Customer Reviews

Woman of Thirty

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This novel actually follows our leading character, Julie, from being a teenager; in chapter 1 her father takes her to a review of the troops and notices her absorption in a certain handsome colonel whom he counsels her against marrying. The story moves on, father dies and Julie does indeed marry Victor. I dont want to spoil the book for you but there is marital discord, illicit love, parenting problems with one child ever left out in the cold (and the repercussions of THAT!) and the trials of old age. The book's weakness comes when Balzac leaves the more mundane themes of relationships and goes off on a flight of fancy with Helene's bizarre elopement and frankly unbelievable exploits thereafter

I love French literature and Balzac has an extraordinary insight into human nature. I always wanted to read this book however the translation is not the best.

I have two reviews for this book, but the most essential piece of information I can offer is that this book is very shoddily made - upon reading the book only once, it now looks like a well loved used book. Sections of pages cracked right out of the binding. Also, the edition has some strange text/typing issues which didn't bother me as much, but by all means spring for the other, slightly more expensive version.

I won't expound with a full review here, however this book is worth reading, especially to die-hard Balzac fans (of which I'm one). Learning that the piece was culled from unrelated stories made the somewhat shaky plot lines defensible, but it's strength is in just a few fantastic passages on women and age. A short read with some gems of prose - and how can you beat plot twists involving pirate queens? You'll see . . .

Balzac spent 16 years to write this book -trought 1828 to 1844 and it's divided in 6 parts. The first 3 goes to the middle of the tale and the narrative is deep and focused on the france social life trought the beginning of the XIX century.

Balzac shows in those firsts chapters a lot of questions about society and moralism, showing a good view trought humanism and the cruel place of a woman on society at that time. Altought the reader get inside trought the life of Julie, her bad marriage and her deisires for love, the narrator is always telling us the problems surrounding the emancipation of a woman. "The purity of a woman is not compatible with society's obligations and freedom. To emancipate women means corrupt them". It sounds like Balzac agree with the terms of society.

In the last 3 chapters the narrative get more dinamic and more superficial. Like a "blue library" tale. Those romantic -like a sugar cam- tale. So Balzac broke the rhithm of narrative. It really appears like a mistake. Another mistakes are the change of narrator focus - from 3th to 1th- on the 4th chapter, and the last mistake is some problems with time rhithm: in one page the history is on 1920, for example, and 20 or 30 pages after, passed 4 years on the narrative it starts like "it was summer 1921"...

Would Balzac made those mistakes? Or would it be on purpose? The author made a lot of questions trought society's frivolity and humanism. Those mistakes wouldn't be a way of showing critizing over morality trought society? These are some question that I have in mind... Would be Balzac superficial, ignoring those mistakes? Or would it be an ironic and slight way of showing his questions trought society?

Balzac guided European fiction away from the overriding influence of Walter Scott and the Gothic school, by showing that modern life could be recounted as vividly as Scott recounted his historical tales, and that mystery and intrigue did not need ghosts and crumbling castles for props. Maupassant, Flaubert and Zola were writers of the next generation who were directly influenced by him, and Marcel Proust (that other weaver of a great tapestry) acknowledged his influence.

He is worth reading for pleasure as well as for his influence on European literature.