Karl Marx wanted to write a literary criticism of Balzac. He was fascinated by Balzac - I think because his work described the effects of capitalism on society.
I began to read it over the Easter weekend this year, but have set it aside again. It did not draw me in immediately as I had hoped. When I return to it, I am sure I will enjoy it.
I was just watching BookTube and writing up some notes for a video I will post about Balzac, Faulkner, and Louise Erdrich tomorrow when I found your video! I read Balzac’s Lives by Peter Brooks last month and I can definitely recommend it. Great video
Balzac's Lives is on my list to buy (in fact it's sitting in my amazon shopping cart and has been there for days haha). I'll look forward to seeing the video you've been drawing up notes for!
This was so interesting Amy, both in terms of learning about the life of Balzac- hard to believe he wrote even more than the work we have of his- and in the way you went about using your three questions to decide on continuing your read. I’ve only ever read Eugénie Grandet but really enjoyed it and have Lost Illusions on my shelf, maybe I’ll fit in some of own Balzac reading this year.
Thanks for the comment, Jo. It is hard to believe that he managed to write so much in his lifetime! If you do fit in some Balzac this year, do let me know your thoughts.
Interesting that you brought up Stefan Zweig. The Introduction to Zweig's 1929 biography of Joseph Fouché is six pages long, more than one full page of which is given over to a lengthy quote from Balzac's Une ténébreuse affaire. Zweig wrote (in the English translation) “Only one imaginative writer has seen this unique figure [Fouché] in its true proportion - Balzac, whose own greatness made it easy for him to recognize greatness in another. His ... penetrating genius ... unhesitatingly selected Fouché as, psychologically speaking, the most interesting person of the revolutionary and Napoleonic drama.”
This was a fascinating discussion, I was so excited when you first announced your Balzac reading project. Hearing your thoughts about why to undertake such a project is a great way to put the whole thing into context. And it was interesting to hear more about his life and what value other writers saw in his work. I've only read a handful of his novels and short stories but I'm sure you will be turning me on to many of his other works. Thank you Amy, and Happy New Year!!
Thanks Matthew, good to to hear that this videos series will be appreciated. Happy New Year! I hope you enjoy whatever you have planned for New Year's Eve tonight!
I'm just about to start with Zola. I'll see how I get on with his 20 volume series Les Rougon-Macquart before I go back and dig in to Balzac. Thanks for this.
I've read a couple of Zola's works and enjoyed him, but not as much as Balzac so far. I plan to return to him at some point in the future. I hope you enjoy!
0:53 I purchased a copy of the very Stefan Zweig Balzac bio you are holding, after running across it at a Salvation Army thrift shop, in the summer of 2019, but I have not read it yet. Upon seeing it in your hands, I was able to go downstairs from my bedroom, and find it, in the confused mess of things in my living room.
I picked up a few of the New York Review Book editions of Balzac (selections of the Human Comedy/The Unknown Masterpiece) and look forward to getting into them soon. My question to you is: where do you think this ends, this chain of influence? If author X, influenced author y; who influenced, author z; and then, so on; where does the trip stop for you? Or is this all part of the journey to you which has no end? I ask myself this question and am curious to what you think.
Good day Amy. Stefan Zweig is a writer that's been on my mind since the summertime. I've read his Balzac book, but it was his The World of Yesterday, his final work before his and his wife's suicide, that I first read 20 years ago. He loved books, art, and culture, which is why Nazism, its antithesis, was so repugnant to him. I think it was John Fowles who wrote about Zweig that even if fascism was defeated, Zweig as already a broken man. Hitler and nazism were symptoms of something worse that had overcome the European imagination that would sanciton book burning, his books included, and a rejection of values he thought rooted our common humanity. In other words, he had lost all hope in the civilization he believed in from ever returning or worse, if it ever existed in the first place. He loved Balzac, and what his stories revealed about the human heart, which many times wasn't good, but it was real. He was reading Montaigne before the end, and was planning to write a book about his essays. It's possible that in the final moments, he thought about the Human Comedy, and re-imagined a more appropriate title should've been, The Human Tragedy. Happy New Year, Amy, and best to you and your family.
