La Comédie Humaine #62

The Chouans

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The Chouans, the first volume in Balzac's magnificent novel sequence La Comedie Humaine, is the tale of the Royalist uprising in Brittany against the post-revolutionary republic.

Balzac tells it romantically and with passion. Yet his keen eye for documentary detail, together with his mastery of scene-painting, also give the novel authority as an expert study of guerrilla warfare. By interweaving history with adventure, past with present, comedy with tragedy, Balzac creates in The Chouans a rich and vivid portrait of the varieties and conditions of men as they are affected by dramatic social and political change.

In this skilful translation by Marion Ayton Crawford the reader will experience the mesmeric power of Balzac's prose. The detail delights, the framework fascinates and the story enthralls.

400 pages, Paperback

First published January 1,1829

About the author

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French writer Honoré de Balzac (born Honoré Balzac), a founder of the realist school of fiction, portrayed the panorama of society in a body of works, known collectively as La comédie humaine.

Honoré de Balzac authored 19th-century novels and plays. After the fall of Napoléon I Bonaparte in 1815, his magnum opus, a sequence of almost a hundred novels and plays, entitled, presents life in the years.

Due to keen observation of fine detail and unfiltered representation, European literature regards Balzac. He features renowned multifaceted, even complex, morally ambiguous, full lesser characters. Character well imbues inanimate objects; the city of Paris, a backdrop, takes on many qualities. He influenced many famous authors, including the novelists Marcel Proust, Émile Zola, Charles John Huffam Dickens, Gustave Flaubert, Henry James, and Jack Kerouac as well as important philosophers, such as Friedrich Engels. Many works of Balzac, made into films, continue to inspire.

An enthusiastic reader and independent thinker as a child, Balzac adapted with trouble to the teaching style of his grammar. His willful nature caused trouble throughout his life and frustrated his ambitions to succeed in the world of business. Balzac finished, and people then apprenticed him as a legal clerk, but after wearying of banal routine, he turned his back on law. He attempted a publisher, printer, businessman, critic, and politician before and during his career. He failed in these efforts. From his own experience, he reflects life difficulties and includes scenes.

Possibly due to his intense schedule and from health problems, Balzac suffered throughout his life. Financial and personal drama often strained his relationship with his family, and he lost more than one friend over critical reviews. In 1850, he married Ewelina Hańska, his longtime paramour; five months later, he passed away.

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