Book Description

Customer Reviews (3)

Looking for facts in book descriptions and reviews
Let's see if we can balance the 5* rating by X. Chen (20 Aug 07) with the 1* review by C. Maurer (1 May 06). It seems that Maurer was looking at the book description placed by Amazon on the page for the book "Selected Short Stories" (Penguin Classics Paperback ISBN-10: 0140443258) which was actually for a different edition, "Selected Short Stories" (Dual-Language_Contes Choisis_, Dover Paperback ISBN-10: 0486408957). Then it seems that X. Chen saw the review for the Penguin edition which Amazon placed on the page for the Dover edition, and compared the Penguin review with the Dover description andhis copy of the Dover edition. Perhaps Balzac or Shakespeare could have made us enjoy such a case of mistaken identity, but 21st century web sites only provide us with despair of ever finding a reliable fact.

One helpful solution would be for EVERY book description and review to have a subtitle that indicates to what the writer originally referred. Then an effort should be made to place only the relevant descriptions and reviews on their proper pages (rather than automatically stuffing each page with un-helpful pastings). Finally we find, after a decade of "improvements", that it is still next to impossible to find and compare the facts about various editions and translations, abridged or not, when even the "look inside" often sends one to a different edition.

If the web masters can't help us, then it is up to everyone who posts a review to clearly state what edition (and translator or illustrator) they have actually seen, and provide their view of both the original work, as well as comparing translations if they have seen more than one. And as for those who choose to post on the subject of order fulfillment both good and bad, or the weather, their notes might be placedinside the ads for Amazon Prime.

"What makes a good review?

"* Be detailed and specific. What would you have wanted to know before you purchased the product?"

So far, this title has three reviews, and nothing yet about Balzac's stories. And the book description does not tell us which stories are in the Penguin edition. (Isn't it strange that most collections of stories or poems lack a table of contents directly on the Amazon product page?) Since I have not seen either book (why buy when there is no actionable intelligence?), I hope that someone who has will give of their time to tell us. This is what I needed to know before purchasing a lot of misinformation with my time.

No editing error.
I have to put a five star rating to nutralize the other 1-star review. What's wrong with you or with your book, my copy contains exactly what it supposed to contain, including, "The forsaken woman".

Book Description???
I have no quibbles with Balzac or anything the man wrote.

However, contrary to what the "Book Description" says, "The Forsaken Woman" (or "La Femme Abandonee") is not contained within the pages of this collection.

I would not even bother mentioning this except that I was specifically looking for a copy of that particular story. I've loved it since I read in it its original French back in high school. I just now found a copy of it on the Internet for free thanks to Project Gutenberg -- you may want to do the same thing if you're after a particular story or want a nice sampling of all that M. Balzac has to offer.

Note to AMAZON: It would be nice if whoever writes the book descriptions would actually pick up the item in question and, at the very least, take a look at the Table of Contents.
... Read more

Book Description
Honoré de Balzac became a distinguished writer for his method of describing reality, embracing a detailed penetration of humanity and environment. His work has had a stunning impact on the modern novel, not just in France but in other parts of Europe and the United States as well.

This title, Honoré de Balzac, part of Chelsea House Publishers' Modern Critical Views series, examines the major works of Honoré de Balzac through full-length critical essays by expert literary critics. In addition, this title features a short biography on Honoré de Balzac, a chronology of the author's life, and an introductory essay written by Harold Bloom, Sterling Professor of the Humanities, Yale University. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Book Description
About the Series: Each Norton Critical Edition includes an authoritative text, contextual and source materials, and a wide range of interpretations-from contemporary perspectives to the most current critical theory-as well as a bibliography and, in most cases, a chronology of the author's life and work. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Peerless
Norton has done a really fine job on its critical edition of PERE GORIOT.The translation is especially good, vivid and direct.The commentaries are well chosen and organized.Of particular interest are appreciations of Balzac by writers who were influenced by him, including Zola, Proust, Baudelaire and Henry James.Henry James' take on Balzac is particularly interesting. Written in James' late style, the essay is sometimes inscrutable, but still, James, as always when he writes on writers and writing, offers great insight into Balzac and his oeuvre.

Highly recommended.

The quality of Balzac
This work is considered one of Balzac's masterpieces. It is written with this kind of energy and power the same kind of literary ambition that seems uniquely his. Balzac as a writer has a drive and strength , and this is felt in his descriptions of character as well as in the force of his plots. Here we have a variation of Lear, with two ungrateful daughters doing - in the over- solicitous father for whom the daughters are all. One of Balzac's central themes is obsession, the fixing on one particular object as one's life aim or meaning and giving all to it. For old Goriot it is his daughters, as for Balzac himself it is his ambition to capture the whole of his society in his novels. But the Balzac worlds and this in itself another long subject are also worlds in which traditional values are in clash with values of social climbing money grabbers as exemplified by Goriot's daughters. Balzac's works are filled with great dynamismand are for many one of the great peaks of world - literature. At least some of his works should be read by one who wishes to have a taste of the best that has been thought and said. I would only add my own personal reservation. That the energy and greed of so many of the characters in his world , has left me feeling a bit detached from them. I can admire this Literature but I have never especially loved the world or characters presented in it.

Caffeine Inspired Realism
You know right away that de Balzac is an author of realism when, at the start of the book,he takes you on a five page tour of the first floor of Madame Vauquer'sParisian boarding house. One immediately realizes that sanitation standards for such accommodations were seriously lacking. The dining room "table [was] covered with oilcloth so greasy that, if a waggish diner wanted to, he could write his name in it, using nothing more than his finger as a pen." Wethen quickly learn about the overwhelming contrast between the boarders' life styleand that ofaristocratic Parisian society..

The protagonists of the story are Eugene, a young and poor law student, and old man Goriot, the aging father of two narcissistic daughters who live in the upper strata of Parisian society. While many mediocre authors manage to make cardboard characters out of real people, Balzac has the task of making cardboard people real. Eugene is invited to a ball held by his cousin, a countess, and falls in love with the beautiful people and their world. He is determined to be a part of it. Vautrin, a fellow boarder, a wise street philosopher, and prototype for modern day CEOs, tells Eugene that money is everything. Eugene promptly appropriates every cent of his family's savings to buy the clothes that will allow him to blend in with the aristocracy. Soon he meets Goriot's aristocratic daughters and falls in love with one of them. These two grasping young ladies, intheir need for the necessities in life (fine clothing and jewelry), have taken so much money from their formerly wealthy father that he now lives in abject poverty, sleeping on a moldy straw mattress in Madame Vauquer's boarding house.

By now I am sure that you have discerned Balzac's attitude toward the socially elite. He has no love for people who are famous for being famous. We should resist the urge, though,to shake our heads in wonder over these strange 19th century Parisians.If Balzacwere alive today I am sure he would loosen his poison pen on our own celebrities whose meaningless lives are constantly being spotlighted during their fifteen minutes of fame. Balzac is a lively writer. He supposedly drank huge amounts of coffee every day, and his writing often seems to be the product of ahighly caffeinated mind. If the highly stylized writing of some Victorian era writersnumbs your brain you might want to dip into Balzac.

I strongly recommend that you consider purchasing the Norton Critical Edition of this novel. It provides an additional 150 pages of commentary on Balzac, this novel, and his oeuvre in general; anextra dollar or two well spent. ... Read more