Thank you for sharing with me some details about Zweig. It was only on this reread of his Balzac biography that I took the time to note that Zweig was more than a biographer. I'd like to read something more from him at some point. Would The World of Yesterday be a good point to start?
@@Amysdustybookshelf I think The World of Yesterday is good place to begin and to be read with The Burning Secret and Other Stories. The latter is interesting because it includes two of his most famous stories, The Royal Game and Letter from an Unknown Woman. The first story was written months before his death. It's about a man trying to out wit the Gestapo, a strange irony given Zweig's destiny. Letter from an Unknown Woman was made into a great film by Max Ophuls and starring Joan Fontaine. Zweig wrote this story when his first marriage was falling apart. He'd fallen in love with his secretary, and future wife, so this story is interesting because in a way the unknown woman is his first wife talking to him in his own imagination.
I'm reading "Sur Catherine de Medici"....wonderful history, extremely detailed and informative. He wants to elevate the reputation of the heroine. But he (the author) assumes I know so much! Without a search engine and the computer, I wouldn't know what's going on.
I purchased the set second hand. There aren't currently any English language publishers printing complete sets. If you try Abebooks.Com, ebay, or a similar site, you may be able to come across a full set.
Karl Marx wanted to write a literary criticism of Balzac. He was fascinated by Balzac - I think because his work described the effects of capitalism on society.
I like your dedication , discipline and enthusiasm for the classics.
Thanks for this, excellent summary.
Wrapping up Lost Illusions and loved it. Hope you had a chance to get to it.
I began to read it over the Easter weekend this year, but have set it aside again. It did not draw me in immediately as I had hoped. When I return to it, I am sure I will enjoy it.
I was just watching BookTube and writing up some notes for a video I will post about Balzac, Faulkner, and Louise Erdrich tomorrow when I found your video! I read Balzac’s Lives by Peter Brooks last month and I can definitely recommend it. Great video
Balzac's Lives is on my list to buy (in fact it's sitting in my amazon shopping cart and has been there for days haha). I'll look forward to seeing the video you've been drawing up notes for!
This was so interesting Amy, both in terms of learning about the life of Balzac- hard to believe he wrote even more than the work we have of his- and in the way you went about using your three questions to decide on continuing your read. I’ve only ever read Eugénie Grandet but really enjoyed it and have Lost Illusions on my shelf, maybe I’ll fit in some of own Balzac reading this year.
Thanks for the comment, Jo. It is hard to believe that he managed to write so much in his lifetime! If you do fit in some Balzac this year, do let me know your thoughts.
Interesting that you brought up Stefan Zweig. The Introduction to Zweig's 1929 biography of Joseph Fouché is six pages long, more than one full page of which is given over to a lengthy quote from Balzac's Une ténébreuse affaire. Zweig wrote (in the English translation) “Only one imaginative writer has seen this unique figure [Fouché] in its true proportion - Balzac, whose own greatness made it easy for him to recognize greatness in another. His ... penetrating genius ... unhesitatingly selected Fouché as, psychologically speaking, the most interesting person of the revolutionary and Napoleonic drama.”
This was a fascinating discussion, I was so excited when you first announced your Balzac reading project. Hearing your thoughts about why to undertake such a project is a great way to put the whole thing into context. And it was interesting to hear more about his life and what value other writers saw in his work. I've only read a handful of his novels and short stories but I'm sure you will be turning me on to many of his other works. Thank you Amy, and Happy New Year!!
Thanks Matthew, good to to hear that this videos series will be appreciated. Happy New Year! I hope you enjoy whatever you have planned for New Year's Eve tonight!
I'm just about to start with Zola. I'll see how I get on with his 20 volume series Les Rougon-Macquart before I go back and dig in to Balzac. Thanks for this.
