Rating: 
Summary: The human comedy of Parisian society
Review: Balzac was a most enthusiastic participant of high society in Paris in his heyday principally because it yielded so many characters for his human comedy. Despite the artifice of glamor, wealth and nobility, a young attorney named Rastignac learns that it is shallow, materialistic and vain beyond all sense. Aspiring to make a name for himself, Rastignac stays in a bording house where he meets old Goriot, a vermicelli merchant with two daughters prominent in Paris society. Like King Lear, Goriot loved his two beautiful daughters but cannot control them and eventually they drain him of all his wealth, refusing to visit him even when he's on his deathbed. Balzac points out that tailors in Paris made more men successful than any other influence. The women who adorned high society were often fighting economic desperation, pawning jewelry and fighting stingey and unfaithful husbands who abandon them. Rastignac is fascinated but repulsed by high society -- probably much like Balzac himself. The writer pours himself emtoionally into his stories, occasionally guilty of being overly sentimental -- the men in difficult or tragic situations easily and frequently shed tears. Balzac painted hundreds, if not thousands, of portraits of the French of his time in his epic human comedy. Not that much has changed really, as far as the human comedy goes. In his garret in Paris writing in the quiet of the late night and early morning, this great and prolific writer has left an astonishing legacy of profound, realistic and wise fiction. From his work it's possible to be transported to Balzac's time and find oneself deeply engaged in his human comedy. Clearly, Balzac is one of France's most important writers and Pere Goriot is certainly one of his finest works. Therefore, to experience Balzac, one couldn't find a more inspired entree in Pere Goriot.
Rating:
Summary: A Battle of Evil versus Good
Review: Father Goriot by Honoré de Balzac is one of the works of La Comédie Humaine. The plot of the story is rather complicated, but as the novel approaches the end, everything starts falling into its proper place. Both wealthy and poor classes are analyzed in the novel through the actions and interests of individuals. Vice characterizes the nature of Parisian society; for this reason, vice opposes and also prevails over virtue . Of course, in order to create the drama of the novel, vice is used to represent a large section of the people living in Paris at the time. The novel illustrates a large segment of the human condition during the first half of the nineteenth century. Furthermore, the powerful evil over good theme of the novel is rather devastating.
Rating: 
Summary: "I Am in Hell, and I Have To Stay There."
Review: Honoré de Balzac's 1834 novel, "Le Père Goriot," is a novel of strange and fascinating power. As the doorway into his interconnected cycle, La Comédie Humaine, it presents as much welcome to interested readers as Dante's fateful "abandon all hope..." entrance to Hell in the Divine Comedy. "Le Père Goriot" gives us a fallen world, driven by self-interest, where all ties of genuine human feeling seem to be relegated to a no longer existent past, or to the rarely-glimpsed pastoral countryside. Balzac presents the stories of Eugène de Rastignac - a young law student from the southern provinces, Jean-Joachim Goriot - a former pasta merchant who gave all he had as dowry for his two daughters, and Vautrin - a man who lives and works in shadows. Balzac's novel illustrates the lengths and depths that these three, and everyone around them, go to in order to secure even the most fleeting happiness in the moral wasteland of Paris about 4 years after the fall of Napoleon.The novel begins with our introduction to Maison Vauquer, a boarding house with a crumbling plaster statue of Cupid in the yard, which is home and prison to the respectably indigent. Goriot has lived in the Maison Vauquer under the increasingly unsympathetic gaze of Madame Vauquer and her boarders for almost 10 years - wasting away, Goriot has become a figure of fun for the house, coming to be known teasingly as "Old Goriot." His tragic affection for his two well-married daughters, Delphine de Nucingen and Anastasie de Restaud, has driven him out of their homes, and into a state wherein his only joys come from seeing them from afar, and mortgaging what remains of his fortune to assist them in financial difficulties. Into the Maison and Goriot's life comes young Rastignac, whose lack of fortune fuels his desire to enter the fashionable world of Parisian high society. Here, Rastignac meets Vautrin, who offers the youth a possible means to do so - means both underhanded and deadly. One of the novel's great questions is the great Biblical dilemma - what does it profit a man to gain the world if he must lose his soul in the process? The novel's three main characters, but particularly Rastignac, illustrate the dilemma from different vantage points. For Vautrin and Goriot, their choices were made long ago, and Balzac's work with them concerns the results of lives organized around self and others, respectively. The novel's primary concern is with Rastignac, who is continually in the process of weighing