Eugénie Grandet by Honoré de Balzac; narrated by Jonathan Field | 2014; originally published 1833 | Recorded Books | Audiobook $ 18
Hailed as the father of the naturalist novel, French author and playwright Honoré de Balzac left a legacy of treasured literary works that include Père Goriot and Cousin Bette. The daughter of a wealthy but miserly man, Eugénie Grandet falls in love with her penniless cousin, Charles. The two plan to marry, but at the behest of her father, Charles must first go overseas to make his fortune. Returning years later, Charles calls off the engagement, leaving Eugénie heartbroken and vengeful.
I don’t even remember why this one made it on my to-read list at this point, other than it’s a big title in classic literature and everyone is supposed to read in order to be a worthwhile citizen… or something.
The general theme of the book seems to be avarice, or more precisely its effects on a particular person as she goes through life. Everyone in the titular character’s life seems obsessed in some way with wealth — her father with hoarding it, her beloved with avoiding responsibility for debt of it, her neighbors with taking advantage of people who can provide it, even the friendly neighborhood priest with encouraging the intergenerational accumulation of it.
Eugénie Grandet is generally painted as an innocent among all this, like sort of a suffering bystander in her own story, but she’s really not entirely without agency or blameless in the eventual course of her own existence. Personally, I tend to get a bit annoyed with stories about long-suffering women who are surrounded by unfeeling men and female frenemies, when the heroine ultimately does very little to help her own situation. Damsels in distress who just live perpetually in distress are, frankly, boring.
So much of this novel is hung up on various financial concerns — women’s dowries, property auctions, estate inheritances, legal maneuverings, grocery bills, coin collecting, international schemes, and so on; I genuinely had some difficulty with paying attention to all this.
I’m going to go ahead and admit to being a total rube who stumped by this novel’s status as a beloved classic. I’ve read reviews that refer to it as moving and tragic, which I can sort of see (I may just be feeling like too much of a curmudgeon for it), and also un-put-down-able, which I can’t agree with at all (it isn’t bad but it is not in any way the kind of thrilling story that will keep anyone up past bedtime).
That said, I think this is the kind of book that is meant for people who enjoy slice-of-life and neighborhood-gossipy types of stories. It certainly isn’t a bad book — it really is a classic for a reason — it’s just not my personal fav.
Links:
- Public domain book available at Project Gutenberg
- Analysis from Honoré de Balzac | The Human Comedy – Analyse de Œuvres, des Scènes et des Personnages
- Biography of author from ThoughtCo.
Publication information: de Balzac, Honoré. Eugénie Grandet. Landover, Maryland: Recorded Books, 2014. Audiobook.
Source: Public library, via Hoopla.
Disclaimer: I am not compensated, monetarily or otherwise, for reviews of books or other products.
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