Balzac: A Biography

One of the major accomplishments of this biography is that it will make you want to go out and read all of Balzac. This is because Mr. Robb has sprinkled a liberal number of excerpts from the novels throughout his text. Balzac was both a keen observer and a tireless researcher, with an interest in, literally, everything. He was also tremendously sensitive. When you put all of these qualities together, you get prose that has great depth.....resonating between the internal and the external. Mr. Robb is the first one to point out that not everything that Balzac wrote was great or even good. He was obsessive.....a writing machine churning out thousands of words per day. He was deeply in debt and had to write just about non-stop in an attempt to get himself out of debt. Mr. Robb maintains a nice balance. He obviously has a tremendous fondness for his subject but he doesn't let that blind him to the great man's faults and contradictions. Balzac was very open and childlike.....he wore his heart on his sleeve and talked non-stop, rarely censoring himself. On the other hand, he was cunning and manipulative, using all sorts of "dodges" to flee from his numerous creditors. He also took advantage of other writers.....creating a sort of writing factory- hiring young, admiring, ambitious writers to write novels on his behalf. He expected these "laborers" to have the same superhuman energy that he possessed and would drive them mercilessly. But, in counterpoint, Balzac never gave up trying to pay off his debts and frequently he did pay people everything he owed them. He also took a genuine interest in the young writers he had working for him.....giving them worthwhile advice and he was also financially generous when he was in a position to be able to help. Balzac was a shrewd judge of human nature and was very intelligent. He could size up a person or a situation very quickly. His contemporaries commented that if a person read Balzac's novels and applied the vast amounts of information and wisdom to real life, they could make a fortune. But Balzac could not turn his genius into wealth. He would get himself into one harebrained scheme after another, and he could not control his profligate spending. No matter how hard he worked and how many books he wrote he was always getting himself deeper and deeper in debt. But he was an eternal optimist: the next scheme or best-selling novel was just around the corner, and then everything would be wonderful! Oftimes, once he had an idea for a book he considered it done. Forget the fact that he hadn't written a word. To Balzac, it was a concrete asset.....just as good as money in the bank. He was a human dynamo and tremendously hard working. Balzac was of the opinion that he wore himself out and Mr. Robb agrees. No one could maintain that intensity forever. (Balzac was only 51 when he died.) He was a fascinating man, as interesting as any of his characters, and Mr. Robb has done a splendid job depicting him.

All biographers have to figure out a workable balance between exploring their subject's personal life, works, and societal context. With a man like Balzac this can be exceedingly difficult, because everything about the man - his personality, his writings, and his milieu - are so much larger than life that it seems almost impossible to do them justice.In this life of Balzac, Graham Robb concentrates on Balzac's psychology. We are confronted with the great writer's enormous ego (he considered himself to be "the Napoleon of literature"), his astonishing output, his many love relationships with older women, and his grandiose failures in business. We see a man so driven that at one point he moved his cot into the printer's shop, keeping the presses going 24 hours a day as he corrected proofs while simultaneously writing new chapters!Robb traces all this activity back to the roots: Balzac's innate, and nearly infinite, self-regard pouring endlessly into the emotional void induced by a disturbingly unaffectionate mother. Balzac becomes, therefore, a man who had to write, so much so that even his business failures and debts were self-inflicted, a subconscious way of spurring himself on to ever greater literary effort just to keep one step ahead of the creditors.Throughout this biography, Robb uses extensive quotation to allow Balzac's novels to illuminate his life, and vice-versa. The resulting dialogue between the life and the works is both exciting and nuanced - indeed, so nuanced that Robb's book needs to be read carefully in places. It will also be helpful if the reader is on familiar terms with as many of Balzac's novels as possible - there are over 90 of them! Even readers who have read several of the novels in the past, would do well to refresh themselves before tackling this biography. Three good places to start would be "Le Pere Goriot," "Eugenie Grandet," and "La Cousine Bette," as they are representative of his best and Robb refers to them frequently. It's not always easy going, but readers who can meet the prerequisites will surely enjoy this fine and insightful biography.

This book is equal to its formidable task accomplished with style, humor, and knowledge of its subject equal to anything one might expect to emerge from the whirlwind of contradictions and genius that Balzac brought to his work and life.

Voluminously researched biography of a fascinating writer, filled with wonderful quotes from Balzac's letters and books.

Did not order!

Graham Robb is an excellent writer, and, in both this and his Hugo biography, has shown he is a great lover of classical French literature. While the Hugo covered the author's life, and his times, this Balzac mostly looks at Honoré and what made him what he was. I would have liked to see more contextualization, especially because Balzac's peak period of writing (the 1830s) was a time of turmoil and change in France. I was also surprised that Robb mentioned so few of the novels; he does quote liberally from a few of them, but barely mentions when the different works were written. This would have been a better way to place the works in the Balzacian timeline.Nevertheless, faute de mieux, this is the best there is in English. It's surprising that, for an author who wrote so much, and for whom so many books remain in print in English, there aren't more biographies or general studies. The Comédie Humaine is one of the landmarks of world literature, and if you haven't read any Balzac, or if you have and want to learn more, this book will give you some great insights into who the author was. But it won't tell you very much about the works or fit them into a broader context. That book remains to be written.

Loved it the book gave great insight to a complex and interesting And brilliant man strongly recommend this book great

Pleased with the product and service, the book was a described

received within the said time and it came from NEW YORK very pleased, its a shame that the only item I bought off e-bay could not get to me from 52 miles away from liconlshire