The Deputy Of Arcis

La Comédie Humaine #60

by Honoré de Balzac

Discretion, required in a history of contemporaneous manners and morals, dictates this precautionary word. It is rather an ingenious contrivance to make the description of one town the frame for events which happened in another; and several times already in the course of the Comedy of Human Life, this means has been employed in spite of its disadvantages, which consist chiefly in making the frame of as much importance as the canvas.

Genres: French Literature, Classics, France

380 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1847

About the author

French writer Honoré de Balzac (born Honoré Balzac), a founder of the realist school of fiction, portrayed the panorama of society in a body of works, known collectively as La comédie humaine .

Honoré de Balzac authored 19th-century novels and plays. After the fall of Napoléon in 1815, his magnum opus, a sequence of almost a hundred novels and plays, entitled, presents life in the years.

Due to keen observation of fine detail and unfiltered representation, European literature regards Balzac. He features renowned multifaceted, even complex, morally ambiguous, full lesser characters. Character well imbues inanimate objects; the city of Paris, a backdrop, takes on many qualities. He influenced many famous authors, including the novelists Marcel Proust, Émile Zola, Charles John Huffam Dickens, Gustave Flaubert, Henry James, and Jack Kerouac as well as important philosophers, such as Friedrich Engels. Many works of Balzac, made into films, continue to inspire.

An enthusiastic reader and independent thinker as a child, Balzac adapted with trouble to the teaching style of his grammar. His willful nature caused trouble throughout his life and frustrated his ambitions to succeed in the world of business. Balzac finished, and people then apprenticed him as a legal clerk, but after wearying of banal routine, he turned his back on law. He attempted a publisher, printer, businessman, critic, and politician before and during his career. He failed in these efforts From his own experience, he reflects life difficulties and includes scenes.

Possibly due to his intense schedule and from health problems, Balzac suffered throughout his life. Financial and personal drama often strained his relationship with his family, and he lost more than one friend over critical reviews. In 1850, he married Ewelina Hańska, his longtime paramour; five months later, he passed away.

Reviews

[Gláucia Renata · Rating 4 out of 5]

Essa parte do romance faz parte de Estudos de Costumes - Cenas da Vida Política foi publicado em 1847 antes de ser concluído a fim de pagar sua eternas dívidas. Balzac morre antes de concluir e a história termina no melhor momento, quando a coisa promete pegar fogo.
Trata-se de uma sátira do sistema eleitoral, a ação se passa na província e gira em torno de uma acirrada disputa eleitoral.
É uma espécie de continuação de " Um Caso Tenebroso", lido e comentad anteriormente, no sentido de que os personagens daquela estão aqui 29 anos depois dos acontecimentos narrados. A situação política mudou e a vitória dessa eleição acarretará em imensos ganhos sociais ao futuro deputado. Prestígio e dinheiro estão em jogo.
Nessa primeira parte temos o preâmbulo, esboça-se a situação mas infelizmente termina quando um homem misterioso chega à cidadezinha prometendo causar. Trata-se do conde de Marsay, um grande sedutor que já figura em outras partes da Comédia Humana. Com amigos importantes em Paris, será o principal opositor ao cargo disputado por Simon Giguet.
Cabe ao leitor especular qual seria o final dessa trama. A condessa Hanska incumbiu Rabou, menos que medíocre, a concluir a obra. Transcrevo aqui trecho do prefácio de Paulo Rónai onde ele fala sobre isso:
" Discute-se muito sobre o papel da condessa Hanska na vida de Balzac; uns acham-na o anjo tutelar e estimulador, outros o gênio mau que o esgotou e lhe atrapalhou a existência. O que é certo, à vista da colaboração póstuma que ela impunha ao marido morto, é que não lhe suspeitava a grandeza, nem sobretudo era capaz de compreender-lhe a obra. Entregar a sucessão de Balzac, ávido de perfeição e que via dez a vinte provas de cada obra, a um Rabou, não demonstra outra coisa."



Histórico de leitura
21/08/2018


"- Ah, senhorita! Se nós disséssemos pela frente o que nós dizemos uns dos outros pelas costas, não haveria sociedade possível."

"No fim do mês de abril de 1839, cerca de dez horas da manhã, o salão da sra. Marion, viúva de um antigo recebedor-geral do departamento do Aube, apresentava um aspecto estranho. De toda a mobília, nada mais restava senão as cortinas nas janelas, os enfeites da chaminé, o lustre e a mesa de chá."