I've read a couple of Zola's works and enjoyed him, but not as much as Balzac so far. I plan to return to him at some point in the future. I hope you enjoy!
@@Amysdustybookshelf I really enjoyed Zola but he's nowhere near Balzac. Balzac was a genius.
Both awesome and give a panoramic internal and external world to their times
Interesting! Learned a lot. Thanks!
0:53 I purchased a copy of the very Stefan Zweig Balzac bio you are holding, after running across it at a Salvation Army thrift shop, in the summer of 2019, but I have not read it yet. Upon seeing it in your hands, I was able to go downstairs from my bedroom, and find it, in the confused mess of things in my living room.
Wonderful! I hope that you enjoy the read!
evenin Amy, stopping by quickly to say happy new year and all the best for 2021, hope you had a nice christmas too by the way. ;)
Happy New Year!
I picked up a few of the New York Review Book editions of Balzac (selections of the Human Comedy/The Unknown Masterpiece) and look forward to getting into them soon.
My question to you is: where do you think this ends, this chain of influence? If author X, influenced author y; who influenced, author z; and then, so on; where does the trip stop for you? Or is this all part of the journey to you which has no end? I ask myself this question and am curious to what you think.
Maybe the chain of influence is never ending...
Hello Amy, a very interesting discussion. Happy New Year!
Happy New Year Alan!
When Paul and Julia Child moved to Paris in the early 1950s, Julia read the works of Balzac in French in order to improve her grasp of the language.
An interesting bit of info!
thanks for the explanation
Starting a re read on Cousin Bette today. Marion Ayton Crawford translation.
Good day Amy. Stefan Zweig is a writer that's been on my mind since the summertime. I've read his Balzac book, but it was his The World of Yesterday, his final work before his and his wife's suicide, that I first read 20 years ago. He loved books, art, and culture, which is why Nazism, its antithesis, was so repugnant to him. I think it was John Fowles who wrote about Zweig that even if fascism was defeated, Zweig as already a broken man. Hitler and nazism were symptoms of something worse that had overcome the European imagination that would sanciton book burning, his books included, and a rejection of values he thought rooted our common humanity. In other words, he had lost all hope in the civilization he believed in from ever returning or worse, if it ever existed in the first place. He loved Balzac, and what his stories revealed about the human heart, which many times wasn't good, but it was real. He was reading Montaigne before the end, and was planning to write a book about his essays. It's possible that in the final moments, he thought about the Human Comedy, and re-imagined a more appropriate title should've been, The Human Tragedy.
Happy New Year, Amy, and best to you and your family.
Thank you for sharing with me some details about Zweig. It was only on this reread of his Balzac biography that I took the time to note that Zweig was more than a biographer. I'd like to read something more from him at some point. Would The World of Yesterday be a good point to start?
@@Amysdustybookshelf I think The World of Yesterday is good place to begin and to be read with The Burning Secret and Other Stories. The latter is interesting because it includes two of his most famous stories, The Royal Game and Letter from an Unknown Woman. The first story was written months before his death. It's about a man trying to out wit the Gestapo, a strange irony given Zweig's destiny. Letter from an Unknown Woman was made into a great film by Max Ophuls and starring Joan Fontaine. Zweig wrote this story when his first marriage was falling apart. He'd fallen in love with his secretary, and future wife, so this story is interesting because in a way the unknown woman is his first wife talking to him in his own imagination.
@@GoreVidalComicbooks The world of yesterday really impressed me.
I'm reading "Sur Catherine de Medici"....wonderful history, extremely detailed and informative. He wants to elevate the reputation of the heroine. But he (the author) assumes I know so much! Without a search engine and the computer, I wouldn't know what's going on.
she is very smart
Does anyone have a link to purchase the 25 book set she mentions?
I purchased the set second hand. There aren't currently any English language publishers printing complete sets. If you try Abebooks.Com, ebay, or a similar site, you may be able to come across a full set.
The waffle house has found its new house
🧐