Human Comedy, Second Volume

Author: (French) Balzac/H. / Multiple Authors
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 1997-08-01
Features: Honoré Balzac (1799–1850) was one of the greatest novelists of the 19th century, a master of creating archetypes, and a universally recognized master of realism. Through 20 years of diligent work, he created the miracle of literary history, La Comédie Humaine. He united over 90 novels of varying lengths into a complete and all-encompassing social portrait, providing an "excellent realism of French society, especially the upper class,"① transforming novels, once seen as mere entertainment, into works of documentary value. Balzac's entire oeuvre demonstrates his original and innovative practice and development of realist literary theory, greatly enriching and perfecting the art of the novel, ultimately elevating it beyond the realm of mere storytelling to become a highly expressive and entirely new form of art.
Balzac lived during the historical turning point in France's transition from a feudal to a capitalist society, personally experiencing major historical phases such as the Napoleonic Empire, the Bourbon Restoration, and the July Monarchy, as well as significant events like the revolutions of 1830 and 1848. The complex contradictions and rapid, sustained social upheavals of this period brought unprecedented intellectual ferment, fostering the prosperity and development of 19th-century French literature and exerting a decisive influence on Balzac's creative work. All great writers reflect their era in their works, but Balzac's aspiration was to portray his entire era in its entirety. He was not satisfied with depicting only certain aspects of society or creating a few typical characters but sought to complete "a series of works on 19th-century France," where "each chapter is a novel, and each novel represents an era." He brought thousands of characters to life on the page, forming a complete society and vividly recreating the history of France from the Revolution of 1789 to the complete dominance of the bourgeoisie by 1848. In his own words, this was "a kind of social history that many historians had overlooked."
Balzac boldly broke through traditional artistic boundaries and methods, almost infinitely expanding the subject matter of literature, allowing everything in social life that seemed alien to its poetic sensibility to intrude into the novel: financial and monetary affairs, debt litigation, bank bankruptcies, and store inventory settlements were all poetically depicted in his works; characters from all trades and social strata could be found in La Comédie Humaine. Thus, it was said, without exaggeration: "The more complex society is, the more complex the content of La Comédie Humaine; the richer life is, the richer its scenes." Moreover, Balzac attempted to further explore the causes of these social phenomena, analyzing their essence and significance. Early in his life, Balzac possessed a strong desire to grasp everything, understand everything, and explain everything. Before becoming a novelist, he aspired to be a philosopher; when he decided to use fiction to reflect contemporary history, he first thought of studying human society as Buffon studied the animal kingdom. For Balzac, writing was a means of researching and explaining the world. Therefore, beginning in 1830, he published his novels under titles such as "Private Life Scenarios," "Philosophical Studies," and "Social Studies." In 1841, inspired by Dante's La Divina Commedia (literally The Divine Comedy), he decided to title his entire work La Comédie Humaine, metaphorically likening the struggles and joys of human existence to theatrical performances.
In the La Comédie Humaine that began publication in 1842, Balzac divided the work into three parts: "Social Studies," "Philosophical Studies," and "Analytical Studies." According to his own explanation, "Social Studies" depicted the contemporary social life of France; "Philosophical Studies" explored the causes of these social phenomena, seeking the hidden meaning behind the multitude of characters, emotions, and events; and "Analytical Studies" analyzed the essence and roots of these causal relationships from the perspective of "the natural laws of humanity." Among these three parts, "Social Studies" was the most extensive and significant. Based on the categories of subject matter, Balzac further divided it into six scenes: "Private Life," "Provincial Life," "Parisian Life," "Political Life," "Military Life," and "Rural Life." Balzac originally planned to write over 140 novels under the general title of La Comédie Humaine, but he completed only 96, most of which belonged to "Social Studies" and were primarily concentrated in the first three scenes. None of these 96 novels were masterpieces in isolation, but as a whole, they formed a magnificent and grand structure. In the history of French and European literature, no other such monumental work exists. The protagonist of Le Père Goriot, Rapha?l, once said, "I felt I had a certain idea to express, a certain system to establish, and a certain doctrine to explain." This was precisely Balzac's state of mind as he wrote La Comédie Humaine. To achieve the height he aspired to, he voraciously read vast amounts of philosophical, social, and natural science works throughout history, constantly comparing, analyzing, and synthesizing them; he delved into every corner of social life, uncovering the secrets of people's hearts, observing the political and economic structures, the distribution of power and wealth, the mysteries of law, and the efficacy of religion with the meticulousness of a philosopher and scientist. He carefully dissected people's emotions, desires, and the motivations behind their actions, patiently exploring the internal connections of various social phenomena. In this turbulent and restless society, he discovered an unalterable law beyond human control: the rising dominance of the bourgeoisie and the decline and collapse of the aristocracy. Such a historical trend was the essential force governing all social life. All conflicts, struggles, upheavals, and crimes in society, as well as the tragedies and comedies of family and personal life, were closely tied to this specific historical process.
Thanks to this comprehensive understanding of society, Balzac was able to grasp the essential historical content from scattered, individual, and phenomena, successfully depicting the profound changes in social life and the profound impact on people's destinies and souls during France's transition from a feudal to a capitalist society. Thus, Balzac's works surpassed those of his contemporaries not only in breadth but also in depth, earning him high praise from Marx and Engels. What set Balzac apart from ordinary writers was that he was both a philosopher and a historian in one. His works transcended personal feelings and emotions, instead embodying a comprehensive analysis of society. In his novel La Dernière Chasse, Balzac wrote, "The highest art is to incorporate ideas into images," and "a single word should contain countless thoughts, a single scene should summarize a whole philosophy." In this way, he elevated the novel to the level of historical philosophy, achieving a depth that general literary works could not match. As a chronicler of social history, Balzac was more powerful than genuine historians because he did not rely on abstract concepts but appealed to images. Everything that historians explained with concepts, he guided readers to feel through numerous typical characters and events. Therefore, the history he depicted with images often left a deeper, more intense, and more persuasive impression than the history written by historians. Engels once said that from La Comédie Humaine, he learned "even more about economic details (such as the redistribution of movable and immovable property after the Revolution) than from all the professional historians, economists, and statisticians of the time combined."
