The Girl with the Golden Eyes and Other Stories (Oxford World's Classics) 1st edition by Balzac, Honoré de, Collier, Peter, Coleman, Patrick (2013) Paperback

by Honoré de Balzac

Tuntemattomassa mestariteoksessa kuvattu matka luomisprosessin pimeään ytimeen on kiehtonut hypnoottisella voimallaan taiteilijoita. Vuonna 1931 Picasso julkaisi aiheen innoittamana sarjan käänteentekeviä etsauksia, ja novelliin perustuu myös uuden aallon nimimiehen Jacques Rivetten muutaman vuoden takainen kiitetty elokuva La belle noiseuse.Kirjallisuudentutkijoiden ja semiootikkojen suosikkeja ovat Sarrasine ja Kultasilmäinen tyttö, jotka luotaavat seksuaalisuuden raja-alueita. Päähenkilöiden häilyvä sukupuoli-identiteetti, biseksuaalisuus ja androgyynisyys edustavat Balzacille samaa kipeää, kyltymätöntä äärettömyyden tavoittelua kuin taiteilijan luova ponnistus.Suomalaisella lukijakunnalla on nyt ensi kertaa tilaisuus tutustua kertomakirjallisuuden jättiläisen modernismia ennakoiviin avainnovelleihin.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Short Stories, France, Literature, 19th Century, LGBT

Paperback

First published January 1, 1835

About the author

French writer Honoré de Balzac (born Honoré Balzac), a founder of the realist school of fiction, portrayed the panorama of society in a body of works, known collectively as La comédie humaine .

Honoré de Balzac authored 19th-century novels and plays. After the fall of Napoléon in 1815, his magnum opus, a sequence of almost a hundred novels and plays, entitled, presents life in the years.

Due to keen observation of fine detail and unfiltered representation, European literature regards Balzac. He features renowned multifaceted, even complex, morally ambiguous, full lesser characters. Character well imbues inanimate objects; the city of Paris, a backdrop, takes on many qualities. He influenced many famous authors, including the novelists Marcel Proust, Émile Zola, Charles John Huffam Dickens, Gustave Flaubert, Henry James, and Jack Kerouac as well as important philosophers, such as Friedrich Engels. Many works of Balzac, made into films, continue to inspire.

An enthusiastic reader and independent thinker as a child, Balzac adapted with trouble to the teaching style of his grammar. His willful nature caused trouble throughout his life and frustrated his ambitions to succeed in the world of business. Balzac finished, and people then apprenticed him as a legal clerk, but after wearying of banal routine, he turned his back on law. He attempted a publisher, printer, businessman, critic, and politician before and during his career. He failed in these efforts From his own experience, he reflects life difficulties and includes scenes.

Possibly due to his intense schedule and from health problems, Balzac suffered throughout his life. Financial and personal drama often strained his relationship with his family, and he lost more than one friend over critical reviews. In 1850, he married Ewelina Hańska, his longtime paramour; five months later, he passed away.

Reviews

[Roger Brunyate · Rating 5 out of 5]

 
The Irresistible Woman

I picked up this slim volume while reading Balzac's Le Colonel Chabert in French, and these notes are something of an extension to what I have already said in reviewing that. In addition to the title novella, the present book contains two shorter stories, "Sarrasine" and "The Unknown Masterpiece," all from the first half of Balzac's career. Although the author was known as a realist (and there are some wonderfully precise descriptions in the two books, spanning everything from high life to that of the common people), what the stories in this book have in common is a heightened color, a willingness to go over the top, even a sexual exoticism that is far from the sober tales that realism normally implies.* The cover has a detail of Women of Algiers by Delacroix, to whom Balzac dedicated the title novella, which culminates in scenes set in an oriental divan. The parallel is deliberate and exact, although unlike the other two stories in the book, which are explicitly about artists, art as such is not mentioned in "The Girl with the Golden Eyes."


Delacroix: Women of Algiers, 1849

Rather, all three stories center around a romantic ideal of womanhood. The brilliant young sculptor who is the title character in "Sarrasine" pursues a singer in the theaters of Rome who turns out to be very different from what she appears. The hero of "The Girl" is a young Parisian dandy who becomes infatuated with the beautiful young woman of the title, only to find himself led into areas of dangerous eroticism where he completely loses his bearings. Set in the 17th century, "The Lost Masterpiece" is apparently more restrained, and two at least of its characters are not made up but real: the former court painter François Porbus (1569-1622) and the very young Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665). They both meet an older Flemish painter whom Balzac calls Frenhofer. This character establishes his credentials in an extended passage which must be one of the best discussions of art I have ever encountered in fiction, culminating in a demontration in which the older man transforms one of Porbus' paintings with a few swift touches of his brush. But his own pursuit of the ideal woman leads him to create a painting that verges on madness, especially as compared to the very real humanity of Poussin's young model and lover, Gilette.