his options - in a world in which there is little grey area, will Rastignac opt for a life of good or evil, of self-interest (as with fellow-boarders Mlle. Michonneau and M. Poiret) or service (as with fellow-student Bianchon)? Balzac sets relationships, particularly those concerned with family, up for consideration in the novel. We see bonds created by birth, as well as by social class and wealth; of course, family and money are rarely inseparable, and certainly are not mutually exclusive for the novel's characters. Rastignac is in Paris studying the law only because of the financial sacrifices being made by his family in the country. Rastignac's kinship with Madame de Beauséant provides him with a taste of the seeming luxury of Paris. Victorine de Taillefer, a motherless young girl at the Maison Vauquer, makes a fruitless yearly application to her hard-hearted father, who has disowned her completely. As Rastignac interacts with and becomes part of Goriot's life and that of his fellow-boarders, we are encouraged to consider the role of the family as it relates to society. If family is Balzac's basic social unit, then how do we regard the family constituted by Goriot and his daughters? The one made up of the "guests" of the boarding house? That of Vautrin's Ten Thousand Society? I have barely scratched the surface of Balzac's novel. Its engagements - literary, sociological, and moral, are extensive. Balzac's engagements with literary and philosophical models, from Shakespeare to Rousseau, are worth taking notice of, as are his proposed "three attitudes of men toward the world: obedience, struggle, and revolt." For a novel with seemingly clear moral polarities, it is difficult to say who are the heroes and who the villains in "Le Père Goriot." Though the novel is by no means a simple satire, getting swept up in the novel's overt sentimentality may say as much about the reader as it does about the novel's characters and situations. Balzac's anonymous narrator offers continually biased judgments, which can cloud the reader's ability to remain objective. Any way one reads it, "Le Père Goriot" is a terrific novel - and the invitation to enter Balzac's uninviting world is well worth accepting.
Rating:
Summary: "I Am in Hell, and I Have To Stay There."
Review: Honoré de Balzac's 1834 novel, "Le Père Goriot," is a novel of strange and fascinating power. As the doorway into his interconnected cycle, La Comédie Humaine, it presents as much welcome to interested readers as Dante's fateful "abandon all hope..." entrance to Hell in the Divine Comedy. "Le Père Goriot" gives us a fallen world, driven by self-interest, where all ties of genuine human feeling seem to be relegated to a no longer existent past, or to the rarely-glimpsed pastoral countryside. Balzac presents the stories of Eugène de Rastignac - a young law student from the southern provinces, Jean-Joachim Goriot - a former pasta merchant who gave all he had as dowry for his two daughters, and Vautrin - a man who lives and works in shadows. Balzac's novel illustrates the lengths and depths that these three, and everyone around them, go to in order to secure even the most fleeting happiness in the moral wasteland of Paris about 4 years after the fall of Napoleon. The novel begins with our introduction to Maison Vauquer, a boarding house with a crumbling plaster statue of Cupid in the yard, which is home and prison to the respectably indigent. Goriot has lived in the Maison Vauquer under the increasingly unsympathetic gaze of Madame Vauquer and her boarders for almost 10 years - wasting away, Goriot has become a figure of fun for the house, coming to be known teasingly as "Old Goriot." His tragic affection for his two well-married daughters, Delphine de Nucingen and Anastasie de Restaud, has driven him out of their homes, and into a state wherein his only joys come from seeing them from afar, and mortgaging what remains of his fortune to assist them in financial difficulties. Into the Maison and Goriot's life comes young Rastignac, whose lack of fortune fuels his desire to enter the fashionable world of Parisian high society. Here, Rastignac meets Vautrin, who offers the youth a possible means to do so - means both underhanded and deadly. One of the novel's great questions is the great Biblical dilemma - what does it profit a man to gain the world if he must lose his soul in the process? The novel's three main characters, but particularly Rastignac, illustrate the dilemma from different vantage points. For Vautrin and Goriot, their choices were made long ago, and Balzac's work with them concerns the results of lives organized around self and others, respectively. The novel's primary concern is with Rastignac, who is continually in the process of weighing his options - in a world in which there is little grey area, will Rastignac opt for a life of good or evil, of self-interest (as with fellow-boarders Mlle. Michonneau and M. Poiret) or service (as with fellow-student Bianchon)? Balzac sets relationships, particularly those concerned with family, up for consideration in the novel. We see bonds created by birth, as well as by social class and wealth; of course, family and money are rarely inseparable, and certainly are not mutually exclusive for