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(More customer reviews)*Cousin Bette* and *Cousin Pons*, Part One and Two of 'Poor Relations', are generally considered to be the last great gasp of French genius Honore de Balzac, inspired simultaneously and written in a fury to capitalize on the recent market for novel serializations. I'm not sure about this "last gasp" claim yet - *The Wrong Side of Paris*, Balzac's last novel (recently republished!) is on my reading list - but they certainly are great in and of themselves, *Bette* more than *Pons*, in my opinion. Not to degenerate this work in the slightest: being within the shadow of a masterpiece is close enough for posterity.
'Poor Relations' tackles the subject of the individual and its family; but where in *Bette* the poor relation was the spinster cousin, surrounded and revered by her family while she secretly schemed to destroy them, in this novel Pons is the outcast and victim, humiliated by his wealthy relations for his eccentric behavior and mooching ways. For Pons loves food - sumptuous feasts, where he can indulge the demands of his gastronomical addiction - and when his lack of social grace irritates his relatives to the point of banishment, he always wheedles his way back into their hearts with exquisite presents: Pons' monomania extends to collecting the great masterpieces of art, hoarding them away in his private salon where he can bask in the glory of oil and gold. After a scheme intended to permanently set his place at the dinner-table goes awry, however, the old man finds himself an exile, snubbed and refused at the homes of his relatives. The heartbreak - and the stomach-ache - drives the poor man to his deathbed, one hounded by prospective vultures seeking to profit on his jealously-kept collection.
*Cousin Pons*, on reflection, is perhaps one of Balzac's bitterest and unrelentingly tragic novels, sharing similarities to *Pere Goirot* in its plot, structure and sharp denouncement of the materialistic bourgeois society that had come in fashion after the July Revolution. Greed, avarice, selfishness, poisonous coveting (literally), corruption, hypocrisy and blackmail all raise their heads in this novel, a gaggle of vipers ranging from the highest of society (the infuriating Presidente) to the lowest dregs (the despicable La Cibot), and all those that scheme in between (the ghoulish Fraisier). Pons and his roommate Schmucke, gentle failures in the game of life, haven't a chance among these beasts: and it is heartache to see the villainous deeds done to these two men for the glitter of lucre and the whiff of prestige. Balzac was never much of one for happily-ever-after, but most of his tragedies have some sort of uplifting resolution, some cosmic vengeance dealt upon at least a few of the miscreants (and *Bette* was probably the most satisfying in this regard); *Pons* refutes this technique, leaving the reader shaken and upset at the circumstances of the conclusion...at the _reality_ of it.
This volume is not quite within Balzac's creative pantheon: it's too slim (!), lacking the complexity and the captivating digressions of a *Lost Illusions*; but man o man does that ending work - for the novel, and as a conclusion to one of the most ambitious artistic statements of the past two centuries.
Four and a half stars, rounded down.
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