Pere Goriot/Eugenie Grandet

by Honoré de Balzac, John Watkins (Translator), Dorothea Walter (Translator)

In a grimy boardinghouse in a dismal Parisian neighborhood, Balzac sets the stage for his 1834 study of paternal love, of greed, envy, and despair. Pere Goriot tells the story of a nineteenth-century counterpart to King Lear, a father so blindly devoted to his undeserving daughters that his tragic realization - "I loved them too much for them to love me at all" - comes too late. This best-known of Balzac's Comedie humaine novels has all the stylistic elements one might unnerving psychological analyses; vivid physical descriptions, acute observations of the rules governing Parisian society, disarming wit, and unbridled passion.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Literature, France, Novels

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

[Agustina de Diego · Rating 5 out of 5]

Primera vez leyendo a Balzac y solo voy a decir que en un momento la traducción uno que lo estaban llevando preso le dice "vieja vigilante" a una mina y me reí media hora seguida. Imposible no amarlo.

Lo alucinante de Balzac son los hilos invisibles que teje alrededor de sus personajes.

[Elysa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eugenie Grandet is very different from what I thought it would be. It had parts that were hilarious, hopeful, tragic, and infuriating. I'm not sure what the author's goal was, and I'm a little glad that I don't know. It was an interesting study about how upbringings affects us and the politics of money and family in a country setting.

[Burca Melania · Rating 5 out of 5]

Titlu: Moș Goriot
Autor: Honoré de Balzac
5⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5

Cartea aceasta nu merita doar 5 stele ci un infinit de stele. Pentru unii poate fi o lecție de viață, pentru alții o poveste trista, pentru altcineva o trezire, iar pentru ceilalți toate la un loc.
Finalul m-a facut sa ma uit îndelung la aceasta carte. Am plâns pentru Moș Goriot. Am plâns pentru iubirea nemărginită pe care a purtat-o fetelor sale.
Am plâns pentru ce a ajuns un tata sa sacrifice pentru fericirea si bunăstarea copilelor lui.
Au fost momente când mi-aș fi dorit sa pot intra în poveste, să îl pot îmbrățișa si sa ii spun ca este un tata bun, chiar dacă fiicele sale nu îl merita.

📖 Pe scurt:

Moș Goriot este un fost fabricant de paste făinoase. În vârstă de 69 de ani, după ce s-a lăsat de negoț s-a mutat în casa doamnei Vauquer.
Din omul privit cu respect, ușor, ușor ajunge sa fie bătaia de joc a tuturor celor care locuiau in acea casă.
Cand cele doua fiice ale lui s-au căsătorit, la scurt timp ,, ginerii l-au alungat din societatea lor ca pe cel din urma nenorocit. "
Singurul care ajunge sa-i fie aproape este studentul Eugene care locuia si el in casa doamnei Vauquer si pe care Moș Goriot ajunge sa il privească, ca pe un fiu.

,, Este poate în firea omului sa arunce toate suferințele tocmai asupra celui care îndură totul din umilință adevărată, din slăbiciune sau din nepăsare."

Moș Goriot reprezinta drama paternității rănite, a tânărului hotărât să-și croiască un drum în viață, dar ale cărui eforturi de multe ori au fost inutile.

[Araceli.libros · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sólo leí “Papá Goriot” pero, para mi sorpresa, me gustó tanto que ya quiero empezar “Eugenia Grandet”.
Buena prosa y una mirada pesimista de la sociedad, justo para mí 😆

[Sonya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reflecting on what was most engaging about this reading experience, i.e. what stayed with me, makes me think about this major transitional moment we're in right now--historically, culturally, morally. The character Eugenie de Rastignac is a young upstart--smart, naive, charming, but poor. He begins his journey characterized by one central driving trait: ambition. It's a brilliant novelistic starting point, because there is so much force behind that trait, and because it can head off in any direction.

Describing President Obama the other night, historian Doris Kearns Goodwin used the word "ambitious" and said, "As long as your ambition is attached to good and noble goals, ambition can be a great thing." What kept my emotional attention reading "Pere Goriot" was--as we say in The Writing Class--the Major Dramatic Question of whether de Rastignac's ambition would drive him to evolve or devolve in character. Would he "fall" into self-indulgence, malice, petty-ness; or would he grow and deepen in compassion, wisdom, truth. At every turn, really right up to the end, we are not quite sure how he'll respond to each dramatic event; we feel, all throughout the story, the precariousness and impressionability of his potential.