the novel's characters. Rastignac is in Paris studying the law only because of the financial sacrifices being made by his family in the country. Rastignac's kinship with Madame de Beauséant provides him with a taste of the seeming luxury of Paris. Victorine de Taillefer, a motherless young girl at the Maison Vauquer, makes a fruitless yearly application to her hard-hearted father, who has disowned her completely. As Rastignac interacts with and becomes part of Goriot's life and that of his fellow-boarders, we are encouraged to consider the role of the family as it relates to society. If family is Balzac's basic social unit, then how do we regard the family constituted by Goriot and his daughters? The one made up of the "guests" of the boarding house? That of Vautrin's Ten Thousand Society? I have barely scratched the surface of Balzac's novel. Its engagements - literary, sociological, and moral, are extensive. Balzac's engagements with literary and philosophical models, from Shakespeare to Rousseau, are worth taking notice of, as are his proposed "three attitudes of men toward the world: obedience, struggle, and revolt." For a novel with seemingly clear moral polarities, it is difficult to say who are the heroes and who the villains in "Le Père Goriot." Though the novel is by no means a simple satire, getting swept up in the novel's overt sentimentality may say as much about the reader as it does about the novel's characters and situations. Balzac's anonymous narrator offers continually biased judgments, which can cloud the reader's ability to remain objective. Any way one reads it, "Le Père Goriot" is a terrific novel - and the invitation to enter Balzac's uninviting world is well worth accepting.
Rating:
Summary: Sharper than a serpent's tooth...
Review: I would preface my remarks by urging the reader with any command of the French language to read this book in the original, if necessary with Balzac's text side by side with the translation. Reading 'Pere Goriot' in English (or any book in translation, for that matter) is like following the Atkins diet; one gets the meat, yes, but none of the sweetness. Moreover I would urge the reader to remember that this is a novel like a beautiful and circumspect woman who gives herself gradually, tantalizingly, deliciously. Balzac's times are not ours, something perhaps to regret. The place is Paris, and the year 1819; Eugene de Rastignac, a young man of the minor provincial nobility, has come to the great capital to make his fortune, straining his family's meager resources to do so. He has begun his studies at law and lodges at the Pension Vauquer. The Pension is a mean and shabby place but respectable, and seven other boarders live there in varying states of semi-genteel desperation. Eugene, good-hearted and idealistic, soon finds himself sympathetically involved in the life of the elderly widower Goriot, who was at one time a merchant of huge wealth, but has gradually impoverished himself installing his two cherished daughters in Parisian society. He now lives in miserable obscurity, selflessly and adoringly financing the extravagances necessary to women at the pinnacle of fashion. In pitiless contrast to the greasy pettiness of the Pension Vauquer is the gleaming realm of the upper classes--two separate castes, the aristocrats by birth and the merely rich who strive ceaselessly to infiltrate the glittering orbit of the titled. It is a savage place beneath its urbane opulence, in its own way as desperate as the world of the Pension. There are some for whom the only power is the power to withold; and faced with the showy wealth of the nouveau riche, Paris' nobility uses its exclusivity of blood to the fullest. Goriot's elder daughter Anastasie has married into the aristocracy; her younger sister Delphine is fully as wealthy but not of the 'gratin.' The doors that are closed to Delphine the banker's wife open wide for the penniless but aristocratic Eugene; and the intimacy the two come to share is never free of a sense of mutual advantage. Among such blighted souls, the character of Vautrin stands out in robust relief. This magnificent villain, one of the greatest figures in all of literature, is the book's mystery. No one knows why he chooses to live at the Pension; no one is aware that he is a key figure in the underworld of Paris. He is a burly bon vivant, charming, clever, possessed of a mesmerizing way with words. For Vautrin, the handsome and altruistic Eugene is an object of what can only be called adoration, and the older man puts into place machinations meant to provide the young nobleman with a rich and well-connected wife, supremely indifferent to the fact that Eugene is repulsed by both Vautrin and his criminal schemes. The tragic figure of the tale is Goriot. He is Lear without Cordelia. His daughters are cajoling, bewitching vampires, remorselessly selfish, who would sooner attend a ball than sit by their father's deathbed. Eugene manages to inculcate some human feelings in Delphine, but he is a changed man by the book's end, at once shaken by the moral vacuum of Paris and infected with its cynicism. Balzac's many masteries all find their fullest expression here. I have never yet been able to fathom why no one has made a film of this book.
