Eugène de Rastignac’s story as played out in Honoré de Balzac’s Père Goriot (Le Père Goriot translated by Henry Reed) is timeless and I wonder if someone rewrote it or filmed it with a modern twist just what it might be like. I’m sure the story has been told countless times, but a desire for wealth, status, a good looking girlfriend seems especially contemporary given our shallow society fueled by images in magazines and TV and our penchant for sharing with the world our every thought and action. If you are already familiar with Eugène, can’t you just picture him with the latest iphone taking selfies and posting them to his Facebook page, going out clubbing all night and looking for the hottest girl on the dance floor? (Sorry, Balzac, hope you’re not turning over in your grave at the thought . . . then again, maybe you would be flattered to know your story has aged so well).
Even after turning the last page of the story and knowing how it all ends, I am not entirely sure how I feel about Eugène. In some ways he is not as bad as I first assumed, given that initial impression of a young man newly arrived in Paris to study the law who becomes enamored by high society. He milks his mother and sisters for all their money in order to outfit himself with the best—if you are going to go fishing you need the right bait, right? He lives in a genteelly shabby boarding house in a gloomy but respectable neighborhood. Perhaps fittingly it is filled with residents who have seen better days and circumstances. And while even his daughters forsake the titular Père Goriot, another boarder, Eugène does feel a tug of responsibility and has some scruples concerning just what the old man is willing to give up (more or less everything and then some) to assure his daughters have all the happiness M. Goriot feels is due them. His generosity is boundless but it's not quite reciprocated in love and appreciation.
But I am getting ahead of myself. The story opens in 1819 with a very detailed observation of the widow Madame Vauquer and the Maison Vauquer and its many residents. In the introduction to my Signet Classic edition the editor calls the story and this initial scene a classic of realism—" it demonstrates with panache how the person and the place fit together, how the person has been produced by her environment, and in turn how she creates the particular atmosphere of the place." Balzac describes the layout of the lodging house and the myriad residents and their personalities and peculiarities. From the very beginning you get a sense of who everyone is and how they relate to each other. Living as they do in such close proximity it's not surprising that the story takes on overtones of a melodrama. Who likes who and who thinks who is a fool and curiosity about private lives and visitors and intentions--it's all there--gossipy nosey neighbors.
Balzac weaves an intricate web with a number of things going on in the story. Although the title is Père Goriot and he is one of the main characters, it's really Eugène who seems to be of central interest. In a way Goriot is something of a benevolent father figure to him, especially as concerns the romantic interest Eugène takes in one of his daughters. But if Goriot looks over one of his shoulders, so too does another boarder, M. Vautrin, a retired merchant with a shady past. Vautrin is fatherly to Eugène but in ways that are not at all benevolent. Each man sees in Eugène his budding ambition and each tries to help it along in different ways. It is perhaps here that the seeds of corruption are planted to be nurtured along in other stories in Balzac's Comédie Humaine cycle. At the end of the story, after more than one tragedy has taken place, men have been ruined, brought to justice, died . . . and Eugène looks out over the city of Paris ready to take it on. He wants to conquer, no doubt using the hard learned lessons taught by Parisian Society and his fellow lodgers.
This is my first proper introduction to Balzac, though several years ago I did read a novella by him called The Vendetta. Père Goriot is widely thought to be one of Balzac's best works and while I admittedly only felt tepid about it as I was reading, I am glad I read it and have a better appreciation for it after reading the essays in my edition written by the editor and translator. Sometimes a story fares better after it's had time to percolate a little in a reader's mind. A few things of interest I learned about Balzac and the book:
Eugène de Rastignac started out as Eugène de Massiac, but at some point in writing the story Balzac changed his name. Rastignac had appeared in a previous story as an older world-weary young man who introduces the hero of that other earlier story into a life of gambling and dissipation. (So we know where he's headed).
Previously Balzac had been writing potboilers trying to pay off debts (he sort of sounds a little like Eugène--having come from the provinces to study law, too). Balzac was the first writer to use recurring characters in his work, and it seems to have started with this novel. Eugène appears in twenty-two of Balzac's stories as either a major or minor character.
The Comédie Humaine is made up of more than ninety works (not all are novels, some are short stories or analytical essays) with many of the same characters recurring. In the case of Père Goriot, there are 48 characters who show up in other stories. Although the cycle is made up of so many books each is meant to stand on its own. Balzac's novels were meant to "represent, without flinching 'human feelings, social crises, the whole pell-mell of civilization'."
As for the writer Balzac he was the first French writer to publish his works in serial form, though he tended to write overly long pieces and then not get them to the publisher on time. He was known to rewrite and edit a work--perhaps more than it should have been. He was a fast writer and would pump out pages quickly drinking copious cups of coffee to keep him going. He seems almost larger than life in both his personal life and on the page--living to excess. I believe I read a quote somewhere in the introduction that everything he wrote was true--or taken from life, which I think I believe (as much as truth and fiction are ever intermingled).
Balzac's world has been a fascinating one to be part of for a very short time, though not perhaps one I would like to inhabit. I'll be curious to visit it again and plan on reading more of Balzac. Now that I have had a proper introduction to it, I am hoping the next book will be more enthusiastically received. I know a fair few of you have read and loved him and wonder which book is your favorite? I have the recently released book of stories issued by NYRB Classics to look forward to. I think something shorter by him will be the way to go for me for now. I read this along with Stefanie at So Many Books. You can read her thoughts on the story here.