Lost Illusions - Honoré de Balzac

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Résumé :
...The longest, without exception, of Balzac's books, and one which contains hardly any passage that is not very nearly of his best, Illusions Perdues suffers, I think, a little in point of composition from the mixture of the Angouleme scenes of its first and third parts with the purely Parisian interest of Un Grand Homme de Province . It is hardly possible to exaggerate the gain in distinctness and lucidity of arrangement derived from putting Les Deux Poetes and Eve et David (a much better title than that which has been preferred in the Edition Definitive ) together in one volume, and reserving the greatness and decadence of Lucien de Rubempre for another. It is distinctly awkward that this should be divided, as it is itself an enormous episode, a sort of Herodotean parenthesis, rather than an integral part of the story...

Biographie:
Honor? de Balzac was a French dramatist and novelist who lived from May 20, 1799, to August 18, 1850. Most people consider the unique sequence La Com?die humaine, which offers a glimpse into post-Napoleonic French life, to be his greatest work. As one of the pioneers of realism in European literature, Balzac is recognized for his astute attention to detail and his raw portrayal of society. His characters are well known for having multiple facets; even his less prominent ones are nuanced, ethically gray, and completely human. Even inanimate objects acquire personality; Paris, which serves as the setting for a large portion of his writing, acquires human characteristics. Numerous well-known authors were affected by his work, including the novelists ?mile Zola, Charles Dickens, Marcel Proust, Gustave Flaubert, and Henry James, as well as the directors Jacques Rivette and Fran?ois Truffaut. Writers still find inspiration in Balzac's novels, many of which have been adapted into motion pictures. According to James, he is really the father of us all. Honor? de Balzac was born into a family that wanted to be respected for their hard work and dedication. His father, Bernard-Fran?ois Balssa, was raised in Tarn, a province in southern France, as one of eleven children of an artisan family.