Brooks, Peter
Balzac's lives
- New York : New York Review Books, 2020
- 266 p. ; 22 cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Peter Brooks's Balzac's Lives is a biography like no other, a vivid and searching portrait of the great novelist that is based on a close examination of the extraordinary characters that throng his work. More than anyone, Balzac invented the nineteenth-century novel, with its interwoven plots and diverse and overlapping realities-political, economic, domestic, psychological. Indeed, Oscar Wilde went so far as to say that Balzac invented the nineteenth century! It was, above all, the wonderful, unforgettable, extravagant characters he dreamed up and made flesh-entrepreneurs, bankers, inventors, industrialists, poets, artists, bohemians of both sexes, journalists, aristocrats, politicians, prostitutes-that allowed Balzac to bring to life the dynamic forces of the new era that ushered in our own. Brooks singles out the capitalist Gobseck, the aspiring writer Lucien de Rubempré, the ambitious politician Rastignac, and the gay criminal mastermind Collin, among others, to disclose the secret workings of a great writer's inner world.
ISBN: 9781681374499
Subjects--Topical Terms: Biography and Memoir History and archaeology Literary studies and criticism Interpretation Balzac, Honore de, 1799-1850 Characters and characteristics Novelists, French The Human Comedy Social nature
Dewey Class. No.: 843.7 / BRO