Cousin Bette by Marion Crawford (English) Paperback Book

Description: Cousin Bette by Marion Crawford, Honoré de Balzac Poor, plain spinster Bette is compelled to survive on the condescending patronage of her socially superior relatives in Paris: her beautiful, saintly cousin Adeline, the philandering Baron Hulot and their daughter Hortense. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description Envy remained hidden in her heart, like a plague germ which may come to life and devastate a cityPoor, plain spinster Bette is compelled to survive on the condescending patronage of her socially superior relatives in Paris- her beautiful, saintly cousin Adeline, the philandering Baron Hulot and their daughter Hortense. Already deeply resentful of their wealth, when Bette learns that the man she is in love with plans to marry Hortense, she becomes consumed by the desire to exact her revenge and dedicates herself to the destruction of the Hulot family, plotting their ruin with patient, silent malice. Cousin Bette is a gripping tale of violent jealousy, sexual passion and treachery, and a brilliant portrayal of the grasping, bourgeois society of 1840s Paris. The culmination of the Comedie humaine, Balzacs epic chronicle of his times, it is one of his greatest triumphs as a novelist. Author Biography Honore de Balzac was born in Tours in 1799 to a bourgeouis family. His first success with writing came with the publication of Les Chouans in 1829 which was followed by a vast collection of novels and short stories of which Cousin Bette, first published in 1847, is one of the chief novels. He died in 1850 only a few months after his marriage to the Polish countess Evelina Hanska, with whom he had conducted a romantic correspondence for 18 years.Marion Crawford translated two other titles for Penguin; Old Goriot and Eugenie Grandet before her death in 1973. Promotional "Headline" Envy remained hidden in her heart, like a plague germ which may come to life and devastate a city Discussion Question for Reading Group Guide INTRODUCTION In Balzacs La Comedie Humaine we see the beginnings of history treated as a serious novelistic subject, a subject that would dominate much of 19th-century literature and find masterful expression in Tolstoys War and Peace. Knowledge of historical context is crucial to an understanding of Balzacs thematic concerns as an artist, as well as to a basic understanding of his characters motives and fortunes. The Napoleonic Wars, Restoration, and 1830 Revolution, all events experienced by the young Balzac, were defining moments in the nations history and were readily invoked by intellectuals to explain the circumstances, national or domestic, of Balzacs time. After Napoleons defeat at Waterloo in 1815, France restored the Bourbon regime under Louis XVIII and Charles X. The Restoration had managed to absorb the republican changes of the Revolution and Napoleon, but, when in 1829, King Charles X revoked the charter which guaranteed a free press among other things, the people, led by the middle class, staged a successful revolution. Charles abdicated, and, under the new King Louis-Philippe a constitutional monarchy was established which had to answer to the Chamber of Deputies, an institution equivalent to the British House of Commons. Composed mainly of wealthy middle class entrepreneurs, the Chamber of Deputies moved rapidly to divide the large family estates that dominated the nations feudal past and to base Frances economy on the principles of finance. This was the political and economic system under which Balzac labored as an artist, and one in which he saw the seeds of destruction for the glories of Napoleonic and dynastic France. Much of this history can be deduced from the details of Cousin Bette , and we can gather Balzacs attitude about these historical changes in the novels nostalgic and apprehensive tone. Balzac, whose father was a supplier to Napoleons army, laments the Empires military defeat, but, more significantly, he mourns what he felt to be the loss of the noble values of its past. He believed France had become a nation of shopkeepers upholding the morality of self-interest and survival. The heroic past is remembered in Cousin Bette as a period of conjugal, social, and professional harmony. Baroness Adeline Hulot recalls that her husbands infidelities began with the dissolution of the empire; and her daughter Hortense is said to be the product of "true love." Throughout the novel, the narrator, along with Hulot and other personages of the old guard, lament the changing times, the loss of the great hereditary estates, and, with them, the proper patrons of art. "Every-thing bears the stamp of personal interest," in a nation where the men are judged by the shrewdness of their speech not the bravery of their deeds; they are but "walking coffins containing the Frenchmen of former France." At the novels conclusion, Dr. Bianchon offers diagnoses not only of the ailing Baroness and Bette, but of the state itself. "Lack of religion and the encroachment of everything of finance" is to blame for all the social evils. "Noble disinterestedness, and talent, and service to the state, were thought worthy of esteem; but nowadays the law makes money the measure of everything." While Cousin Bette is an astute, and, at times, propagandistic, analysis of French social history, the novel is also a compelling portrayal of human, ahistorical passions, particularly of desire and vengeance. Hulot is the consummate slave to Eros, responsible for all the woe his family and comrades endure. Humiliated professionally and socially, he persists like some abstract figure of desire, taking on pseudonyms (all anagrams of his real name), attaching himself to one then another teenage mistress in ever more squalid corners of the city, reduced to nothing but his desire. Hulot is certainly repulsive as a human being, but there is something magnificent about his undeviating devotion to a single passion: sexual passion untarnished and undeterred by sentiment, by social life, by anything outside itself. In Bette, Balzac has added another masterful portrait to his gallery of human souls tyrannized by singular passions. Lisbeth Fischer, whose physical and moral ugliness is the antithesis to the saintly grace and beauty of her cousin Adeline, concentrates all her talents and energies onto the secret vengeance of the Hulot family. As she succeeds with her intricate machinations, the discrepancy between her humble status (despite her kinship to the Hulot family, she is referred to, like a servant, by her nickname "Bette") and the actual power she wields becomes almost grotesque. While there is something formulaic about this character driven by revenge, Balzac spends ample time on the causes of her hatred and jealousy; and in discussing her childhood, he anticipates Freuds theories on early trauma and unresolved emotions, and the manifestation of these traumas as adult neuroses. Despite Balzacs overt aims of discrediting the administration of King Louis-Philippe and the Chamber of Deputies in favor of a centralized monarchy and reinvigorated national church, Cousin Bette , in its series of well-drawn portraits, never fails to honor the infinite complexity of the human soul regardless of historical context. Balzacs fidelity to the truth of his own manifold experience of life, fortunately, prevents him from furnishing simple political solutions to the crises of his time, and enables him to write with the moral courage and earnestness found only in his centurys finest works of literature. ABOUT HONOR Details ISBN0140441603 Pages 464 Publisher Penguin Books Ltd ISBN-10 0140441603 ISBN-13 9780140441604 Format Paperback Place of Publication London Country of Publication United Kingdom Translated from French DEWEY 843.7 Media Book Edition 1st Tag pengblackclassics Language English Translator Marion Crawford Imprint Penguin Classics Short Title Cousin Bette Pt. 1 DOI 10.1604/9780140441604 UK Release Date 2004-12-02 Year 2004 Publication Date 2004-12-02 Author Honoré de Balzac Alternative 9780141913599 Audience General NZ Release Date 1965-09-30 AU Release Date 1965-09-30 We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. 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