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The Girl with the Golden Eyes
Honoré de Balzac
Book Overview:
"Give me a feast such as men give when they love," she said, "and whilst I sleep, slay me..."
Listeners who like to plunge straight into a story would do well to skip the lengthy preamble. Here, Balzac the virtuoso satirist depicts the levels of Parisian society as a version of the Inferno of Dante - but perhaps keeps the reader waiting too long for the first act of his operatic extravaganza.
Our beautiful, androgynous hero, Henri de Marsay, is one of the bastard offspring of a depraved Regency milord and himself practices the cynical arts of the libertine. His quarry is the exotic Paquita Valdes, she of the golden eyes.
But there is a mysterious third person in this liaison...
The shocking truth of their interrelationships marks this out at once as one of those French novels that Lady Bracknell would instantly ban from the house.
"Give me a feast such as men give when they love," she said, "and whilst I sleep, slay me..."
Listeners who like to plunge straight into a story would do well to skip the lengthy preamble. Here, Balzac the virtuoso satirist depicts the levels of Parisian society as a version of the Inferno of Dante - but perhaps keeps the reader waiting too long for the first act of his operatic extravaganza.
Our beautiful, androgynous hero, Henri de Marsay, is one of the bastard offspring of a depraved Regency milord and himself practices the cynical arts of the libertine. His quarry is the exotic Paquita Valdes, she of the golden eyes.
But there is a mysterious third person in this liaison...
The shocking truth of their interrelationships marks this out at once as one of those French novels that Lady Bracknell would instantly ban from the house.
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Community Reviews
The Girl with the Golden Eyes...such an unassuming title. If one considers Balzac to be one of the classical writers, than one would reach for this book thinking it would go along the lines of other classic novellas. Hmmm...the title sounds almost romantic.
The Girl with the Golden Eyes is an intere
El primer capítulo de esta novela es una proeza literaria. Balzac hace un retrato perfecto de la sociedad parisina, de la búsqueda del placer y la insensibilidad.
Una novela con tintes eróticos, de pasiones humanas, un final abrupto y estremecedor, donde no gobierna el sentimiento y es superado por l
I taught this novella in my writer's workshop and most of my students could not get through it, but that's a shame. While it is certainly is not perfect, it is one of the more interesting novellas I've read, and one of Balzac's many fascinating works. The structure itself is a marvel, as it begins w
Blah. First off, this begins with 30 pages which describe all of the ways Paris is terrible. As far as that goes, it has very little to do with the story. Henri is such a ridiculously one-dimensional and aggravating character. Actually, maybe not one dimensional, as he changes his character's way of
The One Where Balzac's Girlfriend Has Dumped Him And He's Been Reading The Thousand And One Nights And He Suddenly Realises How He Should Have Got Even With The Fucking Bitch.