Human Comedy, Volume 7

Author: (French) Balzac/H. Fu Lei
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 dedicated 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 oeuvre demonstrates his original and innovative practice and development of realistic literary theory, greatly enriching and refining 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 society to a capitalist one, personally experiencing major historical stages such as the Napoleonic Empire, the Bourbon Restoration, and the July Monarchy, as well as significant events like the 1830 and 1848 revolutions. 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 own creative work. All great writers reflect their era in their works, but Balzac's aspiration was to fully recreate his time. He was not satisfied with depicting only certain social aspects 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 paper, forming a complete society and vividly recreating the history of France from the Revolution of 1789 to 1848, when the bourgeoisie fully established its rule. As he himself put it, this was "a customs history of society 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 insolvencies, and store inventories—all were poetically depicted by Balzac. Characters from all trades and social strata could find their representatives in "La Comédie Humaine." Thus, it was said, without exaggeration: "The more complex society, the more complex the content of La Comédie Humaine; the richer life, the richer its scenes." Moreover, Balzac sought to further explore the causes of these social phenomena, analyzing their essence and significance. Balzac had from an early age a strong desire to grasp everything, understand everything, and explain everything. Before deciding to become a novelist, he aspired to be a philosopher; when he chose to reflect contemporary history through his novels, he first thought of studying human society as comprehensively 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 Scenarios," "Philosophical Studies," and "Customs Studies." In 1841, inspired by Dante's "La Divina Commedia" (literally "The Comedy of God"), he decided to title his entire works "La Comédie Humaine," metaphorically equating all the struggles and joys of human existence with individual plays performed on a stage. In the "La Comédie Humaine" that began publication in 1842, Balzac divided his works into three parts: "Customs Studies," "Philosophical Studies," and "Analytical Studies." According to his own explanation, "Customs Studies" depicted the contemporary social customs of France; "Philosophical Studies" explored the causes of these social phenomena, seeking the hidden meanings within the numerous characters, passions, 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 categories, "Customs Studies" was the most extensive and significant. Based on the types 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 "Customs Studies" and were primarily concentrated in the first three scenes. These 96 novels were not all masterpieces, but as a whole, they formed a magnificent and majestic structure. In the history of French and European literature, no second such structure exists. The protagonist of "Le Père Goriot," 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 vast amounts of philosophical, social sciences, and natural sciences literature throughout history, continuously comparing, analyzing, and synthesizing; he delved into every corner of social life, uncovering people's innermost secrets, observing the political and economic structures, the distribution of power and wealth, the mysteries of the law, and the efficacy of religion, as a philosopher and scientist would, with meticulous attention. He patiently explored the internal connections of various social phenomena, ultimately discovering in this chaotic and turbulent society a law beyond human control: the ever-growing dominance of the bourgeoisie and the decline and dissolution of the aristocracy. Such a historical trend was the fundamental force shaping 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 comprehensive understanding of society, Balzac was able to grasp the essential historical content from scattered, individual, and phenomena, thereby successfully depicting the profound changes in social life and the profound impact on people's destinies and souls that occurred during France's transition from a feudal to a capitalist society. In this way, Balzac's works surpassed those of his contemporaries not only in breadth but also in depth, earning him high praise from Marx and Engels. Balzac's superiority over ordinary writers lay in his being both a philosopher in mind and a historian in vision. His works transcended personal experiences and emotions, instead embodying a comprehensive analysis of society. In his novel "La Défaite de l'Extrême-Orient," 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." Thus, he elevated the novel to the level of historical philosophy, achieving a depth that general literary works could not match. As a customs historian, Balzac was more powerful than true 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 more profound and compelling impression than the history written by historians, making it more persuasive. 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 typical characters in typical environments were Balzac's primary means of summarizing and refining life, as well as his main contribution to realistic art. He combined character development with profound historical content, establishing 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 characters. 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 fact that none of the numerous characters in Balzac's novels 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 trembled, while medieval figures lay prostrate like toy lead soldiers." Balzac possessed the sharp insight of an artistic master, able to quickly delve into people's innermost thoughts 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 all strata of that 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 nobility. During his law studies at university, he worked as a trainee 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, experienced countless struggles and failures, endured the pains of business, bankruptcy, closures, liquidations, and debts, and suffered 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. He was, as he himself described some of the geniuses he portrayed, "someone who 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 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 only his observations but also his experiences and feelings—these personal experiences and feelings formed the most 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 fervent and abundant 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 will. Balzac often lived in a world of delusion, constantly interacting with the characters he had created, to the point where he was tormented by them. 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 was said that when he was ill, he called out the name of the fictional doctor Bianchin, claiming that only he 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 ideologies and theories, 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 mystical doctrines; he was essentially an atheist but actively promoted religion; his blueprint for social development did not transcend the framework of capitalist free competition, yet politically, he inclined toward legitimism. What mattered was that as a writer, Balzac always considered it his duty to deeply understand and faithfully represent the objective world. The statement, "French society is the historian, and I should only serve as its secretary,"① both humble and proud, accurately reflects Balzac's attitude toward realistic creation. Although Balzac lived in an era when Romanticism swept 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 techniques, he remained rooted in the soil of real life, focusing on reflecting its essence. 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 aristocracy act, "his satire was unprecedentedly sharp, his irony unprecedentedly biting, and the characters he often openly admired were precisely his political enemies."③ All this was summed up by Engels 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 arguments of Marxism. Balzac has become for Chinese readers a book_contents=Customs Studies·Provincial Life Scene〔Ⅱ〕The Story of a Bachelor·BéatrixChapter Béatrix·LorrainLorrain's Family HistoryThe Ragonne Family HistoryThe Pathology of a Retired NeedlewomanBéatrix Enters the WorldThe Story of a Poor Cousin Seeking Rich RelativesAutocracy in the FamilyThe Love of Béatrix and BrigotA Family CouncilThe VerdictThe Parish Priest of Toul Upsets the Waters WomanThe Two BrothersTwo Misfortunate WidowsInterestsThe Great Person in the FamilyMary-EttePhilippe StealingThe Mother's Heart How It Cools DownPhilippe's Last MovesThe Life of a Famous Provincial BachelorThe Knight of the Free and EasyThe Hotel de ConnetA Ugly and Ordinary StoryFarial's CartFive OulansMachiavellian MaxenceA StabbedA Criminal CasePhilippe in IssoudunWhose InheritanceThe Heir's Reference MaterialsA Deadly DuelMadame RagonneThe Confession of a SaintThe Ending