Who knows, maybe the page-turning novel of moral character will soon be back in style.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Have no idea why these books are bundled together for view as I just finished Eugenie Grandet, NOT Pere Goriot. Wonderful book about the life of a miser in rural France and that of his wife and daughter. The daughter's one opportunity to leave their misanthropic life, and explore more of France and also more of her own feelings and thoughts, is thwarted when her cousin (with whom she is in love) leaves her for another women (who he mistakenly believes is richer than her.) The writing about life in very small two France, family relationships, financial dealings - all quite interesting to me.

[Abi · Rating 3 out of 5]

(Solo leí Daddy Goriot, pero no encuentro esta misma edición con ese libro solo así que-)
Como con el resto de mis lecturas facultativas, no sabía qué esperar. Para mi sorpresa, me reí bastante.
Por partes la pasé muy mal con lo mal que lo trataban a Goriot o por lo salames que eran las hijas.
La trama de Vautrin es simplemente superior.
Eugenio tuvo sus momentos, la verdad. Me gustó mucho el final y la frase que tira mirando a la ciudad.
Victorina es la única que salió realmente triunfando y AMO (it's what she deserves).

Top 4 frases/fragmentos/lo que sea:

• ¿Sabéis cómo sigue aquí cada uno su camino? Por el brillo del talento o por la habilidad de la corrupción. Hay que penetrar en esa masa de hombres como una bala de cañón o deslizarse en ella como la peste.

• Si tenemos pequeños remordimientos, la digestión se los llevará.

• Mi corazón es grande, todo cabe en él. Sí, por más que lo traspaséis, los pedazos harán aún nuevos corazones de padre.

• - Ahora nos toca a nosotros dos.
Y como primer acto de desafío a la sociedad, Rastignac fue a comer a casa de la señora de Nucingen.

[Kit · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've got an old Modern Library hardback with both novels in it. Alls I can say is, they're both devastating & I've got to get my hands on some more Balzac pronto.

[Spike Gomes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Balzac is one of those authors that I've known of for a very long time but haven't yet read any of until now. I found this delightfully 1950s modernist cover edition from The Modern Library imprint in a discard pile, a common theme in my reviews. In it were two short novels, “Pere Goriot” and “Eugenie Grandet”. Both of them had a real slapdash pulpy quality to the prose, as if it were churned out in a great hurry, which if you know a bit about Balzac, it essentially was. As such it reads fairly quickly and without much difficulty.

Interestingly enough, the translator's forward includes some historical slagging on the quality of Balzac's prose by Flaubert that I have to agree with. Balzac will always tell rather than show, even when he doesn't really need to. He also has a habit of constantly inserting his own authorial voice right in the middle of the action to wax philosophical or pound the soapbox for a bit. He tends to over describe things physically. We really don't need 10 pages of describing the furnishings of a cheap boarding house or three pages dedicated to how ugly and large the Grandet's sole maidservant is.

Despite how clumsy and ham-handed Balzac is stylistically, he shows stunning depth of perception in regards to the psychological and emotional complexity of his characters. There are protagonists and antagonists, yes, but there is no one who is without personal flaws or redeeming characteristics. Moreover relationships and plots end as they do in real life, not with a fairytale “Happily Ever After”, nor with some sort of melodramatic tragedy, but the often mixed feelings and lack of justice or satisfaction for the characters.

Both novels in this book are two sides of the same thematic coin. Pere Goriot deals with a father who gives too generously to his spoiled married daughters, leading to his impoverishment and death, as well as the death of innocence for the main character Rastignac whose idealism is slowly transmuted to cynicism. Eugenie Grandet deals with a provincial cooper who through cagey business dealings and thrift has built up a massive fortune, but utterly destroys the health of his wife and the happiness of his daughter through his ceaseless miserliness. There's a real interesting contrast between the two novels. Very different, but essentially visiting the same ground about the corruption wealth and its pursuit can wreck on people. Too bad Balzac has to go and out and out say it himself from time to time.

One can really see the amazing influence Balzac had on the French novelists that followed him. One could perhaps think of him as the Dickens AND Austen of French Lit. All else was a development on the ground he blazed, with far more stylistically adept writers like Flaubert, Zola and Proust drawing deep from the well he dug with his ambitious and incomplete project to write several hundred linked novels and plays as “The Human Comedy”. He's literally the most important and skilled hack writer in Western Literature!

Four out of Five stars.

