"... there is, in the ocean of generations, an Aphrodisian current whence every such Venus is born, all daughters of the same salt wave..."Can't say I'll be reading a long list of Balzac titles in my near-future. There is a longstanding tradition of the French bedroom farce out there, and while this is a close relation, that's not quite what it is. What's here, (and at some length), is a kind of mirthless, hectoring plot-loop, cautionary tales that vary little as they repeat, set in Paris, circa 1840. How exactly you take adulterous deception, multiple scandals, artists, nobles and courtesans-- and make them boring-- is beyond me, and kind of beyond my need to investigate. Dearest to Honore de'Balzac's heart, and pen, is the enflamed descriptive passage outlining the merits of some bewitching, newly encountered femme, whether enfant, fatale, or somewhere in between. They are undeniably intriguing, and there are a string of them in this novel. Each beguiling ingenue outdoes the previous, which begins to pale a bit. So much so, that for me, the only real life in the 'character' column came with an unexpected Medusa, who turns up as a kind of archetype of vengeance, fifty pages before the end ... one Madame Nourrisson : Victorin felt a sort of internal chill at the sight of this dreadful old woman. Though handsomely dressed, she was terrible to look upon, for her flat, colourless, strongly-marked face, furrowed with wrinkles, expressed a sort of cold malignity. Marat, as a woman of that age, might have been like this creature, a living embodiment of the Reign of Terror."My dear sir," she began, with a patronising air...Giving Balzac his due, this predates Madame DeFarge and so may be a truly original construction, this ghost of vengeance past & future. Giving him the rest of his due, this book is an obese excercise in listening to yourself talk; hardly a run-of-the-mill inheritance-absconding or cuckholding goes by, without our windbag author injecting some age-old wisdom he has just devised for the occasion. He's not a scold; he just wants to be the voice of wisdom. And given that those topics are basically the sum total of the book, that's a lot of lecture time, before and after each go-round. A suitable antidote to this is the altogether more inventive Dangerous Liasons, better in every aspect, with characters who the reader learns with, and cares for, written well prior to this by Choderlos de Laclos. The astonishing thing, to this reader, is that M. Balzac has the nerve to name-check that very novel, here in Cousin Bette. As if to give the nod or wink that we're in very similar hands. When in fact, we are in generally absent-minded and uninspired hands. Balzac's main character here, the Baron Hulot, is a shell of a man who has a fatal addiction to new mistresses and falls into every trap they set, which of course is pretty much the same trap every time. He's a kind of fold-out Quixote, who can only face up to a failure with another feckless stab at relevance. At the very end, when he and his Baroness are reunited once again, the accumulated deja vu made me wish they'd get hit by a bus on their way out. But they persevere, as does our author, who has got more lecturing to do before he lets us go. Overall, this has its moments, but not enough of them to stick out the four hundred pages of long-form libertinism. The value is in the occasional moment such as this excerpt, another mind-numbingly beautiful nymph from the brow of he-who-lectures-us .... At noon next day, after a capital breakfast, Hulot saw the arrival of one of those living masterpieces which Paris alone, of all the cities of the world, can produce, by means of the constant concubinage of luxury and poverty, of vice and decent honesty, of suppressed desire and renewed temptation, which makes the French capital the daughter of Nineveh, of Babylon, and of Imperial Rome. Mademoiselle Olympe Bijou, a child of sixteen, had the exquisite face which Raphael drew for his virgins; eyes of pathetic innocence, weary with overwork--black eyes, with long lashes, their moisture parched with the heat of laborious nights, and darkened with fatigue; a complexion like porcelain, almost too delicate; a mouth like a partly opened pomegranate; a heaving bosom, a full figure, pretty hands, the whitest teeth, and a mass of black hair; and the whole, meagerly set off by a cotton frock at seventy-five centimes the meter, leather shoes without heels, and the cheapest gloves... The Baron, gripped again by the clutch of profligacy, felt all his life concentrated in his eyes. He forgot everything on beholding this delightful creature. He was like a sportsman in sight of the game...One gets the idea that there is a lot of Monsieur Balzac in these impressions, in particular these kind of feverish lines that render the object of desire. If only he could gather up the descriptions and make us care what happens to such beautiful mannequins, by making them human.
