Eugenie Grandet, by Honore de Balzac

Eugenie Grandet, by Honore de Balzac

This novel is part of Balzac’s body of work known, aptly, as The Human Comedy.  His stories capture the whole range of peoples’ best and worst, the strength and weakness, the lowness and the heights of the human spirit.  Eugenie is the only child of Monsieur Grandet, a cooper by trade, maker of casks, who used cunning and sometimes deceit to amass a fortune in gold and property.  He ruled his household as a cruel dictator and miser, doling out the day’s rations of bread, fruits, and firewood, keeping supplies under lock and key, never allowing fires before November or after March.  

The setting is 1820 in a French village, a three day journey by coach from Paris.  Balzac himself was born in 1799 so this was a period when he was coming of age and making clear-eyed observations about people and their behavior.  Just a few years after the close of the Napoleonic era which, itself followed close on the heels of the French revolution, it was a time of incredible turmoil, violence, and change.  The longstanding customs associated with king, nobility, and the church were still apparent, and though the monarchy had been restored, there was much disagreement among the populace about the mode of government.  

It was well known in the town that M. Grandet had squirreled away a lot of money, and that Eugenie would be his heiress, making her an attractive catch.  She was pretty to boot.  Her marriage of course, would be totally up to M. Grandet.  The custom of the time was so thoroughly ingrained that she knew and accepted the reality that if she were to play any role in the choosing of her husband, it would have to be done by influencing her father.  But in the case of the hard hearted money hoarder M. Grandet, she knew there would be no influencing him.  Her mother was sweet but mousy and weak.  ”’So far as I can see, there’s no possible husband for her in Saumur,’ observed Madame Grandet, with a timid glance at her husband, which in a woman of her age was a sign of complete matrimonial subjection, and revealed how thoroughly her spirit was broken.”  

There were two families in town competing to put forward their bachelors as a husband for Eugenie.  Both presented themselves as a splendid match, bursting with flattery for M. Grandet, affecting sophistication and important connections.  Balzac pierces them with razor-like sarcasm: “The day was an anniversary well known to the Cruchot and Grassinist parties, and the six antagonists were preparing to sally forth, armed to the teeth, for and encounter in the parlour, there to vie with one another in demonstrations of friendship.”  Bam!  Brilliant, just brilliant.  Note that this is a translation from the French, and I would assume that it is at least as incisive in the original.  

Despite his acute depictions of ignorance, selfishness, greed, and deceit, Balzac celebrates strength and goodness in people as well.  In the climactic scene, Eugenie, the simple unsophisticated girl stands up to her father with an assertiveness that is unassailable, even by the one who had domineered the household since before Eugenie was born.  

I liked this book.  No supernatural wonders, no sci-fi, no person of exceptional intelligence, athleticism, or beauty.  Just real people dealing the best they can with their situations, their drives, their times, and the people who happen into their lives.  What could be more engaging?