Chrissie's Reviews > Eugénie Grandet

Well, this book was kind of hard for me. I guess I liked it, but I would have certainly appreciated it more if I hadn't read others of Balzac's Comédie Humaine. I definitely liked Père Goriot, followed by Cousin Bette. Balzac belongs to the school of European Realism. He excellently draws French life of the first half of the 1800s. In detail. Every room and every face and every everything is described. Nothing wrong with that, but third time around I didn't get anything new.

It was while writing this book that Balzac came up with the idea of the Comédie Humaine. In the book's second publication names were changed so characters here would appear again in other books.

I liked Père Goriot best because more of the characters were of the less affluent classes. Aspiring characters or criminals or medical students or landlords …. In that book there are quite simply characters from many different walks of life. This book has fewer characters and there is one VERY central point being made. The emphasis here is the importance of m-o-n-e-y! You get nowhere without money. Bonds and currency and gold and how money makes money is a central theme. Bankruptcy versus liquidation. Avarice and greed and miserliness. Respectability is tied to money. It gives you power. It keeps you in control. It usually is tied to deception and cheating and bending of rules. Am I talking too much about the same thing? Well that IS what the book is about. OK, also about social mores and the rights of women versus men. Balzac clearly saw that women have two choices - marry or take the veil. Here, in this book, you have one of the lower class to observe, the miserly Felix Grandet's servant Nanon.

The characters may be fully realized, but they remain caricatures! None of them really change. None of them learn from mistakes. Is a child destined to take after their mother, their father?

Not much humor.

One thing that bothers me quite a bit is that the book describes typical human rather than proferring a different path. It is classified as European realism. I cannot help but object and say not everybody behaves so.

More could have been done to distinguish between provincial versus Parisian life. This would have added interest. I learned very little about Saumur, which is a beautiful town in the region of the Loire valley.

The narration by Jonathan Fried was fine. Not bad or exceptionally good. I could hear all the words and the speed was fine too.

I just cannot get terribly enthused by the book. Its message is so damn clear. There is not much left to think about. I mean if it had shown a possible way of escaping fate, of a battle to be overcome. Most people do not take up such battles. This is and remains a book of realism. It gives a description of a time and place.