Rating:
Summary: Sharper than a serpent's tooth...
Review: I would preface my remarks by urging the reader with any command of the French language to read this book in the original, if necessary with Balzac's text side by side with the translation. Reading 'Pere Goriot' in English (or any book in translation, for that matter) is like following the Atkins diet; one gets the meat, yes, but none of the sweetness. Moreover I would urge the reader to remember that this is a novel like a beautiful and circumspect woman who gives herself gradually, tantalizingly, deliciously. Balzac's times are not ours, something perhaps to regret. The place is Paris, and the year 1819; Eugene de Rastignac, a young man of the minor provincial nobility, has come to the great capital to make his fortune, straining his family's meager resources to do so. He has begun his studies at law and lodges at the Pension Vauquer. The Pension is a mean and shabby place but respectable, and seven other boarders live there in varying states of semi-genteel desperation. Eugene, good-hearted and idealistic, soon finds himself sympathetically involved in the life of the elderly widower Goriot, who was at one time a merchant of huge wealth, but has gradually impoverished himself installing his two cherished daughters in Parisian society. He now lives in miserable obscurity, selflessly and adoringly financing the extravagances necessary to women at the pinnacle of fashion. In pitiless contrast to the greasy pettiness of the Pension Vauquer is the gleaming realm of the upper classes--two separate castes, the aristocrats by birth and the merely rich who strive ceaselessly to infiltrate the glittering orbit of the titled. It is a savage place beneath its urbane opulence, in its own way as desperate as the world of the Pension. There are some for whom the only power is the power to withold; and faced with the showy wealth of the nouveau riche, Paris' nobility uses its exclusivity of blood to the fullest. Goriot's elder daughter Anastasie has married into the aristocracy; her younger sister Delphine is fully as wealthy but not of the 'gratin.' The doors that are closed to Delphine the banker's wife open wide for the penniless but aristocratic Eugene; and the intimacy the two come to share is never free of a sense of mutual advantage. Among such blighted souls, the character of Vautrin stands out in robust relief. This magnificent villain, one of the greatest figures in all of literature, is the book's mystery. No one knows why he chooses to live at the Pension; no one is aware that he is a key figure in the underworld of Paris. He is a burly bon vivant, charming, clever, possessed of a mesmerizing way with words. For Vautrin, the handsome and altruistic Eugene is an object of what can only be called adoration, and the older man puts into place machinations meant to provide the young nobleman with a rich and well-connected wife, supremely indifferent to the fact that Eugene is repulsed by both Vautrin and his criminal schemes. The tragic figure of the tale is Goriot. He is Lear without Cordelia. His daughters are cajoling, bewitching vampires, remorselessly selfish, who would sooner attend a ball than sit by their father's deathbed. Eugene manages to inculcate some human feelings in Delphine, but he is a changed man by the book's end, at once shaken by the moral vacuum of Paris and infected with its cynicism. Balzac's many masteries all find their fullest expression here. I have never yet been able to fathom why no one has made a film of this book.
Rating:
Summary: The best novels of the best french writer
Review: I'm a french Balzac's fan. I read Balzac in french indeed but I'm interested in americans or english reviews on Balzac. So I read all the reviews on Balzac in "amazon.com".
"Old Goriot" ("Le père Goriot" in french) is my favourite Balzac's novel. Why ? Because it's the center of Balzac's world. He invented the return of characters with this novel. When I read this novel for the first time my elder daughter was very young (3 months) and I was discovered the paternity at the same time that "Old Goriot". I was feeling a lot of sympathy for this "father's king" who is able to sacrify his life for his two daughters.
