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A Distinguished Provincial at Paris

Honoré de Balzac

Book Overview: 

A Distinguished Provincial at Paris is the second book in Balzac’s Lost Illusions trilogy, which is part of his sweeping set of novels collectively titled La Comédie Humaine. The story is set in post-Napoleonic France, when the new bourgeoisie was jostling for position alongside the old aristocracy. In the first volume of the trilogy (Two Poets), we met Lucien Chardon, an aspiring poet who feels stymied by the pettiness of provincial life. In the present volume, Lucien, now using the more aristocratic-sounding surname "de Rubempré," leaves behind his family in order to seek fame and fortune in the literary world of Paris. He is tested by challenges that are literary, social, financial, and ethical.

Balzac’s work was hugely influential in the development of realism in fiction. The Lost Illusions trilogy is one of his greatest achievements, and is named in the reference work 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. The final volume in the trilogy is Ève and David.

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Book Excerpt: 
. . .uage, an important psychological study in the form of a novel, unfinished as yet, for d'Arthez took it up or laid it down as the humor took him, and kept it for days of great distress. D'Arthez's revelations of himself were made very simply, but to Lucien he seemed like an intellectual giant; and by eleven o'clock, when they left the restaurant, he began to feel a sudden, warm friendship for this nature, unconscious of its loftiness, this unostentatious worth.

Lucien took d'Arthez's advice unquestioningly, and followed it out to the letter. The most magnificent palaces of fancy had been suddenly flung open to him by a nobly-gifted mind, matured already by thought and critical examinations undertaken for their own sake, not for publication, but for the solitary thinker's own satisfaction. The burning coal had been laid on the lips of the poet of Angouleme, a word uttered by a hard student in Paris had fallen upon ground prepared to receive it in the provincial. . . . Read More

Community Reviews

Neden Balzac okuruz?

Sanırım Balzac'ın günümüz Türkiye yayıncılığında biraz ihmal edildiğini söylemek yanlış olmaz. Elimdeki kitap Eylül 1969 basımı. Yaşar Nabi'nin çevirisi eskimiş. Baskı kalitesi kötü, hatalar var. Başka çevirisi de yok bu kitabın bildiğim kadarıyla. Peki nedir onu hala çekici kıla

I can't even express how much I loved this little novel. It delved straight into the bleeding black heart of the press. The changing ideals of a human's mind over their lifetime. The sway of money and prestige over that person's grand thought and greatest ambitions. The honor and steadfastness of fr

Part 2 of three of Lost Illusions. This part was just as good as the first one. We follow the young poet to Paris where he gets his head turned by so many things: fame and fortune being at the top of the list. And then the betrayals start -- oh my!!!!

I'm looking forward to Part 3, which is up next.

Lost Illusions should be read in the following order:

1) The Two Poets
2) A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
3) Eve and David

A few quotes from 'A Distinguished Provincial at Paris':

- '"Intellect is the lever by which to move the world," but another voice cried no less loudly that money was the fulcrum

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