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

To begin with, Balzac started but never finished The Deputy of Arcis. But rather than wringing my hands, I have to admit that his collaborator Rabou, who, I believe, was responsible for the latter two-thirds of the book, did a creditable job. The part of the book attributed to Balzac was the first section, which I thought was rather slow. Perhaps Rabou was something of a hack, but he did manage to save the story which, otherwise, would have been a not terribly interesting fragment, of which there are a number in Balzac's oeuvre.

In this political election year of 2012, it is interesting to see the French equivalent. The town of Arcis-sur-l'Aube is to elect a deputy to the French parliament, or chamber of deputies. There are several possible candidates of different political stripes. The devious Maxime de Trailles has been dispatched from Paris under the orders of the Minister of Public Works (Comte Eugene de Rastignac) to throw a spanner into the works.

A more effective spanner, however, has been launched by a mysterious party who calls himself the Marquis de Sallenauve. He intrudes into the life of a young sculptor named Dorlange and (1) says he is his son who is entitled to call himself the Comte de Sallenauve providing that he (2) run for the position of deputy of Arcis.

He does, and wins handily. But there are numerous complications enroute to the end. Wheels within wheels. Especially when it turns out that the "Marquis de Sallenauve" is actually ... but wait! Why should I spoil your fun? Think of a scamp from Balzac's earlier novels, come to life in this last gasp of the author's creative genius.

[myriam kisfaludi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dommage que ce soit un roman inachevé de Balzac. En effet, il traite de l’un des personnages les plus intrigants et machiavéliques de la panoplie de le comédie humaine.

[Jeffrey Green · Rating 3 out of 5]

Balzac never finished this novel. He left off just at the moment when it was going to get interesting. It's supposedly about politics (it's the last of the novels in the section of the Human Comedy called "Scenes of Political Life"), but it's really about competition for the wealthiest young maiden in the provincial city of Arcis. There are plenty of intrigues, which aren't always easy to follow, and a lot of witty repartee, which you have to have been alive in Balzac's time to understand fully. Arcis was the scene of a long and tragic novel, also in the Scenes of Political Life, about a royalist plot against Napoleon, "Une tenebreuse affaire," and some other important characters from Balzac's huge cast also appear in the novel.
I have learned from Maurois's biography that Balzac used to have a couple of books going at the same time, and he probably failed to finish this one because he became very ill in the last few years of his life. Someone did finish it for him, but the edition I was reading refrained from sharing the false ending.
I think Balzac's political ideas, which are expressed in this book, were contradicted by his emotions about people. In any event, under the July Monarchy, the right to vote was restricted to relatively wealthy men, and we in modern countries with universal suffrage have a very different idea about what politics is.
I doubt that this unfinished novel is of much interest to general readers, as opposed to fanatical devotees of Balzac.

[Classic reverie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Balzac, though not completed to what Balzac would have done if he had lived, I enjoyed nevertheless, to hear more about Gaston, Renee and Rastignac. The first communication with Rastignac and his wife, the daughter of his longtime mistress. I reviewed each section separately. I did not read this edtion but from a Delphi collection of his works, which included the below.


"This novel was intended to be composed of three parts (The Election, Count Sallenauve and Family Beauvisage), but the final two parts were left incomplete on Balzac’s death. The trilogy was begun in 1839 and the first part was published in 1847 under the title L’Élection. All three texts were finally published in 1854, with the help of Charles Rabou, who finished the incomplete two parts, under the instructions of the Countess Hanska, Balzac’s wife."

Series in short- Gaston looks to have his friend, Dorlange do a sculptured memorial for his wife's grave but Dorlange has politics in his horizon.

[Lucy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Far too many unfinished strands, inevitably. Don't bother unless you have a ticklist of his entire oeuvre.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

The political shenanigans in this book saddened me, though I suppose Balzac had grounds for writing it as he did. It seems just as true today that gossip and innuendo can be deliberately used against good men by their opponents, to the detriment of us all.
It's the story of the election of the deputy of Arcis, beginning with the two rivals who are completely outclassed by the arrival of a mysterious third.
Unresolved at the end of the book is Celeste's story: she and her mother were determined to effect a move from the provinces to Paris by marriage to a deputy. Celeste's fortune derives from the manufacture of stockings, and a political marriage is the way to move up in society. The girl has romantic dreams about the stranger who has suddenly arrived in town to compete in the election - but the story was left unfinished at Balzac's death.