The criminal as superman: Balzac's fascination with crime as the obverse of society and because the criminal epitomizes the shapeshifting of modernism. There's also a heavily gothic element to these stories. Balzac distinguishes his novellas from 'traditional' gothic because he is charting the physiognomy of Paris, his great subject. As always, Balzac tends to over describe. He is the epitome of thick description, sometimes to the narrative's detriment. I would give Girl with the Golden Eyes 5 stars not for the gothic seduction story (incest too! but for the incredible preface which anatomizes the social structure of Paris, an essential document in the history of modernism. (David C Ward) About the author: Honoré de Balzac born Honoré Balzac; (20 May 1799 - 18 August 1850) was a French novelist and playwright. The novel sequence La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of post-Napoleonic French life, is generally viewed as his magnum opus. Owing to his keen observation of detail and unfiltered representation of society, Balzac is regarded as one of the founders of realism in European literature. He is renowned for his multi-faceted characters; even his lesser characters are complex, morally ambiguous and fully human. Inanimate objects are imbued with character as well; the city of Paris, a backdrop for much of his writing, takes on many human qualities. His writing influenced many famous writers, including the novelists Émile Zola, Charles Dickens, Marcel Proust, Gustave Flaubert, and Henry James, and filmmakers François Truffaut and Jacques Rivette. Many of Balzac's works have been made into films and continue to inspire other writers. James called him "really the father of us all." An enthusiastic reader and independent thinker as a child, Balzac had trouble adapting to the teaching style of his grammar school. His willful nature caused trouble throughout his life and frustrated his ambitions to succeed in the world of business. When he finished school, Balzac was apprenticed in a law office, but he turned his back on the study of law after wearying of its inhumanity and banal routine. Before and during his career as a writer, he attempted to be a publisher, printer, businessman, critic, and politician; he failed in all of these efforts. La Comédie Humaine reflects his real-life difficulties, and includes scenes from his own experience. Balzac suffered from health problems throughout his life, possibly owing to his intense writing schedule. His relationship with his family was often strained by financial and personal drama, and he lost more than one friend over critical reviews. In 1850, Balzac married Ewelina Hańska (née Contessa Rzewuska), a Polish aristocrat and his longtime love. He died in Paris six months later. (wikipedia.org)

A merciless Breton lord does not want the premature child of seven months, therefore failed, that his wife Jeanne will bring into the world. He decides to kill this damned child and calls a doctor, half midwife, half executioner, for this purpose. Anodyne appearance of this historical account, bordering on small reviews from 1830. But it is the essential Balzac that engages in this novel of the past located in 1594, at the time when Henry IV consolidated his throne, a story of strange beauty. A blend of extreme sweetness, perversity and loving tenderness.But the doctor is a good guy. He diverts the father from the criminal project: "Spare yourself a crime, this child will not live" If you are not dead, Etienne, the cursed child is driven out of the father's house.This novel is worth reading. It is current. It will make the cursed children of today think, those whom our societies exclude in our cities, those to whom our precious national identity is denied. Illegitimate children.By the way, what is the place in each of us of the cursed? Is it sometimes against her that we fight? The cursed one is not only the other, it is also us.Publication: 1831Category(ies): Fiction, News