Cousin Bette Annotated with short biography eBook Honoré de Balzac
Download As PDF : Cousin Bette Annotated with short biography eBook Honoré de Balzac 
La Cousine Bette is an 1846 novel by French author Honoré de Balzac. Set in mid-19th century Paris, it tells the story of an unmarried middle-aged woman who plots the destruction of her extended family. Bette works with Valérie Marneffe, an unhappily married young lady, to seduce and torment a series of men. One of these is Baron Hector Hulot, husband to Bette's cousin Adeline. He sacrifices his family's fortune and good name to please Valérie, who leaves him for a tradesman named Crevel. The book is part of the Scènes de la vie parisienne section of Balzac's novel sequence La Comédie humaine ("The Human Comedy").
Cousin Bette Annotated with short biography eBook Honoré de Balzac
Thus spake Honore. This one's thick with characters, plots, both high and low, as well as patches of bad prose worse than Dostoevsky and Melville. But as with them one may deplore parts while revering the whole. Novel features the sublime yet terrifying Bette, the charming yet hedonistic Baron Hulot, the courtesan Valerie Marneffe, the artist Wenceslas Steinbock, many others plus hitchcockian visits by Rastignac and Vautrin from PERE GORIOT.“I have learned more from Balzac than from all the professional historians, economists, and statisticians put together.”
Friedrich Engels
“To open up what society and the novel of manners repress, to stage a kind of explosive upthrust of that which is ordinarily kept down, under control, is Balzac’s delight and his passion. He asks to be read in a spirit of adventure and daring.”
Peter Brooks
"COUSIN BETTE portrays a world in which almost everyone will do anything to anyone if sex and money are at stake, a milieu in which sex is routinely traded for money, in which friendships and alliances are forged to advance the most immoral motives, and in which only fools and martyrs are deluded enough to follow the outmoded promptings of honor, loyalty, and conscience."
Francine Prose
Product details
|
Tags : Amazon.com: Cousin Bette: (Annotated with short biography) eBook: Honoré de Balzac: Kindle Store,ebook,Honoré de Balzac,Cousin Bette: (Annotated with short biography),FICTION Contemporary Women,FICTION General
People also read other books :
- Ben Nevis and Fort William the Mamores and the Grey Corries Explorer Maps 392 125k Ordnance Survey 9780319241196 Books
- An American Bush Pilot in Guyana (Audible Audio Edition) Robert Rice Books
- Bobby of Cloverfield farm Helen Fuller Orton 9781176221222 Books
- Two Centuries Two Countries Two Husbands A Memoir by Luisa Stigol MD Luisa C Stigol MD 9781938517389 Books
- Animal Group Names eBook Badrinath P V Badrinath P V Shutterstock
Cousin Bette Annotated with short biography eBook Honoré de Balzac Reviews
A classic that holds up!
The ending was rather quickly finished but the story was quite a visual soap opera.
Having read and enjoyed Eugenie Grandet and Old Goriot, I was anxious to read Cousin Bette. Overall, I did enjoy it but there were aspects that I did not find believable such as Baron Hulot and Crevel, one an accomplished government man and the other a sharp, wealthy businessman, falling so blindingly in love with Madame Marneffe,the slut of the story, almost at first sight and to the extent that they completely ignored every clue that she was cheating on both of them with yet another (Baron Hulot's son-in-law) while being married to yet another. Also, I wonder if Parisian women of the time were really as accepting of their husbands having mistresses as was Adeline. It seemed to me that the story would have been just as good if there had been one or two fewer romantic involvements and it certainly would have been easier to follow. As for the title of the book, Lisbeth Fischer (Cousin Bette) is not the main character by any means; neither was Eugenie in Eugenie Grandet.
The cover was blurry , the pages were not numbered, and there were no numbered chapters. It was very difficult to read.
It was very tiny print of page after page There was nothing about it that resembled a normal book.
I would not recommend buying that book, and I regret that I did.
Cousin Bette is not one of Balzac's best, but it is very good. The author says it is a companion piece to Cousin Pons, which is a better novel in my view. But both books pale in comparison to Lost Illusions, which I regard as Balzac's best novel -- just ahead of Peré Goriot. The man can truly write and his view of the human comedy is always instructive. He sees the greed and self-absorption that lies at the heart of modern society and is brutally honest. Balzac characterizes himself as a historian rather than a "writer" in the loose sense. He is that. His novels cut to the heart and tear away pretense. They are, indeed, strong stuff.
This edition of the novel is not of the best. It is large and hard to hold! I would buy the penguin edition next time -- which is also a better translation.
Melodramatic, over the top, Cousin Bette is candy and it reads like a 19th century soap opera. The terrible Bette was apparently modeled after Balzac’s own mother - ouch!
It is a classic, no doubt, and beautifully written. The vision is (for most of the novel) very dark as regards the moral depravity of the leading characters. The ending is somewhat redemptive, however.
One of the best prose writers I've had the pleasure of reading. Some literary giant said that he had learned more from Balzac's works than all the Philosophers, poets, psychologists combined. Having read four from Balzac I can see why. The novels don't have much 'action' going on, but a keen observation of the motives, emotions, characters and the like that give rise to the actions of the characters. One can learn a lot about the hidden nature of the human condition by reading Balzac. And perhaps see oneself reflected back to oneself. That to me is worth the time. The books of course are interesting and entertaining also in the way the words flow and explain the physical world Balzac's characters inhabit. Balzac will show you the difference between Literature and fiction. Well worth the time....and with all there is to read and do these days, that counts for a lot.
Well, I certainly think so anyway.
Thus spake Honore. This one's thick with characters, plots, both high and low, as well as patches of bad prose worse than Dostoevsky and Melville. But as with them one may deplore parts while revering the whole. Novel features the sublime yet terrifying Bette, the charming yet hedonistic Baron Hulot, the courtesan Valerie Marneffe, the artist Wenceslas Steinbock, many others plus hitchcockian visits by Rastignac and Vautrin from PERE GORIOT.
“I have learned more from Balzac than from all the professional historians, economists, and statisticians put together.”
Friedrich Engels
“To open up what society and the novel of manners repress, to stage a kind of explosive upthrust of that which is ordinarily kept down, under control, is Balzac’s delight and his passion. He asks to be read in a spirit of adventure and daring.”
Peter Brooks
"COUSIN BETTE portrays a world in which almost everyone will do anything to anyone if sex and money are at stake, a milieu in which sex is routinely traded for money, in which friendships and alliances are forged to advance the most immoral motives, and in which only fools and martyrs are deluded enough to follow the outmoded promptings of honor, loyalty, and conscience."
Francine Prose
0 Response to "≡ Descargar Free Cousin Bette Annotated with short biography eBook Honoré de Balzac"
Post a Comment