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Elisa
Edmond (1822-1896) et Jules (1830-1870) de Goncourt ont publié, en commun, parmi d'autres écrits, des romans, dont \emph{Germinie Lacerteux} (1864) et \emph{Madame Gervaisais} (1869). Après la mort de Jules, Edmond publiera quatre autres romans, dont \emph{La Fille Élisa} en 1877. Mais ils sont surtout connus aujourd'hui pour un Journal (c'est Edmond qui en a écrit les trois quarts), véritable document sur la vie littéraire et culturelle de l'époque. Le Journal, dans son intégralité, n'a paru qu'en 1858. Extrait: Enfin l'ordre est donné d'introduire l'accusée. Des gens, pour mieux voir la souffrance et la décomposition de son visage, à la lecture de l'arrêt, sont montés sur les banquettes. La fille Élisa, d'un bond, apparaît sur la petite porte avec un regard interrogateur fouillant les yeux du public, lui demandant de suite son destin. Les yeux se baissent, se détournent, se refusant à lui rien dire. Beaucoup de ceux qui sont montés sur les banquettes redescendent. L'accusée s'assied, s'agitant dans un dandinement perpétuel sur le grand banc, le visage dissimulé, les mains croisées derrière le dos, comme si déjà elle les avait liées et que la femme fût bouclée.
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About the author
Edmond de Goncourt
642 books39 followersFrench writer and literary and art critic Edmond-Louis-Antoine Huot de Goncourt published books and founded the Académie Goncourt. His brother is Jules de Goncourt.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
September 9, 2017
La fille Elisa
Edmond de Goncourt (1822-1896)
La fille Elisa is an exceptionally emotional study of the life of girls and young women in the miserable world of prostitution. It reminds me a lot of ‘Les Miserables’, by Victor Hugo.
The construction of the novel is quite unusual and daring. The first few pages give away the outcome.
Then, the first book tells Elisa’s childhood and young life, at the end of which we come back to the beginning. In book two then, resulting from the outcome of the first, we read the story of the rest of her life.
It all takes place in the 19th century, mostly in the slums and poor quarters of Paris.
Elisa’s mother is a midwife, who helps prostitutes to give birth to unwanted children. So the little girl is born into this world and knows all about it, by the age of five. She knows nothing else. She is lively, witty, and strong headed and hot tempered.
Her mother wants her to become a midwife when she is grown up. But Elisa decides otherwise. She prefers a more comfortable life, and as she turns sixteen, she runs away with one of her mother's visiting patients and enters the professional life in a red light district.
An emotional reader is now hooked and will follow day after days and week after week's events and adventures. The quality of the narrative, the descriptive details, actions and events following at a dense pace, are such, that before you know it, you are done with book one.
As book two reveals the outcome of the first one, I will leave it to my fellow readers to discover the rest.
An absolute must read.
Edmond de Goncourt (1822-1896)
La fille Elisa is an exceptionally emotional study of the life of girls and young women in the miserable world of prostitution. It reminds me a lot of ‘Les Miserables’, by Victor Hugo.
The construction of the novel is quite unusual and daring. The first few pages give away the outcome.
Then, the first book tells Elisa’s childhood and young life, at the end of which we come back to the beginning. In book two then, resulting from the outcome of the first, we read the story of the rest of her life.
It all takes place in the 19th century, mostly in the slums and poor quarters of Paris.
Elisa’s mother is a midwife, who helps prostitutes to give birth to unwanted children. So the little girl is born into this world and knows all about it, by the age of five. She knows nothing else. She is lively, witty, and strong headed and hot tempered.
Her mother wants her to become a midwife when she is grown up. But Elisa decides otherwise. She prefers a more comfortable life, and as she turns sixteen, she runs away with one of her mother's visiting patients and enters the professional life in a red light district.
An emotional reader is now hooked and will follow day after days and week after week's events and adventures. The quality of the narrative, the descriptive details, actions and events following at a dense pace, are such, that before you know it, you are done with book one.
As book two reveals the outcome of the first one, I will leave it to my fellow readers to discover the rest.
An absolute must read.
March 12, 2018
2,5/5. Assez bien écrit, mais malheureusement pas aussi percutant que je l'aurais cru. La réalité de la prostitution de l'époque y est décrit de façon réaliste, il me semble, et assez dure, mais il y a un décalage émotif, qui fait qu'on reste assez détaché de tout ce qui est raconté.
August 16, 2009
Roman publié en 1877.
Itinéraire passionné d'une prostituée, de son enfance misérable à sa mort en prison.
Itinéraire passionné d'une prostituée, de son enfance misérable à sa mort en prison.
December 13, 2021
Nonostante la trama avvincente, ho trovato questo romanzo decisamente noioso e pesante da leggere. Il linguaggio è poetico e complesso in quanto ottocentesco, ma nell'insieme la storia non ha quel tocco intrigante che meriterebbe di avere. Interessanti le descrizioni, i flash sulla cruda realtà della prostituzione dell'epoca. Ma il tutto è narrato in modo abbastanza pesante, con parole difficili che però non riflettono sentimenti. Tutto il romanzo è un alternarsi di dialoghi, descrizioni e situazioni senza un vero filo conduttore che rendono difficile la lettura, soprattutto se il libro viene letto lentamente.
