Balzac (Stefan Zweig)

Honeré de Balzac remains one of the most iconic French writers of all time. Although he is not as well known these days as Jules Verne or Alexander Dumas, he contributed more to literature than a great deal of his contemporaries, or writers today ever did or will. Balzac spent a good portion of his life living and writing in Paris during the first half of the nineteenth century.As a young man, he convinced his bourgeois parents to allow him to abandon their chosen career and let him try his hand at writing.  Constantly in debt because of poor spending habits and disastrous financial ventures, Balzac wrote constantly, for most of his adult life, to stay one step ahead of his creditors. Despite writing over 91 novels, plays and essays, as well as newspaper articles and novels under pseudonyms (in the early days of his writing career), Balzac dug himself deeper into debt year by year and constantly changed addresses to outrun creditors. More than once he was saved from debtors prison through loans from his mother, rich friends and mistresses. 

Balzac`s chief project was a collection of novels which he titled La Comédie humaine. The complete collection was to include 150 volumes, but when Balzac died he left 46 unwritten. The novels were meant to portray his time and French life as it was in all classes and all walks of life. He wrote of the military, of politics, of rural life, city life and high society. 

I first read some of Balzac`s work in August, when I picked up A Distinguished Provincial At Paris, a novel from La Comédie humaine and used it as beach reading. Two weeks ago an a trip down across the border in New York State I came across this biography of Balzac, by Stefan Zweig, from 1946. I paid only $3.95 American for it, as it is a library discard and the dust jacket is missing. 

Having read this biography, I`ve come to the conclusion that although I love his work and will continue to love his work, I cannot love Balzac the man. I can feel sorry for him, as he spent much of his childhood at boarding schools and away from his parents. I can pity him for his inability to find a life-partner (who was not already married and who truly loved him for more than his fame). I can pity his poor looks and poor sense of fashion. However, I cannot pity his constant reckless spending, or his self-imposed loneliness. I cannot like him for the way he constantly sought out rich women with titles to seduce in hopes that they would take care of his debt problems and give him a carefree life. I cannot condone the affairs he began with married women. No, I do not like Balzac the man. I hope, however, over the course of my lifetime, to read all the completed works of La Comédie humaine because whatever else Balzac was, he was a magnificent and dedicated writer.