*Spoilers Inside* Sigh. It is a shame to give only 3 stars to a book so eloquently written, but what will linger in my mind about Cousin Bette 30 years from now will most likely be the rotten taste it has left in my mouth, not the honey-dipped words. The first star was lost because I had to suffer through long sections of Balzac's rambling, misguided moralizing. His sermons seem to cover all topics, from the high-handed judgment of a variety of races to the merits of "good breeding." I like an author to fascinate me such that I feel like I would not be worthy to hold a conversation with them, if we were to meet. Unfortunately, I got the feeling that Balzac would be a remarkably loud and boring dinner guest who liked to listen to himself better than anyone else.The second star was lost because I was left completely unsatisfied. Now don't tell me that if I want a happy ending I should go find a children's book. Here's the deal: the character who is "punished by the vengeance of God," as it was painted, Madame Marneffe of course, is not really the one I cared to see brought to justice. Yes, she was terrible and cruel. But who is to blame: the woman who mercilessly steals a family's honor and fortune, or the stupid and selfish man who hands it over to her willingly? No, I didn't really care about the Madame's fate. And Bette couldn't have been punished any more judiciously than she was in the end. But the Baron? What justice did he receive? None, of course. And while Adeline's character was honorable, on some level I see her impassioned hunt for him through the slums of Paris to be one of complete selfishness. He didn't want to come home, as he said and demonstrated to the very end. He even wished her dead, even more so when he came home, so she couldn't very well have saved him from God's wrath. I realize that she was supposed to have not seen this, but it certainly doesn't leave one impressed with Balzac's idea of perfect virtue. It seems that his definition of virtue boils down to martyrdom. And what a convenient bar to set for a woman of 19th century Paris. Furthermore, in the end Balzac glorifies Crevel, putting his vanity up on a pedestal as some mark of greatness. Well then, take me to the nearest Porsche dealer and find me a real genius! Really, the only two characters I respected in the whole thing were Hortense and Victorin. Hortense, for the most part, nips her husband's insults in the bud. She has the wherewithal to throw him to his transparent Madame and not suffer a lifetime of pointless martyrdom that makes no one the better. And Victorin pulls his family together in their time of "disgrace," proving to be the only thing standing between Lisbeth and her vengeance. So I feel that mine and Balzac's definitions of vice and virtue differ markedly, and not in ways that can be accounted for simply by the passage of 150 years.
What do You think about Cousin Bette (2002)?
Balzac. The Human Comedy. I just love that idea of an author attempting to explore all aspects of life; the rich, the poor, the stupid, the good - you have to be crazy to imagine attempting such a thing.Cousin Bette has a lot of the things I love about a novel of manners - the shift of society, where the one on top has to bow to the one who was before his servant; the difference between those who fight and grasp and crawl their way through life, and those who float from whim to whim or submit like martyrs to their fate; the exploration of intent - doing what seems to be good with desire for revenge, or doing what seems to be evil from sheer innocence or stupidity or love.It's not a pretty book. Who is the hero? Everyone is despicable! It's not for the faint of heart or the rose-coloured-glasses readers.
—Sylvester
They are scoundrels! The whole lot of them! Well, ok, there are one or two virtuous people among them, but they are boring. Which is what makes the rest of them scoundrels. I loved this book. I think I was supposed to be scandalized, but I live now, not then. It is a time of opulence and excess. Money and Sex. Depending on gender, they use one to get the other. To what lengths they will go in pursuit of money and sex! And then there is Cousin Bette who has neither. Because she has neither, she is filled with hate and a burning desire for revenge. Such a web of intrigue and lies in pursuit of the goal.Balzac has some 90 or so novels and stories in his La Comedie Humaine. I will continue to make inroads in the series, though I don't see how I have time for them all. So many good books, so little time.
—Elizabeth (Alaska)
This is a soap opera masquerading as a classic. It has all the right ingredients. * A husband, a baron, who has spent all the family money on other women. * A wife who justifies acting like a doormat by saying it is religious feminine submission. * An in-law who threatens to put the kybosh on any potential "good match" marriage for their dowry-less but pretty (and rather boring) daughter Hortense if religious doormat doesn't sleep with him.* Cousin Bette, the protagonist of the story, who is the plain, poor relation given shelter by the Baron, but must earn her own living and who is a jealous, vengeful and cunning woman.* A talented sculptor who leads on and exploits Cousin Bette for what she can do for him, but falls in love with Hortense (and marries her after he has become rich through using her connections).* A beautiful mistress/whore, Valerie. Lots of French classics have a woman who exploits her looks but is eventually brought low. Camille in La Dame aux Camélias, Nana, Madame Bovary to name a few I've read.* The poor but handsome lover of the mistress who is used for sex and spurned because he hasn't got enough money. He's going to have his revenge too.* More than a hint of lesbianism between the vengeful Bette and the greedy Valerie.Everyone gets their just desserts in the end, except, mystifingly, the Baron who on his saintly wife's demise marries a servant girl and is happy as a hare in clover satisfied with his comfortable life and lots of sex.Balzac did write this as a series and it is both light fiction and great literature. It explores the themes of wealth, beauty, cruelty, passion and religion in an elegant fashion. This is what makes it such a good read, a good plot, great characters and plenty of depth to flesh out the story into a real experience. But 4 stars rather than 5 because it does take a bit of wading through.
—Petra X
