Now read this! Honore de Balzac’s Father Goriot
I like lists. Here’s one: Balzac, Dickens, Philip Roth, Haruki Murakami, Tolstoy, Conrad, Nabokov, Hemingway, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Shakespeare. These are my top ten authors calculated by the amount of time I estimate I have spent reading them. The winner going away is Honore de Balzac.
Balzac is one of the most prolific of all novelists, having written the uncompleted Human Comedy, a series of almost 100 novels and novellas that, as a whole, is one of the most astonishing intellectual accomplishments in history. (To read more about Balzac the man and the Human Comedy, see my Popmatters essay.)
Father Goriot (or Le Pere Goriot) is often cited as Balzac’s greatest work, but when an author has written Cousin Bette, Lost Illusions, A Harlot High and Low, The Girl with the Golden Eyes, and Colonel Chabert, to name only a few of the more than 30 masterpieces to be found in the Human Comedy, it’s a bit like saying Hamlet is Shakespeare’s greatest play. Only maybe.
Father Goriot is, however, a great place to start. Its three main characters all live in the Maison Vauquer boarding house. The handsome Rastignac is a young man from the provinces come to Paris to marry rich. The criminal Vautrin attempts to steer Rastignac toward a marriageable fortune blocked only by a difficult brother, whom he proposes to kill in a duel. Father Goriot is a once-prosperous old man who pawns everything he has in order to boost the fortunes of his two greedy and ungrateful daughters (one a countess and the other a baroness).
The arc of the story follows Rastignac’s rise and Goriot’s Lear-like fall (only there is no loyal Cordelia). Here is a portion of the scene when Goriot’s two daughters learn of his penniless state, which sets them against each other.
“Children, children, kiss and be friends!” said their father. “You are both angels.”
“No, let me alone!” screamed the Countess, shaking off the hand Goriot had laid upon her arm. “She (her sister) has far less pity for me than my husband. Anyone would imagine she was the pattern of all the virtues.”
“I would rather people thought I owed money to Monsieur de Marsay than confess that Monsieur de Trailles costs me more than two hundred thousand francs,” retorted Madame de Nucingen.
“Delphine!” cried the Countess, taking a step towards her.
“I only tell you the truth in return for your lies about me,” the Baroness said coldly.
“Delphine! You’re a -”
She had no chance of finishing her sentence, for Goriot threw himself between the two sisters, laid one hand restrainingly on her arm and covered her mouth with the other.
“Goodness, Father! What on earth have you been handling this morning?” she said.
“Well, yes, I shouldn’t have touched you,” said the poor father, wiping his hands on his trousers. “I’ve been packing my things; I didn’t know you were coming.”
He was happy at having drawn this reproach upon himself and so diverted the current of his daughter’s anger.
Note the affront the daughter takes at Goriot’s apparently smelly hands, and how he rationalizes the insult; a stunning depiction of a parent’s concern and his child’s disregard.
Father Goriot is also notable for the first appearance of Vautrin, who may be the first super criminal in literature, the predecessor of every arch villain from Moriarty to Fu Manchu to Hannibal Lecter.
“In the name of the law, and the name of the King!” said an officer, but the words were almost lost in a murmur of astonishment. Silence fell on the room. The lodgers made way for three of the men, who had each a hand on a cocked pistol in a side pocket. Two policemen, who followed the detectives, barred the entrance to the sitting room, and two more appeared in the doorway that gave access to the staircase. All chance of salvation by flight was cut off for the criminal known as Trompe-la-Mort, to whom all eyes instinctively turned.
The chief of police walked straight up to him, and dealt him a sharp blow on the head, so that his wig fell off, revealing the stark horror of his skull. There was a terrible suggestion of strength mingled with cunning in the short, brick-red crop of hair, the whole head was in harmony with his powerful frame, and at that moment the fires of hell seemed to gleam from his eyes.
In that flash the real Vautrin shone forth, revealed at once before them all; they understood his past, his present, and future, his pitiless doctrines, his actions, the religion of his own good pleasure, the majesty with which his cynicism and contempt for mankind invested him. The blood flew to his face, and his eyes glared like the eyes of a wild cat. He started back with savage energy and a fierce growl that drew exclamations of alarm from the lodgers. His fierce, feral movement, and the general clamor he’d created, made the policemen draw their weapons.
Vautrin saw the gleaming muzzles of their pistols, saw his danger, and instantly proved himself possessor of the highest of all human powers. There was something horrible and majestic in the spectacle of the sudden transformation in his face; he could only be compared to a cauldron full of the steam that can send mountains flying, a terrific force dispelled in a moment by a drop of cold water. The drop of water that cooled his wrathful fury was a reflection that flashed across his brain like lightning. He began to smile, and looked down at his wig.
“You are not in the politest of humors to-day,” he remarked to the chief, and held out his hands to the policemen with a jerk of his head. “Gentlemen,” he said, “put on the handcuffs. I call on those present to witness that I make no resistance.”
One of the basic features of the Human Comedy is that a great many of Balzac’s characters appear and reappear, sometimes in a leading role, sometimes a lesser, from book to book. The criminal mastermind Vautrin will appear center stage in the scintillating A Harlot High and Low.
Finally, money is a central theme in Balzac. His characters are often obsessed with it. Read him for what he has to say about life and love, but not if you want to take your mind off the stock market.
Now Read This! appears every Monday. Learn about all the great books you wish you’d read. Then read them.
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Well, you’ve persuaded me that I have to stop today at the library and pick up a copy of Balzac’s novel, Pere Goriot. Thanks for sharing the excellent comments.