and stamped with the indelible signs of a panting cupidity? What is it they want? Gold or pleasure? A few observations upon the soul of Paris may explain the causes of its cadaverous physiognomy, which has but two ages - youth and decay: youth, wan and colorless; decay, painted to seem young. In looking at this excavated people, foreigners, who are not prone to reflection, experience at first a movement of disgust towards the capital, that vast workshop of delights, from which, in a short time, they cannot even extricate themselves, and where they stay willingly to be corrupted. A few words will suffice to justify physiologically the almost infernal hue of Parisian faces, for it is not in mere sport that Paris has been called a hell. Take the phrase for truth.

Autor

Honoré de Balzac was a French dramatist and novelist who lived from May 20, 1799, to August 18, 1850. Most people consider the unique sequence La Comédie humaine, which offers a glimpse into post-Napoleonic French life, to be his greatest work. As one of the pioneers of realism in European literature, Balzac is recognized for his astute attention to detail and his raw portrayal of society. His characters are well known for having multiple facets; even his less prominent ones are nuanced, ethically gray, and completely human. Even inanimate objects acquire personality; Paris, which serves as the setting for a large portion of his writing, acquires human characteristics. Numerous well-known authors were affected by his work, including the novelists Émile Zola, Charles Dickens, Marcel Proust, Gustave Flaubert, and Henry James, as well as the directors Jacques Rivette and François Truffaut. Writers still find inspiration in Balzac's novels, many of which have been adapted into motion pictures. According to James, he is "really the father of us all." Honoré de Balzac was born into a family that wanted to be respected for their hard work and dedication. His father, Bernard-François Balssa, was raised in Tarn, a province in southern France, as one of eleven children of an artisan family.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: 1st World Library - Literary Society
• Seitenzahl: 108
• Erscheinungstermin: Februar 2006
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 222mm x 145mm x 10mm
• Gewicht: 290g
• ISBN-13: 9781421803531
• ISBN-10: 1421803534
• Artikelnr.: 22095130