The Readers Review: Literature from 1714 to 1910 discussion

I'm not sure where people are with this book, especially with confusion about where to stop each week. This section covers the dramatic events of New Year's Day and what comes of them. Were you surprised by any of the characters' actions?

The tenderness that Grandet has for Eugenie is contextually difficult for me get a handle on. His care for her is both real and completely delineated by his own ego, I struggle with how much is temporally accurate and how much is chastisement. Eugenie's instincts are maternal as are her mother's. The servant wants to mother both Grandet and the cousin. Eugenie seems to be maturing, her challenge to her father remains unanswered and she enforces her position as trusted custodian despite his cajoling. I feel that he really does not test his stregth against Eugenie though....why?

Grandet seems to value Eugenie as his offspring (I wonder if she would have been ignored if he had a son.) He seems proud of her when she corresponds to his values and sentiments. He wouldn't have believed she would ever lie to him or disobey him. In my Garden of Eden analogy, Grandet is the punishing God, throwing Eugenie out of her previous paradise (not much of one as we see it!) for the sins of love and disobedience.

Agree completely on the gender aspect, I think that is some of what lies behind my sense of temporal context being at play. The expectation of Grandet of being observed, like God. Eugenie's defection angers him, but even more bemuses him. He also does not comprehend that he has not touched her by his punishments, she remains resolute and presents somewhat of the picture of Alcestis in dignity defending her husband with her life. Hmmm maybe not? There is definitely the dignified womanhood thing there.

Balzac was a 'womaniser' and it is said he wrote 12,000 letters to women during his long life. 'Much has been made of Balzac's success with women, much of it perplexed. The man was short, fat, rude, clumsy, poorly and often ridiculously dressed, and doused himself with evil-smelling perfume rather than bathe.' His many affairs with women of all classes and ages (some in their teens) gave him a deep insight into women's characters which we see in protagonists like Eugene Grandet. Nowadays he would be subject to #metoo complaints.

Balzac, a catholic, also observed: "In Protestantism there is no possible future for the woman who has sinned; while, in the Catholic Church, the hope of forgiveness makes her sublime. Hence, for the Protestant writer there is but one woman, while the Catholic writer finds a new woman in each new situation."

Mmm, I am not sure how to weave Madge's comment into this thread. I am not struck but any special gender insight in his treatment of Eugenie. At this point of the novel I am struck by his insight into the progenitor/progeny relationship. Maybe this supports the Eden analogy under discussion.
Eugenie's womanliness is strange, she is only in word a lover. Her behaviours are more in keeping with a mother or a daughter. I think this is an exposé of the childishness of her cousin and the tyranny of her father.
The exposure reveals that Eugenie is not her father. We all of us make the mistake of thinking that actions always mean the same thing. That when our children say or do things we would do, that they are motivated by the same force and derive the same meaning.
Eugenie cares for her coin collection because of her father but not the same way as her father.

No need to weave it, just observations:)

I appreciated the comic tone of the conversations between Eugenie and her mother regarding hiding the absence of the coin collection from Grandet.
I think Grandet could never fathom giving money away - so in a sense Eugenie became somewhat alien to him.

Balzac had to know the classic Moliere play The Miser, as well as The Merchant of Venice, where Shylock mourns the loss of "my daughter and my ducats". I have the feeling here that Grandet wouldn't mind losing his daughter if she left all his money behind (although he would no longer be able to use her as a pawn in his manipulation of her suitors.)

These stereotypical misers love the physical coins which make up their treasure. Today none of us ever sees our wealth in one physical heap.

I think it is certainly true that Grandet's understanding of people is restricted to understanding their 'money motivation'
Every interaction with him that excludes the desire to enrich in his protagonist puzzles him deeply. He never really understands his daughter or his wife at this stage, even Nanon eludes him. Assuming he ever wanted to comprehend their actions.
There is at the same time as finding his behaviours loathsome a pity created by Balzac for Grandet, he is empty and can never be satiated. I assume that Balzac had read de la Motte and I had great pleasure in the thought of Grandet watching Eugenie increase 'his' fortune and hen spend it on the church.

There are so many good comments on week 3's reading. I'm not sure where exactly to stop in the reading, I think I read a little ways after the New Years drama. I'm just going comment in spoilers.

(view spoiler)[New Years and the scene shortly after with the knife and her cousins box was sad. Grandet is only attached to his money and he could only think about ways to get more money. It was interesting that he compared Eugenie to himself in the fact that she made a bargain with her cousin for the box ( she did not really do that, it was her cousins idea). It seems Grandet was trying to guilt trip Eugenie by walking outside when he knew she would be near her bedroom window. Balzac really fleshes out Grandet's character, we can see what a despicable and sad person he is.

The cousin has not written since he left apparently. Poor Eugenie does not now how to move on and romantically love someone else. She was imagining something that was not likely to happen.

Balzac never made Eugenie's mother seem so weak and sickly before now. It just seems unrealistic to have a person go from completely healthy to on death's bed over such a drama. (hide spoiler)]