Creating images and the typical characters in typical environments were Balzac's primary means of summarizing and refining life, and also his main contribution to realist art. By combining character development with profound historical content, he established the most magnificent gallery of characters in the history of French literature. Balzac allowed his characters to reveal their personalities through action, making the plot and setting serve skillfully as tools for character development. The characters in Balzac's works, even minor ones, were all vividly individualized and lifelike, though somewhat exaggerated, yet firmly grounded in reality, making them feel utterly convincing and lifelike. Belyayev once marveled at how none of the numerous characters in Balzac's novels were entirely identical. Zola admiringly remarked that in the face of Balzac's lifelike characters, "the figures of ancient Greece and Rome seemed pale and trembling, and the medieval figures lay prostrate like toy lead soldiers." Balzac possessed the keen insight of an artistic master, able to quickly penetrate people's inner lives and capture their essential characteristics through brief encounters. This extraordinary artistic talent flourished fully due to his rich personal experiences. Born into a family that had risen from peasantry to the bourgeoisie, with relatives who were mostly middle- and lower-class old-style merchants, he became familiar with the class from a young age. After becoming a writer, he was accepted by the "upper class," giving him more opportunities to study the customs and traditions of the aristocracy. During his law studies, he worked as a trainee in a law firm and notary office, gaining insight into the darker side of Parisian society. More importantly, in the decade before gaining fame, he engaged in various trades, experiencing countless struggles and failures, and endured the hardships of business, bankruptcy, closures, liquidations, and debts. He also faced the relentless pursuit of promissory notes and the exploitation of usurers. Among his contemporaries, no writer had a more direct and profound experience of the torment of money and the dominance of materialism. In terms of life's accumulation, none were as rich as he. Like some of the geniuses he portrayed, he had "lived, struggled, and felt" in the inferno of Paris. He was not only the author of La Comédie Humaine but also an actor on its grand stage. Baudelaire once called him one of the "most peculiar, interesting, and romantic" characters in La Comédie Humaine," as well as "the most poetic."① In La Comédie Humaine, he depicted not only his observations but also his experiences and feelings, which were precisely what made the most compelling chapters of the work.
Imagination is an indispensable quality for an artist, and it was one of Balzac's strongest talents. He was not only an exceptionally clear-eyed observer but also possessed a passionate and rich imagination. The ideas he formed through observation and reflection were quickly transformed into a variety of characters. These characters acted according to the logic of life in the writer's mind, seemingly not under his subjective control. Balzac often lived in a world of hallucinations, constantly interacting with the characters he had created, to the point where he was tormented by them day and night. He and his characters fantasized, suffered, and struggled, sometimes confusing the fictional world with real life. He would eagerly report news of these fictional characters to his friends, as if they really lived among them. Legend has it that when he was dying, he called the name of the famous physician Bienvenu in La Comédie Humaine, claiming that only this doctor could relieve his suffering. This extraordinary mental state was a manifestation of the artist's intense overuse of imaginative thinking. The reason his characters often appeared more vivid, realistic, and convincing than real people was largely due to this extraordinary imagination.
Balzac lived in the bizarre society of 19th-century Paris, exposed to a wide array of ideologies and philosophies, making his own thoughts extremely complex. His mind was filled with conflicting doctrines and theories, and in his works, profound insights coexisted with absurdities, sharp analyses with ridiculous conclusions. He believed in the materiality of the world but was deeply attracted to mysticism; he was essentially an atheist but fervently promoted religion; his blueprint for societal development did not transcend the framework of capitalist free competition, yet politically, he inclined toward legitimism. What mattered most was that as a writer, Balzac always considered it his duty to deeply understand and faithfully represent the objective world. His self-deprecating yet proud confession, "French society is the historian, and I should only be its secretary,"① accurately reflects Balzac's realist creative attitude. Although Balzac lived in an era swept by Romanticism in France, and although he himself was a highly Romantic figure who often lived in a world of fantasy, and although his works contained many Romantic chapters, no matter how romantic or even absurd his expressive methods, he remained rooted in the soil of real life, focusing on reflecting its essence. Thus, Plekhanov said that Balzac was a "profound realist in the truest sense."
Starting from his rich life experiences, Balzac achieved a clear understanding of the essence of contemporary society and the trends of historical development. He respected history and life, even when life's logic led him to conclusions contrary to his beliefs and wishes. Therefore, as Engels pointed out, although his great works were "an endless elegy for the inevitable collapse of the upper class,"② when he made the aristocracy act, "his satire was unprecedentedly sharp, his irony unprecedentedly biting, and the characters he often openly admired were precisely his political adversaries."③ Engels summarized this as "one of the greatest victories of realism"④. And precisely because of this, Balzac, the legitimist who claimed to write under the "eternal truths" of "royalty" and "religion," unexpectedly found his works providing evidence for some scientific conclusions of Marxism.
For Chinese readers, Balzac has become a?book_contents=Social Studies·Private Life Scenes (II) Two Newly Wedded Ladies Entering the World for the First Time / Albert Savarus Family Revenge / Explanation of the Theme