[Paulina Ferrer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Félix Grandet, tonelero retirado, también alcalde de Saumur, avaro y bueno para los negocios, se aprovecha de la inestabilidad de la época y la herencia de madre, suegro y suegra para enriquecerse. Hace creer a su mujer, a su hija Eugénie y a la sirviente Nanon que son una familia humilde, y viven todos en una casa cochambrosa.
Los Des Grassins y los Cruchot des Bonfons, que intuyen la fortuna del señor Grandet, ven en su hija el mejor partido, quieren casarla con su hijo y sobrino respectivamente.
Un día de 1819, se presenta al atardecer en casa de los Grandet el hijo de Guillaume, hermano de Félix. El joven Charles, que ha sido enviado a casa de Félix por un padre que es un rico negociante de París en bancarrota que planea suicidarse, entrega a su tío una carta confidencial.
Charles es un tarambana que mantiene una relación sentimental con una mujer casada, y ha venido a casa de su tío, aunque mandando por el padre, pensando en abrirse camino. Al poco de su llegada, se publica en los periódicos la noticia de la bancarrota y el suicidio del padre. Félix considera a Charles una carga, y tiene la intención de enviarlo a ultramar. Por su parte, Charles encuentra consuelo en el trato con su prima Eugénie, y se enamora de ella al igual que ella de él. La muchacha da parte de su dinero al primo para que le sirva de ayuda.
En 1827, ya muertos Félix y su esposa, Charles vuelve de otro de sus viajes y escribe a Eugénie y le cuenta que ya no la ama. Va a casarse con una joven de familia aristocrática venida a menos; Charles envía además un talón en pago por el dinero que le dio en su día Eugénie, más ni se preocupa de saldar las cuentas de su padre. Eugénie, desolada por la noticia y por enterarse de que ya llevaba Charles un mes en el país cuando hizo expedir la carta y el talón, le manda el bargueño que guarda las fotos familiares.
Eugénie toma entonces la decisión de casarse con Cruchot des Bonfons, y así se lo hace saber a éste, pero le impone dos condiciones: la primera es que ella permanecerá virgen, y la segunda es que él habrá de ir a París a satisfacer en nombre de ella las deudas de Guillaume Grandet.
Así lo hace Cruchot des Bonfons, y Charles, al conocerse ambos, se da cuenta de que Eugénie es poseedora de una gran fortuna, circunstancia que no advirtió cuando vio la casa en la que habitaba su prima y en la que tan poco tiempo pasó él.
Cruchot des Bonfons desposa a Eugénie con la esperanza de hacerse muy rico. Muere joven, no obstante, y es Eugénie quien acrecienta su fortuna al sumarle todo lo que hereda de él. Sintiéndose a pesar de ello muy desgraciada, le dice a la sirviente Nanon que ella es la única que la quiere, y vive en la misma penuria que la acompañó toda la vida, aunque sin la obsesión que tenía su padre por el vil metal. Se dedica a las obras de caridad, y queda en el aire al final de la historia un posible casamiento con el marqués de Froidfond.

https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugen...

[Axel Ainglish · Rating 5 out of 5]

Masterworks of Balzac and with Lost Illusions, his best in my modest opinion. For read Les Chouans too and inspite of being entertaining, it wasn't as good as these three ones. The Chouans was a bit more as an adventures novel. Father Goriot is an unforgettable story of a greedy man and his daughter, who cares for him. Easy readings and not very long novels this two ones. They advance skillfully and are quite dramatic. Balzac is known for being an author who wrote mainly about money. And that's what Father Goriot and Eugénie Grandet goes about. In the case of Eugénie Grandet it is also or mainly, about her despot father. But about hidden love, as well. It shows also masterfully, the deeply unfair condition of women at those times. These books are awful pictures to look at with our nowadays minds. In fact, Balzac works, as the Flaubert Madame Bovary, or Stendhal with Red and Black, acted as strong denounces against the society of those days. And became big successes. Women were forced or left to remain caring their father or mother if they didn't find a lover of the father likings. So much their lifes were spoiled. And so on. This is Excellent Literature, with capital letters. Balzac achieved great results in describing realistically his society. In its habits and its defects, he portrays his French world as few ones. As Flaubert and Stendhal, and then Zola afterwards. The four of them were unavoidable readings for we, French (am half French). But are also great Classics for the whole world. Balzac was already quite blunt in his literary plots and characters, foretelling so, what was going to come with Zola. These are must reads.