So this novel remind one of my most impressive experience of reader.
To finish, I can say that there a lot of other very good reasons to read "Old Goriot".
Rating:
Summary: Scathing Expose of the Social Circus
Review: The French author Honore de Balzac (1799-1850) wrote nearly a hundred books over the course of his relatively short life. Most are considered part of his incomplete opus titled La Comedie Humaine (the Human Comedy), with reoccurring characters and overlapping themes. The goal of this oeuvre was to create a panoramic view of French society, staring from the Revolution and continuing to the current (mid nineteenth century) age, exploring the aspects of country, city and military life. Balzac believed that just as the differences of heredity and environment produce various species of animals, so did the varying pressures of society produce differentiations among human beings. In the Human Comedy, Balzac attempted to describe and classify these human "species." _Pere Goriot_ is arguably the most famous and artistically successful entry of the opus, a masterful study of a father who sacrifices his wealth and health to assure his two daughters into the hotbed of Parisian high-society. Through the eyes of Rastignac, an impoverished youth eager to gain social success, we see Goriot's maniacal obsession to his "babies," constantly succumbing to their lavish demands and paying off their debts, all the while prevented from being seen in public with them or even visiting their houses. Goriot is deemed �unfit� company and a threat to the illusion of success, the latter of which being Balzac�s central theme for this particular novel: In the whirl of Parisian high-life, it is not so much the individual talent or intelligence or virtue one has that gives him or her a respected standing; instead, the trappings of wealth and the way in which one displays it is the standard and the rule: conspicuous consumerism for the bygone era. And let us gaze upon the technocratic twenty-first-century pyramid of Hollywood and its ilk�-with actresses famous solely for the size of their breasts, and psychos killing just to appear on television, and a whole media subculture slavishly devoted to the whims and waste and trials of the celebrity identity, it is easy to see that the game never ends, the rules never really change; in this cyclical social circus, those with the finest illusion garner the highest raves, the chance at longevity, the narcotic of fame. Proof of that ancient adage: how much times change, how much they stay the same� This is an amazing book. Highly recommended to the student of life.
Rating: 
Summary: Pere (Father) Goriot- a misunderstood novel
Review: The mystery is enjoyable but once that is lifted and you find out the real truth about Goriot and Eugene, who cares?! I like Vautrin-he is very interesting but the weird old man and the young punk has to go. The daughters are morally disgusting. I heard an English Professor say that this novel is a lesson not to have children-clearly misunderstood.
Rating:
Summary: An enthralling tale, told by a master
Review: There are many ingredients necessary when a writer is cooking up a masterpiece. A fascinating plot, driven by compelling characters -- these are absolutely necessary. We would also like to add an admirable literary style, and hopefully an intriguing milieu for all the incidents of the story. Then toss in, as the major seasoning, a profound dedication to the truth, and the ability to write things which are both interesting and true. This last quality is almost universally overlooked by amateur critics and readers, but was absolutely essential to no less an author than Marcel Proust. Now, has Balzac managed all this, in Pere Goriot? Very much so -- the plot and characters are virtually immortal -- Vautrin and Rastignac will likely live forever, along with Lear and Uriah Heep. Literary style? Balzac's is both awful and wonderful -- his own unique thumb-print, guaranteeing the authenticity of his work. A fascinating milieu?? Nineteenth-century Paris! Fly to visit, on the wings of a book! The truth? Interesting things? Could this Dead White European Male possibly have anything interesting to say? How about this? "If the human heart possesses some innate feeling, surely it is the pride of being the perpetual protector of some weaker creature? And then, if you add to this powerful affection the vivid sense of gratitude, felt by all candid souls for the primary cause of their pleasures, you will have understood a host of psychological oddities." (p. 100, trans. Burton Raffel) Remove the phrase "psychological oddities" and replace it with "the grand flow of human life," and you have something very interesting to think about: parents and their children, many cases of love, people with their pets -- we do indeed seem to have an "innate feeling" for reaching out to nurture others. How remarkable of Balzac to have pointed this out! This novel is one for the ages. Highest recommendation!!
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