Picasso: illustration to Le chef-d'oeuvre inconnu, 1934

The translations by Peter Collier were certainly serviceable, although I found their frequent use of modern phrases a jolt after reading the previous Balzac volume in French. But this should not put readers off exploring these extraordinary products of an extraordinary mind. And Collier's introduction and notes are scholarly, detailed, and immensely informative.

*The first and last stories in the book contain between them overtones (though not the explicit acts) of male-male attraction, lesbianism, transvestism, and brother-sister incest. Perhaps no more than Byron implies in his Don Juan, but still a very heady atmosphere for such brief stories. Apparently the licentious strain in the 18th century, as represented say by De Sade, was not swept away by the new era but pressed into more suggestive forms by the Romantic lust for color, drama, and sensation.

[Janelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three stories of obsession and obsessive love.
Sarrasine : a young French sculptor in Italy falls in love with an opera singer
The Unknown Masterpiece : the master painter obsessed with creating the perfect painting
The Girl with the Golden Eyes : fop falls for the mysterious girl of the title. This story begins with four pages or so of Balzac describing all the classes of Paris and their obsessions with gold and pleasure.

[AC · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very awkward translations

[Mikkel Tolnaes · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection contains three short-stories that are part of forming Balzac's magnum opus La Comedie Humaine, a behemoth of a collection, comprised of 90 works written in, and depicting, French society during the first half of the nineteenth century. The works included here are Sarrasine, The Masterpiece, and The Girl with the Golden Eyes.

All three of these short-stories are magnificent in their own right, the themes and plots surprisingly dark, and Balzac's prose bears resemblance to Oscar Wilde: beautiful and captivating writing with undertones of melancholy, and deep a examination of the human mind and social constructs. My main criticism is that I found the prose occasionally a bit aloof and the characters unconvincing. Despite that, I shall be looking forward to the next 87 installments over the course of the next lifetime or so.

[Jane Butane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Balzac remains one of my favourite writers. "The Unknown Masterpiece" is perfection.

[Miranda Lloyd · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good writing, interesting premises and a whole lot of art (which I am always happy to read about). The 3 stars is more like a 3.5. I liked it, but probably wouldn’t read it again. I found it a bit of a drag to read at times. A lot of exposition to get through, particularly in The Girl with the Golden Eyes. While being a short story it was a slow read and the ending was a sudden twist which seemed less twisty because the other stories had a similar format. Balzac has a talent for creating unlikeable characters, it seems. It’s a product of its time, but an interesting read.

[Annabelle · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've only read one novel by Balzac, and it felt like viewing a self-mutilation in slow motion. But curiously enough, I enjoyed Pere Goriot. So I had high hopes for the two short stories (Sarrasine and The Unknown Masterpiece) and one novella (The Girl with the Golden Eyes) in this book. But despite lines like "his grave and vigorous face lost its expression of joy when he compared the immensity of his hope to the mediocrity of his resources," from The Unknown Masterpiece, all three stories fell short of my lofty expectations. The short stories showed promise, and I was primed to be moved. But the results were anti-climactic, predictable, and contrived. As for the poor, much adored Girl with the Golden Eyes, Balzac exerts much effort in presenting his dim, dismal view of humanity--Parisians in particular, and milks racial cliches, stereotypes, and peccadilloes as if these were exclusive to the European upper middle class--Parisians in particular--with the intent to scandalize, or at the very least, amuse the reader. And failed miserably. Or am I just missing the whole point of a Balzac story?

[kimby · Rating 3 out of 5]

ohh my god is this what my professor thinks artists are like 😭😭😭😭
there's so much to unpack w these stories, i feel like such a Literature Person. i don't know that these are the most enjoyable (for me) stories when it comes to the experience of reading them, but there's a lot of like, literature scholar person + art person stuff to dig into. they're super orientalist and super showoffy and over the top and for super smart people and they're so weird and messy, and like, WOW!
sorry. i just feel my brain working overtime trying to process all of this and, like, all i can say is that this is for hardcore people. hardcore literature people. and i feel myself using so many skills from SOOOOO many classes (ENGL 250A, summer american lit, WitCW, AH 111A/B, photo classes bc theory, general Lit Person stuff) and i really wonder how this class has no prerequisites, it's kind of insane???? like good on my professor for not watering this down, but whew. if i was like a math person or something, i would be lost and depressed.

[Harald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Three disturbing stories. The title story places the action in a gloomy, blunt version of Paris and its inhabitants in the 1815s. Here is a superficial cynicism in relation to most things. This is how the reader is prepared for an outcome where the protagonist's energetic pursuit of the beautiful, but secluded Pasquita hardly can end with romantic happiness. Still, the end implies a brutal and surprising turning point. All in all, the three short stories in this book deal with the male protagonist's loss of illusions.

