Cousin Bette: Part 1 of Poor Relations (Penguin Classics) [Paperback]

Honore de Balzac (Author), Marion Ayton Crawford (Translator, Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 30, 1965

Poor, plain spinster Bette is compelled to survive on the condescending patronage of her socially superior relatives in Paris: her beautiful, saintly cousin Adeline, the philandering Baron Hulot and their daughter Hortense. Already deeply resentful of their wealth, when Bette learns that the man she is in love with plans to marry Hortense, she becomes consumed by the desire to exact her revenge and dedicates herself to the destruction of the Hulot family, plotting their ruin with patient, silent malice. "Cousin Bette" is a gripping tale of violent jealousy, sexual passion and treachery, and a brilliant portrayal of the grasping, bourgeois society of 1840s Paris. The culmination of the Comedie humaine, Balzac's epic chronicle of his times, it is one of his greatest triumphs as a novelist.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'Appended to the text is a summary of its financial plots, the complications of which appear even more marvellous when extrapolated in this way. This is an introduction which is consistently enthusiastic about the complexity of a novel which, 'in its rich ambiguity, allows every reader to explore his or how own imagination of what life is really like'.' Robert Lethbridge, Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, French Studies, Vol. 47, Part 3

'Three Classic tales of sexual passion, perversion, and corruption have been added to the rapidly increasing World's Classics collection, whose repertoire of nineteenth-century French novels is now impressive. The price and format of these volumes make them an obvious choice for the reader approaching them in translation, the more so since each is accompanied by a helpful general introduction ... the reader is likely to get better vaqlue here than from other translation currently in print.' Timothy Unwin, University of Western Australia, MLR, 89./2, 1994

'... translated here into lucid, straightforward, easily readable contemporary English.' Forum for Modern Language Studies Vol. XXX --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: French --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics; 1st edition (August 30, 1965)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140441603
• ISBN-13: 978-0140441604
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #984,054 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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45 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars the same, only more and better, January 16, 2002

By 

Robert J. Crawford (Balmette Talloires, France) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cousin Bette (Oxford World's Classics) (Paperback)

When I described my fascination with Balzac to a pal of mine, I said, "yeah, it is all about disillusioned and cynical people" and he replied: "I am already disillusioned and cynical, so why should I read it?"

Why indeed. This is indispuably one of the best of Balzac's novels, with clearly drawn characters and grim lives in an inexorable descent to self-destruction, which are the classic Balzac themes. It explores the life of a libertine as he ruins himself and his family for the sake of pursuing pretty girls. Unbekonst to him, he gets help from Bette, a cousin full of secret hatreds and bent on vengence. It is very sad to read. One minor character even commits suicide by repeatedly smashing his head into a nail, his only means to finish himself off he could find in his jail cell.

So why read it? Well, again, it is for the wider social portraits that you can find, which are offered almost as an aside. Balzac in one section explains the politics behind the statues you see all over Paris, which is fascinating. You also learn of the career of courtisans, as they use their sex to advance themselves. The book is simply full of these thngs, in addition to the psychology of the many interesting main characters.

Also unusual for Balzac is the coherency of the story, which does not degenerate into ramblings like many of his other novels as they weave the tapestry of his Comedie Humaine like so many threads, that is, as vehicles in his vast project to fully portray an entire society with characters re-appearing in different situations and venues throughout his interrelated novels. The characters stand on their own here and are more clearly drawn. Hence, it is a great intro to Balzac and may get you hooked for more, that is, if you are masochistic enough to subject yourself to it!

Warmly recommended.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Balzac's Paris is a pretty mess., September 30, 2002

By 

A.J. (Maryland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cousin Bette (Oxford World's Classics) (Paperback)

If I had a time machine, I'd want to go back to 1840's Paris. Not the richly cultured Paris of Chopin, Berlioz, and Delacroix, but Balzac's Paris, a circus world where envy, avarice, and revenge drive passionate people to ridiculous extremes. One sin breeds another, and so an envious person can play off another's avarice in order to avenge a perceived slight. I sense that Balzac was essentially a moralist who felt that sins do greater service in comedy, but the sobering effect of tragedy is important for keeping balance.

In "Cousin Bette," the title character, Lisbeth "Bette" Fischer, is a plain, middle-aged spinster who has lived her whole life in the shadow of her pretty cousin Adeline. Adeline has married the Baron Hector Hulot D'Ervy, a high-ranking military and government official who nevertheless does not have much money and is an incurable womanizer, overtly keeping mistresses in spite of his wife's inexorable devotion to him. Their daughter, Hortense, becomes enamored with Bette's "boyfriend," a young Polish sculptor named Wenceslas Steinbock, and marries him, believing that his (rather unremarkable) art will bring in a fortune. At this point, Bette feels she has been upstaged one too many times by the Hulot family and resolves to take revenge.

One night Baron Hulot spots a beautiful young woman in Bette's apartment building and immediately plots to make her his latest mistress. This is Bette's close friend Valerie Marneffe, whose husband happens to be menially employed in Hulot's department. Bette gets the idea to use Valerie as a siren to entrap the men who have deceived her and enrage their wives. In short order, Valerie seduces Hulot, his friend and romantic rival Monsieur Crevel, and Steinbock, securing for herself large sums of money and eventually marrying Crevel, who is a wealthy retired businessman.

I've only scratched the surface of the plot, and yet to reveal any more would be beside the point of a Balzac novel because the quality of his writing is more in the interaction between the characters than in the events that advance the story. I've not yet even mentioned the excellent supporting cast, including Hulot's conscientious son Victorin; his wife Celestine, who happens to be Crevel's daughter; the Brazilian playboy Montejanos, whose fiery passion for Valerie endangers the lives of her and everyone around her; a sinister old woman who goes by a number of aliases and arranges "accidents"; and her accomplice, an elegant courtesan called Carabine. All of these characters fit together perfectly like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle and elevate the novel to exciting new levels of intrigue.

Convention would dictate that Bette's revenge be fulfilled and Hulot learn his lesson by the end of the novel, but Balzac has a more realistic outlook than to concede to a reader's expectations. He is a novelist with the dialogue-oriented sensibilities of a playwright and a knack for devising unusually complicated plots by making the most out of a minimal number of characters. If, as he states in the novel, inspiration gives genius its opportunity, then "Cousin Bette" must be the product of the highest inspiration because there is plenty of genius on display.

37 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Balzac's Last Masterpiece, May 3, 2005

By 

Ian Vance (pagosa springs CO.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cousin Bette (Oxford World's Classics) (Paperback)

*Cousin Bette*, or Part One of 'Poor Relations,' is considered to be Honore de Balzac's last great novel, the capstone on an oeuvre that spanned nearly a hundred novels. The author had already begun to ail from overwork by the time of its composition (1846-1847), his methods of genius - sixteen-hour writing days, coupled with crushing "motivational" debt and a penchant for gallons of black coffee - exacting a toll of stress that would claim his life three years later. But if the physical shell was failing, the instrument of the mind retained its strength and perception, as *Cousin Bette*, equal and in some ways superior to Balzac's other masterworks (*Lost Illusions*, *Pere Goirot*), gives ample testament. Of the ten or so works I've read of this French master, this novel was the easiest to dive into and, overall, the most spellbinding and page-turning, no doubt influenced by the manner of its creation.

For although Balzac had published a sixteen-volume set of The Human Comedy by the mid 1840's, he had not found the accolades his oeuvre so justly deserved; in fact, he stood in the shadow of Eugene Sue, at the time an enormously popular author who serialized his work in easy tidbits. The serialization of novels had only come about recently, with Dickin's *Pickwick Papers* and Balzac's *The Old Maid* appearing first in 1836. The catch, however, was that Balzac was not an author to chop up and present in segments: his novels work best as a slow, steady read, the tension and enjoyment arising through hundreds of devoured pages until climax and, usually, a pessimistic but realistic denouement. Thus: Sue wrote for the serial; Balzac wrote for himself, and suffered accordingly. The man's ego had to have taken a bruising:

"The present situation requires me to write two or three masterful works which will topple the false gods of this bastard literature, and which must demonstrate that I am younger, fresher, and greater writer than ever before!"

Vainglorious statements, perhaps, yet proven true by ink, sweat and the stench of unroasted coffee beans: Balzac set to work, composing *Cousin Pons* and *Cousin Bette* as the final duology of his vast sociology opus, emerging from the toil with a final masterpiece and a very good companion novel. Moreover, *Bette* benefited greatly from the conformity to serialization, making it a rare and unique jewel upon the author's tiara.

An experienced reader can spot the difference almost immediately. In every other novel I've read of the Human Comedy, the first forty to fifty pages are usually devoted to detailing the histories of the main characters and the environments they exist in. This helps to firmly delineate the particulars in the brain, and makes the resultant tragedy and sarcastic farce all the more potent - yet difficult, I would imagine, for serial readers to cope with. In *Bette*, however, we are thrown into the action immediately with the arrival of self-made magnate Captain Crevel to the House of Baron Hulot. Without preamble he relates to the Baron's wife, the long-suffering and almost intolerably virtuous Adeline Hulot de'Evry, that her husband has stolen his mistress and, as revenge, Crevel plans on making the Baroness his own mistress - tit for tat! To secure his claim, Crevel dangles the financial future of the Baroness' daughter over her head. The heated tension of this scene plunges the reader into the meat of the novel without them really realizing it: within one chapter we encounter the stigmatizing standards of high society, the lecherous egos of middle-aged adventurers, the wiles of the courtesan and the depths human beings will sink to reach a personal desire, a feverish vendetta; themes developed continually as the novel progresses through its almost 500 pages of psychological examination and high-drama theatrics. At the heart of it all, spinning her webs like a black widow, is the negative force of Cousin Bette, the plain-faced, masculine cousin of Baroness Adeline. Slights of the past, and of the present, gnaw at Bette's heart; she will employ the tactics of Machiavelli to destroy her family and benefactors, at any cost. A truly frightening creature, this Bette...and *almost* sympathetic, for the origin of her vengeance can be easily understood, if not forgiven. Thus the genius of Balzac shines through, painting gray within the villainous portrait, defying the archetypes serials require, all the while fashioning a set of character-clichés that epitomize the genre, from the hooker with the heart of gold to that murderously unpredictable Brazilian...

Yet Balzac had more on his mind than simple plot-dynamics. The introduction of the novel compares the twin passions of the Baron de'Evry (eternal skirt-chaser) and Cousin Bette (the spinster) with the Freudian concepts of eros and thanatos - one ever questing the physical act of love, and in that quest ruining all those who love and esteem him; and the other, twisted by the wrench of unrequited obsession, deliberately plotting a horrific revenge:

"(Introduction): Freud, in his later works, presented eros and thanatos [sic] as two sides of the same coin. Almost a century earlier, Balzac had imagined them as two members of the same family."

The best literature is timeless: modern readers can glean important lessons about life from the dusty pages of centuries-past. Balzac is timeless. He paints the French society in broad strokes, but never neglects the details; he tackles the essential quandaries and inconsistencies of human behavior with a sardonic - though never superior - tone. *Cousin Bette*'s ending, wherein we discover that the leopard cannot change its spots, will all at once inspire anguished tears, astonished laughter and a knowing shake of the head.

Highest Recommendation.