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Speed as a Technique in the Novels of Balzac
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
The relation between Balzac's fiction and that of the popular novelists of his generation has often provoked discussion. Various opinions have been advanced: at one extreme, the over-hasty and malignant judgment of Sainte-Beuve, who persisted in classing Balzac with Sue and the feuilletonistes; at the other, the adulation of those who resent any comparison between Balzac and men of second and third rank. Perhaps, in view of the importance which attaches to questions of technique, a resuscitation of the controversy is permissible: an investigation, this time, of Balzac's treatment of violent physical action. The conclusion of such a study might prove only that Balzac differed from the popular novelists—in which case, we should be bringing merely another coal to Newcastle. If, however, our investigation of violent action can be related to the problem of the novelist's general technique, the effort may not be altogether in vain.
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1940
References
1 C.-A. Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du lundi (Paris: Gamier, 1881), ii, 460–462.
2 E. Preston Dargan, W. L. Crain, and Others, Studies in Balzac's Realism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1932), pp. 23 ff.
3 P. Lubbock, The Craft of Fiction (New York: Scribners, 1921), pp. 221 ff.
4 The present study is restricted to Balzac's use of this particular device in stories of the first three divisions of his Comédie humaine—Scènes de la vie privée, Scènes de la vie de province, Scènes de la vie parisienne, vols, i-xx of the Conard edition. These contain his most typical novels, and the exclusion of the others will scarcely vitiate any conclusions here.
5 Ferragus, 62. All references are to the Conard edition of Balzac's works, 38 vols. (Paris, 1912–35).
6 A combien l'amour revient aux vieillards, 337.—Compare the rooftop scene in the conclusion of Oliver Twist (ch. SO)—an episode elaborated to a good half-chapter by Dickens.
7 Bodily violence: Albert Savarus, 44; Béatrix, 216; Sarrasine, 428, 430; La Maison du Chat-qui-pelole, 69–70; La Fille aux yeux d'or, 403–404; La Femme de trente ans, 134; Autre Etude de femme, 404–405, 430. Note also the carriage accident in Le Message, 208.
8 Suicide: Où mènent les mauvais chemins, 122; La Vieille Fille, 386; La Femme abandonnée, 305.—This last episode—“Si vous avancez, monsieur, je me jette par cette fenêtre”—is similar to the scene of Rebecca and the Templar, Brian de Bois-Guilbert, in Ivanhoe (ch. 24). The situation seems a favorite of Romantic novelists: cf. also Peveril of the Peak (ch. 39).
9 Duels: Les Deux Poëtes, 324; La Rabouilleuse, 540–543; L'Illustre Gaudissart, 48–49; Ferragus, 58.—The important duel in Le Père Goriot occurs “off-stage,” p. 419. Prof. E. Preston Dargan, of the University of Chicago, brings to our notice the fact that the duel scene in La Rabouilleuse was extended in part by elaborations in the proofs.
10 Spying: Gobseck, 433; Le Colonel Chabert, 60, 71; Le Cousin Pons, 285; Eugénie Grandet, 434; Le Curé de Tours, 220.
11 Robbery and abduction: La Duchesse de Langeais, 316; La Femme de trente ans, 170 ff.; Ursule Mirouët, 183; Facino Cane, 383 ff.; Les Petits Bourgeois, 210; Madame de la Chanterie, 311–327; L'Initié, 436–437.—Note also the stealing of the painting in La Rabouilleuse, 346. The abduction of Lydie Peyrade takes place “off-stage,” A combien l'amour revient aux vieillards, 294, 313. In Les Petits Bourgeois, the difference between Balzac's and Rabou's versions of the affair is most instructive: cf. Œuvres complètes, xx, 465 ff.
12 Pursuit: Comment aiment les filles, 83; Honorine, 356, 362; A combien l'amour revient aux vieillards, 315–316.
13 Deus ex machina: Albert Savants, La Paix du ménage, La Vendetta. Short and affecting finale in La Maison du Chat-qui-pelote, Le Bal de Sceaux, La Bourse, Une Double Famille, La Fausse Maîtresse, Une Fille d'Ève, La Grenadière. —The cynical and cryptic ending of Une Double Famille, which some would compare with the beggar-scene in Molière's Don Juan, will serve as the type.
14 The question of the various “tempos” or “rhythms” of narrative style needs further investigation. E. M. Forster has discussed the “rhythm” or “pattern” of the novel as a whole in Aspects of the Novel (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1927), pp. 235–242.
15 H. Taine, Nouveaux Essais de critique et d'histoire, 13th ed. (Paris: Hachette, 1926), p. 225. Le Rouge et le Noir, vol. ii, ch. 4; La Chartreuse de Parme, ch. 11.
16 W. S. Hastings, The Drama of Honoré de Balzac (Baltimore, 1917), pp. 139–143. P. Bourget, “L'art du roman chez Balzac,” in Quelques Témoignages (Paris: Plon, 1928).
17 Cf. P. Trahard, Prosper Mérimée de 1834 à 1855 (Paris: Champion, 1928), pp. 215 ff.
18 Cf. Muriel Blackstock Ferguson, La Volonté dans la Comédie humaine de Balzac (Paris: Courville, 1935).
19 Cf. Ethel Preston, Recherches sur la technique de Balzac (Paris: Les Presses françaises, 1926), ch. 5; Norah W. Stevenson, Paris dans la Comédie humaine de Balzac (Paris: Courville, 1938), pp. 102 ff., 128 ff., 163 ff.
20 Facino Cane, 375.—The italics are mine.
21 Epistolary: Mémoires de deux jeunes mariées; business: L'Interdiction, Le Contrat de mariage, Un Début dans la vie; episodes: La Messe de l'athée, Madame Firmiani.
22 The “business cycle”: César Birotteau, La Maison Nucingen, Un Homme d'affaires; “high life and low life”: La Princesse de Cadignan, Un Prince de la Bohème, Gaudissart II, Les Comédiens sans le savoir, Pierre Grassou; “officialdom”: Les Employés.
23 The figures are based on the pagination of the Conard edition of the Human Comedy, and are worked out in each case to a number divisible by five. Thus there are 32 Private Scenes (counting La Femme de trente ans as six stories), with a total of 3,015 pages; 12 Provincial Scenes (counting Illusions perdues as three), with a total of 2,375 pages; and 23 Parisian Scenes with a total of 3,310 pages, Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes counting as four titles. The average of all Scenes is 145 pages (the same, incidentally, as that of the Parisian Scenes). This average certainly does not make Balzac out to be a “longwinded novelist” in the usual sense of the term.
24 The same method has been followed here as above. Thus there are 27 titles between 1830 and 1835, with a total of 1,940 pages; 18 titles from 1835 to 1840, with 2,700 pages; 22 titles from 1841 to 1848, with 4,060 pages. The chronological division is admittedly somewhat rough, but, on the basis of five-year periods, less so than one might suppose.
25 The diatribes of Vautrin and Mme de Beauséant in Le Père Goriot, obviously essay in character, have been counted as such.
26 R. Fernández, “La méthode de Balzac: le récit et l'esthétique du roman,” in Messages (Paris: Gallimard, 1926), pp. 59–77.
27 Ramón Pérez de Ayala, Tigre Juan (Madrid: Editorial Pueyo, 1926), Part 2,“ Adagio”.