This edition contains both an enlightening introduction and a number of useful footnotes.

[L J Field · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is beautifully written. We get to know the protagonist pretty well, though the girl with the golden eyes is just sketched in. Balzac creates a couple terrific aphorisms in these pages.

The book opens with an essay of sorts describing the morality of the average Parisian citizen. After about ten pages the story begins. And here lies the problem: the tale is actually a fantasy because no one acts like these people in real life. The final denouement is ridiculous.

I still liked it, though.

[Molly · Rating 3 out of 5]

My first Balzac and I’m not a fan. His writing at times reminded me of many writers I admire and if you like a plot twist these stories deliver, but I was put off by his ridiculous, flat characters, utterly lacking in humanity. The themes he deals with aren’t compelling enough for me to consider these stories to be think pieces, so I’m off of Balzac for the foreseeable future. This volume included a nice introductory essay by Patrick Coleman.

[Mshelton50 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this edition to read Peter Collier's new translation of "The Girl with the Golden Eyes." Enjoyable story, which will serve as an introduction to Balzac's The History of the Thirteen as Henri de Marsay is also a character in that work.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Surprisingly (I thought) open about sexuality in the wayback.. The title story maybe a bit slow starting.

[Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting tale that takes a disturbing turn at the end.

[Jeff Hobbs · Rating 1 out of 5]

Read so far:

Sarrasine --2
The unknown masterpiece --1
The girl with the golden eyes--1

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll definitely be picking up more Balzac.

[Ian Carpenter · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF. I read half this collection and it just wasn't for me.

[albin james · Rating 5 out of 5]

i've seen it all {with thom yorke}

i've seen it all, i have seen the trees,
i've seen the willow leaves dancing in the breeze
i've seen a man killed by his best friend,
and lives that were over before they were spent.
i've seen what i was – i know what i'll be
i've seen it all - there is no more to see!

you haven't seen elephants, kings or peru!
i'm happy to say i had better to do
what about china? have you seen the great wall?
all walls are great, if the roof doesn't fall!

and the man you will marry?
the home you will share?
to be honest, i really don't care...

you've never been to niagara falls?
i have seen water, its water, that's all...
the eiffel tower, the empire state?
my pulse was as high on my very first date!
your grandson's hand as he plays with your hair?
to be honest, i really don't care...

i've seen it all, i've seen the dark
i've seen the brightness in one little spark.
i've seen what i chose and i've seen what i need,
and that is enough, to want more would be greed.
i've seen what i was and i know what i'll be
i've seen it all - there is no more to see!

you've seen it all and all you have seen
you can always review on your own little screen
the light and the dark, the big and the small
just keep in mind - you need no more at all
you've seen what you were and know what you'll be
you've seen it all - there is no more to see!

- björk

[Maan Kawas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Three beautiful novellas by the great French novelist Balzac! In addition to their beautiful language and dialogues, the novellas show Balzac’s mastering at depicting exquisite and innovative plots, which render each work of his its own uniqueness. Although two of the novellas includes homoerotic implications and themes, but one possible theme that can be similar in the three works might be the obsession and the pursuits of the desires and urges fulfillment by the heroes of the three novels. A second theme that can be recurring is killing and death. In the first novellas, namely ‘Sarrasine’, the hero wanted to kill his love upon learning the true gender of the object of his infatuation and passion (the woman he loved madly turned to be a man (castrated) disguised as a woman, but was playing with him. In the Unknown masterpiece, the artist killed himself as he could not put his ideal women on his panel. In the third work, namely, The Girl with the Golden Eyes, the infatuated and passionate lover wanted to kill his beloved woman as he suspected her infidelity toward him, but was surprised to see her killed by his half-sister, who was her lover too. What I particularly like about these works is their uniqueness and the unexpected elements used in their plots. This book emphasizes the mastery and creativity of Balzac.

[Ida · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a wonderful collection of short stories from Balzac. This is my first time reading him, and he seems so avant-garde for his epoch. Each story took me by surprise and I love the intrigue he creates. Balzac is also a master of description. The Girl with the Golden Eyes has to be one of my favorite short stories ever, if not for the way he captures the feelings that come with love and passion. His work is stunning.

[Art · Rating 4 out of 5]

Almost noir in style, these stories don't give you time to make a connection with the characters. The stories claim to represent the darker side of Paris, but I think they show the diversity of people's motives.

[Carina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite good twists in the tales of the stories - Pretty bold considering when they were written, but far too much descriptive build up. Could have done with less of the author's opinions and scene setting and lengthier story lines.