[Patrick Howard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Economic & romantic tragicomedies, devastating portraits of nineteenth century society. Balzac’s hilarious dialogue & detailed minutiae culminate in a cast of perfectly realized living caricatures which we all know ourselves to be. Each of these novels is generally oriented around the lives of successful patriarchs, their daughters, and their modest abodes, though they each differ in structure, story, and themes to strong effect. Pere Goriot is more of an urban social climbing romp full of intrigue & nefarious plots, Eugenie Grandet more of an intimate character study of a rural landowning family. Each is an excellent look at French custom, commerce, and comedy, though I ultimately prefer Eugenie Grandet. The central relationships of Eugenie to her cousin & father are so well-illustrated, her interiority communicated so well, that the emotional beats land with incredible force. Balzac could compose a fulfilling redemptive romance with ease & aplomb; his decision of whether or not to do so ultimately lends the works even greater impact.

“When the priest put the gilt crucifix to his lips that he might kiss the Christ, he made a horrible gesture to seize it, and this last effort cost him his life.” - This passage, in context, hit like a freight truck.

[ManMothz · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s pretty simple to see why these two novels of Balzac are contrasted in this edition: two forms of malignant fatherhood. Overly giving, Lear like father vs. Overly withholding miserly and miserable bastard. Goirot is more compelling, especially in the final, deathbed monologue where Goirot finally gives up hope in his daughters. It’s theatrical maybe to the point of being called melodramatic but I mean, c’mon. If you don’t love this shit why are you reading Balzac.

There’s a little less going on in Grandet. There’s no Rastignac to look compellingly at the relationship. It’s a miser slowly ruining his family. A bit familiar. Lesser ‘zac probably.

[Alexander Pechacek · Rating 5 out of 5]

Only read Pere Goriot and was captivated by it. I was particularly enticed by the part where the ambitious young man could be shown the greatest life lived in Paris. The romantic parts were worth it. Pere Goriot loved his daughters until death.

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eugenie Grandet: 3.5/5
Father Goriot: 3/5

[Linda Howe Steiger · Rating 3 out of 5]

This review concerns just the first of the two novels published together in one volume. Perhaps one day I'll pick it up again and read Eugenie. I was propelled to read this not so much by its reputation as a great piece of French nineteenth century realism (which it is) but by my mother's frequent references to it. Usually the reference was to some poor soul who "ended up like Old Goriot, the victim of his children." I wanted to see what that was about. Frankly, now that I've read it, I think my mom was a bit off: Goriot wasn't so much the victim of his children as the victim of his own affections and folly (Lear, though without the tragic effects). Ungrateful daughters play in both cases, but they are not so much to blame as Pere Goriot himself; Goriot's daughters by the way are nowhere near the monsters that Lear's two offspring are, and there isn't a Cordelia anywhere with her annoying stubbornness. Goriot's story is set in the somewhat tatty boarding house of Madame Vanquer in Montmartre (Paris), with a chorus of regulars who follow and comment on activities of Goriot and Rastignac, the young law student through whose eyes much of the narrative is written. Be careful what you wish for (be it money, love of a beautiful woman, etc) as you might just get it, seems to be one theme, as is--be careful about making assumptions--that one drives the plot through the first third of the story at least--along with Balzac's obvious cynical attitude towards upper crust Parisian life. It's a bit slow at the start, but picks up, and there are no chapters (so you can pause wherever you wish). There are many quite good bits, some wise bits, and in the end it's a pretty satisfying read as we follow this nineteenth century story about how a young man of good conscience responds when everything goes amazingly his way.

[Carolina Morales · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just LOVED this compilation.

This is my first Balzac and definitively not my last!

The characters are so well written and coherent I almost felt as if I lived in Samour. They were parading in front of me during my reading, going about their own lives, breathing, talking, working, flesh and bones.

Eugenia Grandet is a spinster crushed by the avarice if her father and the cowardice of her suitor, Charles. Père Goriot or Father Goriot, on the opposite end, is an excessively indulgent father who goes bankrupt in order to spoil the excesses of lust of his daughters only to die alone and forsaken by both. The novel also introduces the characters Rastignac and Vautrin, key figures of many Balzac Parisian novels.

Excellent understanding of the human heart is my impression of Balzac.

[Beth Shields-Szostak]

2 in 1 volume

[Benedict · Rating 2 out of 5]

I became furious at Pere Goriot for being such a chump. I don't see the value of this book.

[Kay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read many years ago. It was 40 years before I would try another French novel. One star given due to its classic status.

[Gena Lott · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the first French classics I read. I enjoyed the snippets of wisdom which the main character, Pere Goriot, spouted on occasion.

[Afoulki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bien