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The Firm of Nucingen

Honoré de Balzac

Book Overview: 

Part of the Comedie Humane and a "supplementary" tale to go with Father Goriot and Gobseck. Nucingen is the married family name of one of Father Goriot's daughters. "James Waring" is a pseudonym of Ellen Marriage.

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Book Excerpt: 
. . .Normanisms nor Gascon; he spoke pure and correct French, and tied his cravat correctly (like Finot). He had neither father nor mother—such luck had he!—and his guardian was the Marquis d'Aiglemont, his cousin by marriage. He could go among city people as he chose, and the Faubourg Saint-Germain could make no objection; for, fortunately, a young bachelor is allowed to make his own pleasure his sole rule of life, he is at liberty to betake himself wherever amusement is to be found, and to shun the gloomy places where cares flourish and multiply. Finally, he had been vaccinated (you know what I mean, Blondet).

"And yet, in spite of all these virtues," continued Bixiou, "he might very well have been a very unhappy young man. Eh! eh! that word happiness, unhappily, seems to us to mean something absolute, a delusion which sets so many wiseacres inquiring what happiness is. A very clever woman said that 'Happiness was where you chose to put it.'"

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Community Reviews

What Balzac had to say in this one was much more interesting than the way he said it. It takes place in the private dining area of a restaurant, where the room dividers are thin and what can be said is not so private. Thus, we are listening to this tale from an adjacent room. One fellow likes the so

„Wer da käme und behauptete, die Hochfinanz sei bisweilen pure Halsabschneiderei, würde sich einer empörenden Verleumdung schuldig machen.“

Wir sind Zeuge eines Gesprächs zwischen vier Männern, darunter, Blondet und Bixiou, die über den Aufstieg des Barons von Nucingen sprechen. Wie machte der Mann s

This novella is supplementary material. It is a conversation overheard at a Parisian restaurant. The conversation explores the origins of the fortune of Rastignac and it meanders across the world of Balzac's La Comédie Humaine. While being an oral history of sorts to the eavesdropping protagonist, t

Balzac come di consueto si presenta irruento e disordinato, purtroppo in questo caso troppo tanto da inficiare il contenuto dell'opera che è interessante (racconta di 4 parigini al ristorante che diffamano un po'di conoscenti non presenti e spiegano come si è comportato un banchiere al fine di arric

Ο Μπαλζάκ ήταν ο πρώτος συγγραφέας που έγραψε για όλα τα κοινωνικά επίπεδα στα θεατρικά σανίδια της σκηνής στη Γαλλία.

Ο συγγραφέας του πάθους και του λάθους, υποστηρίζει πως η η Κοινωνία μοιάζει με τη φύση.
Όπως η φύση υπαρξιακά ποικίλει στη ζωολογία,
έτσι και η κοινωνία φτιάχνεται και φτιάχνει απ

Μια παρέα από τέσσερα νεοπλουτάκια (σαν να λέμε ΒουΠουδάκια που ήρθαν από την επαρχία, χωρίς να έχουν το χρήμα από παλιά, αλλά να το απέκτησαν στην πορεία) έχουν θάψει το μισό Παρίσι στην καθισιά τους. Όχι απλά το έχουν θάψει, αλλά ξέρουν και την παραμικρή λεπτομέρεια για τις ζωές των πλουσίων. Σαν

This little novelette is actually one of the keystones of the entire Comédie Humaine and, as such, acts as a kind of sequel to Père Goriot. Nothing brings Balzac to a higher pitch than the great financial conspiracies in which some unscrupulous individuals (such as the Alsatian-born banker Nucingen

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