Greg S’s Reviews > Eugénie Grandet > Status Update

not a victorian novel without a reasonless death.

The life of a trad. wife. — “The expectation of ignominious and public death is perhaps less horrible to a condemned criminal than the anticipation of what was coming after breakfast to Madame Grandet and Eugenie. The more gleefully the old man talked and ate, the more their hearts shrank within them.“

“For some days past, Charles’s whole bearing, manners, and speech had become those of a man who, in spite of his profound affliction, feels the weight of immense obligations and has the strength to gather courage from misfortune. He no longer repined, he became a man.”

Balzac is so dramatic. He writes that Felix Grandet wouldn’t even give his wife a thimble after 10 years of requests.

I’m reminded of A Dolls House by Henry Ibsen.

mostly descriptions of characters. conflict is the newly arrived counsin and the dead uncle.