Human Comedy, Volume 15

Author: (French) Balzac/H. / He Youqi
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 typical characters, and a universally recognized master of realism. Through 20 years of diligent work, he created the miracle of "La Comédie Humaine" in the history of the novel. He united over 90 novels of varying lengths into a complete and all-encompassing social portrait, "providing an outstanding realistic history of French 'society,' especially the 'upper class' of Paris,"① transforming novels, once seen as mere entertainment, into works of documentary value. Balzac's entire body of work 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 "story" 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 society to a capitalist society, personally experiencing important historical stages such as the Napoleonic Empire, the Bourbon Restoration, and the July Monarchy, as well as major historical events like the revolutions of 1830 and 1848. The complex contradictions and rapid, sustained social upheavals of this period brought unprecedented vitality to social thought, 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 just one aspect 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 French Revolution to the complete dominance of the bourgeoisie by 1848. As he himself put it, this was "a kind of social history that many historians 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 literary poetics to the novel: financial and monetary affairs, debt litigation, bank bankruptcies, and store inventory settlements—all were poetically depicted in his works; characters from all trades and social strata could be found in "La Comédie Humaine." Thus, it was not without exaggeration to say: "The more complex society is, the more complex the content of La Comédie Humaine; the richer life is, the richer the scenes of La Comédie Humaine." Moreover, Balzac attempted to further explore the causes of these social phenomena, analyzing their essence and significance. Balzac had from an early age a strong desire to understand everything, to know everything, and to explain everything. Before deciding to become a novelist, he aspired to be a philosopher; when he chose to reflect contemporary history through the novel, he first thought of studying human society as Buffon studied the animal world. 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 Scenes," "Philosophical Studies," and "Social Studies." In 1841, inspired by Dante's "La Divina Commedia" (literally "The Comedy of God"), he decided to title his entire work "La Comédie Humaine," metaphorically likening all the struggles and joys of human life to individual dramas performed on a stage. In the "La Comédie Humaine" that began publication in 1842, Balzac divided his work into three parts: "Social Studies," "Philosophical Studies," and "Analytical Studies." According to his own explanation, "Social Studies" depicted the contemporary social landscape of France; "Philosophical Studies" explored the causes of these social phenomena, seeking the hidden meaning behind the numerous 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 category 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 overarching title "La Comédie Humaine," but he completed only 96, most of which belonged to "Social Studies," with the majority concentrated in the first three scenes. These 96 novels were not all masterpieces, but as a whole, they constitute a magnificent and grand structure. In the history of French and European literature, no second such structure exists. The protagonist of "Le Pèlerinage de Sancho Panza," Rapha?l, once said, "I feel that I have a certain idea to express, a certain system to establish, and a certain doctrine to explain." This was precisely the mood Balzac was in when writing "La Comédie Humaine." To achieve the height he aspired to, he voraciously read a vast amount of philosophical, social sciences, and natural sciences works from antiquity to the present, constantly comparing, analyzing, and summarizing; he delved into every corner of social life, uncovering people's inner secrets, 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, meticulously dissecting 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 finally discovered an uncontrolled law of nature: the ever-growing dominance of the bourgeoisie and the disintegration and demise of the aristocratic class. Such a historical trend was the essential force dominating all social life at the time. All conflicts, struggles, upheavals, and crimes in society, as well as the tragedies and comedies in family and personal life, were closely tied to this specific historical process. Due to this overall understanding of society, Balzac was able to grasp the essential historical content from the scattered, individual, and phenomena, thereby successfully depicting the profound changes in social life and the deep 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 his literary approach. His works transcended personal experiences and emotions, instead incorporating 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 an entire philosophy." In this way, he elevated the novel to the level of historical philosophy, achieving a depth that general literary works could not attain. As a chronicler of social history, Balzac was more powerful than true historians because he did not rely on concepts but appealed to images. Everything that historians explained with concepts, he guided readers to experience through numerous typical characters and events. Therefore, the history he depicted with images often left a more profound and compelling impression, and was thus more persuasive. Engels once said that from "La Comédie Humaine," he learned more about even the most detailed economic aspects (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 descriptions skillfully serve the shaping of character. 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 appear lifelike and convincing. Belyayev once marveled at the numerous characters and personalities in Balzac's novels, none of which were entirely identical. Zola admiringly remarked that in the face of Balzac's vivid and realistic 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 sharp insight of an artistic master, able to quickly delve into people's inner lives and capture their essential characteristics through brief encounters. This extraordinary artistic talent was fully developed due to his rich life experiences. He was born into a family that had risen from peasantry to the bourgeoisie, with relatives who were mostly middle- and lower-class old-style merchants, making him familiar with this 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 time studying law at university, he worked as an apprentice in a law firm and notary office, gaining insight into the darker side of Parisian society. More importantly, during the decade before he gained fame, he engaged in various trades, experiencing countless struggles and failures, enduring the pains of business, bankruptcy, closures, liquidations, and debts, and suffering the harassment of bill collectors and the exploitation of usurers. Among his contemporaries, no one had a more direct and profound experience of the torment of money and the dominance of materialism. In terms of accumulated life experiences, none were as rich as he. Like some of the geniuses he once portrayed, he had "lived, struggled, and felt" in the crucible of Paris. He was not only the author of "La Comédie Humaine" but also an actor on this grand stage. Baudelaire once called him one of the "most peculiar, interesting, and romantic, as well as the most poetic" characters in "La Comédie Humaine."① What he depicted in "La Comédie Humaine" was not just his observations but also his experiences and feelings, and it was these personal experiences and feelings that the most chapters of the work. Imagination is an indispensable quality for an artist, and it was precisely one of Balzac's strongest talents. He was not only an exceptionally clear-eyed observer but also possessed a fervent 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 the writer's subjective control. Balzac often lived in a world of hallucinations, constantly interacting with the characters he had created, being 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 about these fictional characters to his friends, as if they really lived among them. It is said that when he was critically ill, he called out 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 overly intense function of imaginative thinking. The characters in Balzac's works were often more vivid, realistic, and convincing than real people, largely thanks to his exceptionally strong imagination. Balzac lived in the bizarre society of 19th-century Paris, exposed to a variety of and doctrines, making his own thoughts extremely complex. His mind was filled with conflicting claims and doctrines, and in his works, a wealth of profound insights coexisted with absurdities, sharp analyses with ridiculous conclusions. He believed in the materiality of the world but was deeply attracted to mystical doctrines; he was essentially an atheist but fervently promoted religion; his blueprint for societal development did not transcend the bounds of capitalist free competition, yet he leaned politically toward the monarchy. But 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 chapters of Romanticism, no matter how romantic or even absurd his expressive methods were, he remained rooted in the soil of real life, focusing on reflecting the essence of real life. Thus, Plekhanov said that Balzac was a "realist in the deepest sense of the word." Balzac, starting from his vast life experiences, achieved a clear understanding of the essence of contemporary society and the trends of historical development. He respected history and life, even when the logic of life led him to conclusions contrary to his own 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 aristocrats in his works act, "his satire was unprecedentedly sharp, his irony unprecedentedly biting, and the characters he often openly admired were precisely his political adversaries."③ All of this was summarized by Engels as "one of the greatest victories of realism"④. And precisely because of this, the legitimist Balzac, who claimed to be writing under the "eternal truths" of "royalty" and "religion," unexpectedly found that his works often substantiated certain scientific conclusions of Marxism. Balzac, to Chinese readers, has become an unwitting actor in the comedy of "Social Studies · Parisian Life Scenes [VI]," "Unconscious Comedy," "Modern History Notes," De La Chantre.