Complessivamente è una lettura che non consiglierei, a meno che non lo si legga tutto di un fiato. Altrimenti, si rischia facilmente di perdersi.
Complessivamente è una lettura che non consiglierei, a meno che non lo si legga tutto di un fiato. Altrimenti, si rischia facilmente di perdersi.
January 20, 2023
L'histoire est intéressante et le livre est bien écrit, mais la présence d'autant de description et le récit trop lent rend la kevture compliquée. On sent trop l'écriture du XIXeme siècle, notamment au niveau du vocabulaire, ce qui rend le livre plus difficile à lire. Il devient plus intéressant à partir de la 2nd partie, mais ça reste dans l'ensemble un bon livre et un classique de la littérature française.
August 23, 2017
This is a sordid,hard,sad,realist novel about the prostitution environeent in the 19 century in France and a critic of the correctional system,written in neat,and at times brilliant and moving prose.
The novel yet is almost a documentary about the life,feelings ,motivations and causes of the girls falling in this situation in the provincial and Paris houses,is centerd in the biography of the prostitute Elisa.
Her happy chilhood in the countryside,her tormented adolescence in Paris where her lost al her inocence with her mother, a midwife that practice abortions an help to birth undesired childs,her ill treat by her mother,all this joined to her rebellios nature given way to her escape to a small town prostitution house, and then wanting know new experiences a pilgimage fron house to house till end in a Paris house next to a military facility,then she knew a soldier that become her boyfriend ,but in a argument and a fury attack because the soldier tried violate her she killed the soldier and was comdemned to life in prison in a correctional ruled by nuns where forced routine work and silence (forbidden talk) was mandatory,in this point the novel makes a detailed description along many years of the loneliness,forgotten by everybody,and the evolution of the mind and pscology of Elisa ,her feelings ,desires and homesicness,from the initial rebellion till a destruction of her personality and a state of stupidity, ending in a death in absolute loneliness, remembering only fragments of her happy lost childhood.
A valuable interesting novel that generate another perspective of the women condition in the XIX century.
The novel yet is almost a documentary about the life,feelings ,motivations and causes of the girls falling in this situation in the provincial and Paris houses,is centerd in the biography of the prostitute Elisa.
Her happy chilhood in the countryside,her tormented adolescence in Paris where her lost al her inocence with her mother, a midwife that practice abortions an help to birth undesired childs,her ill treat by her mother,all this joined to her rebellios nature given way to her escape to a small town prostitution house, and then wanting know new experiences a pilgimage fron house to house till end in a Paris house next to a military facility,then she knew a soldier that become her boyfriend ,but in a argument and a fury attack because the soldier tried violate her she killed the soldier and was comdemned to life in prison in a correctional ruled by nuns where forced routine work and silence (forbidden talk) was mandatory,in this point the novel makes a detailed description along many years of the loneliness,forgotten by everybody,and the evolution of the mind and pscology of Elisa ,her feelings ,desires and homesicness,from the initial rebellion till a destruction of her personality and a state of stupidity, ending in a death in absolute loneliness, remembering only fragments of her happy lost childhood.
A valuable interesting novel that generate another perspective of the women condition in the XIX century.
October 13, 2019
Written on his own Edmond wrote this tale about a prostitute 1877. A realist novel in the mode of Zola. It's about Elisa who's mother's mid-wife/abortionist profession leads her to a sordid loveless life as a harlot; seeking love her relationship with a soldier leads to the opening chapter of murder.
It is quite short and lacks the deeper passionate engagement that Zola so readily produces but worth reading nonetheless.
For its time I'm sure this was a shocking expose of one of the oldest professions.
There are several whore novels braving it around this time like Nana or Claude's Confession by Zola, Marthe by Huysmans and Yama The Pit by Kuprin, (and I guess you could stretch to the much earlier Celestina by Rojas, Moll Flanders by Defoe, and of course Fanny Hill by Cleland).
It is quite short and lacks the deeper passionate engagement that Zola so readily produces but worth reading nonetheless.
For its time I'm sure this was a shocking expose of one of the oldest professions.
There are several whore novels braving it around this time like Nana or Claude's Confession by Zola, Marthe by Huysmans and Yama The Pit by Kuprin, (and I guess you could stretch to the much earlier Celestina by Rojas, Moll Flanders by Defoe, and of course Fanny Hill by Cleland).
February 10, 2026
Did not enjoy writing style or the building out of characters or lack there of ??? Only part I enjoyed was when she didn’t go meet a man to prostitute herself because she would rather brush Alexandrie’s hair . Going to assume that lightening hair and hair brushing was Goncourt’s way of saying that two ladies were having sex. I think lightening hair as code is awesome
January 8, 2017
Short, bleak and sad. Might be of more interest now as social history than for its literary qualities which is perhaps why it is not readily obtainable in print but a clear influence on Émile Zola with its unsparing account of a prostitute turned murderer and life prisoner.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews