A masterful study of a father whose sacrifices for his daughters have become a compulsion, this novel marks Balzac's "real entrée" into La Comédie Humaine, his series of almost one hundred novels and short stories meant to depict "the whole pell-mell of civilization."
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
brilliant translation,
This review is from: Pere Goriot (Signet Classics) (Paperback)
The story is marvelous, but what I'm most impressed with is the quality of the translation. This is an elegant, witty, and very readable translation which adds much to the appreciation of Balzac. The translator, Henry Reed, was a well regarded poet in the UK. His only other Balzac translation is of Eugenie Grandet, out of print, but worth looking for.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Novel, Great Translation,
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This review is from: Pere Goriot (Signet Classics) (Paperback)
I had four days to read this for a class, so I budgeted my time and decided to read around 70 pages a day. But this book was so enjoyable that I couldn't put it down, and I ended up reading 90 pages on the first day and the remaining 190 on the second. This is an engrossing story of devotion, betrayal, ambition, humility, crime, and innocence, told at a pleasantly brisk pace and peppered with profound observations on human nature. Goriot, Rastignac, and Vautrin are amazing characters, right up there with the creations of Dickens and Shakespeare.
As for the translation, I don't know French and therefore can't judge Henry Reed's faithfulness to Balzac's expression. But as English, Reed's prose is flawless.
12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Cesspool That Is Paris,
By
This review is from: Pere Goriot (Signet Classics) (Paperback)
Getting involved in the works of Balzac is like entering a magnificently equipped library with an insatiable appetite for books. His output was prodigious: novels, short stories, and essays, but it is primarily the HUMAN COMEDY for which he is best known. The complexity that is that book had its origins much earlier in his novel FATHER GORIOT (PERE GORIOT). Balzac liked to move characters back and forth from book to book like chess pieces. In much of his fiction, he places his characters in cities like Paris that are center of dissolution and corruption that test their moral mettle. Most often they fail, but it is in their failures that give his work their distinctive flavor.
Father Goriot is an old, sick pensioner who has raised his two daughters improperly such that they now return his earlier parental errors with daughterly ingratitude that elevates him to the status of a wounded Lear. He lives in a boarding house on the third floor, the cheapest floor. He had once been able to avoid the more expensive lower, but as he has given far too much of his dwindling resources to his greedy daughters, he is now facing poverty. This boarding house is a bustling center of activity, with Goriot only one part. A young and money hungry lawyer Eugene de Rastignac lives there too. He is handsome, witty, and definitely willing to bend a few rules to advance in the cesspool that is Parisian society. Eugene becomes the lover to one of Goriot's wealthy daughters, hoping that she can open doors to him that might otherwise have been closed. This daughter Delphine is only slightly less mercenary than her sister Anastasie, with whom Delphine is not on speaking terms. A friend of Eugene, Vautrin, who is aware of Eugene's poverty, offers to kill the brother of a woman that Eugene is dating, thus ensuring that in the event of a marriage, Eugene will marry into money. The primary focus of the story is on the disintegrating relation between Goriot and his daughters. They take his money until there is no more. For his part, Goriot remains inexplicably oblivious to their machinations. When he dies, both daughters find reasons not to attend the funeral which only Eugene attends. FATHER GORIOT is a novel of pessimism. It is not an unpleasant read, just an unpleasant topic, yet in Balzac's dramatic portrayal of the origins and consequences of greed and betrayal, it shows the depths to which people may plunge, while an uncaring city does little more than sit back and not take notice.
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
Madame Vauquer, formerly Mademoiselle de Confiara, is now an old woman. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
museum clerk, flour merchant, sand francs Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Madame Vauquer, Madame Couture, Mademoiselle Michonneau, Madame de Restaud, Madame de Nucingen, Monsieur Goriot, Maison Vauquer, Monsieur Vautrin, Monsieur de Rastignac, Monsieur de Restaud, Monsieur de Trailles, Monsieur Eugene, Mademoiselle Taillefer, Mamma Vauquer, Baron de Nucingen, Comtesse de Restaud, Duchesse de Langeais, Mademoiselle Victorine, Monsieur de Marsay, Faubourg Saint-Germain, Jacques Collin, Madame de Langeais, Monsieur de Nucingen, Monsieur Gondureau, Rue de la Jussienne New!
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Madame Vauquer, formerly Mademoiselle de Confiara, is now an old woman. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
museum clerk, flour merchant, sand francs Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Madame Vauquer, Madame Couture, Mademoiselle Michonneau, Madame de Restaud, Madame de Nucingen, Monsieur Goriot, Maison Vauquer, Monsieur Vautrin, Monsieur de Rastignac, Monsieur de Restaud, Monsieur de Trailles, Monsieur Eugene, Mademoiselle Taillefer, Mamma Vauquer, Baron de Nucingen, Comtesse de Restaud, Duchesse de Langeais, Mademoiselle Victorine, Monsieur de Marsay, Faubourg Saint-Germain, Jacques Collin, Madame de Langeais, Monsieur de Nucingen, Monsieur Gondureau, Rue de la Jussienne New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 43
books:
See all 43 books this book cites
- The Melodramatic Imagination: Balzac, Henry James, Melodrama, and the Mode of Excess by Professor Peter Brooks in Front Matter, and Back Matter
- Old Goriot (Penguin Classics) by Honore de Balzac in Front Matter, and Back Matter
- The Fatal Skin (The Novel Library) by Honore de Balzac in Front Matter, and Back Matter
- The Gates of Horn: A Study of Five French Realists by Harry Levin in Back Matter
- Prometheus: The Life of Balzac by Andre Maurois in Back Matter
See all 43 books this book cites
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