Eugenie Grandet (Classics) by Honore Balzac see more by Honore Balzac Studio Penguin ClassicsLabel Penguin Classics

Closer Look List Price: £8.99 From: Penguin Classics From: Penguin Classics Salesrank: 109486 Released: 2004-12-02 Our Price: £5.92 You Save: £ 3.07 (34%)! Offers New & Used Starting from £0.01  Pages: 256 Format: Paperback Amazon Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours Customer Rating: Also Shop International: (Not all items available internationally)          Customer Reviews: Greatly Entertaining This is one of Balzac's earlier novels, written the year before Old Goriot (Classics). Unlike most of Balzac's works this is probably the most tightly plotted and restrained of all his books. Balzac has been much admired over the years and this has always been a popular novel. Not just for Balzac fans, this is probably also a good book to start with if you intend to cut your teeth on La Comedie Humaine. Eugenie Grandet is much admired in the small town of Saumur, nestling in the Loire valley. She is quite attractive and pleasent, also she is the only child of M Grandet, and no one knows how many millions he has secreted away. With two of the local families having an especial interest in marrying off Eugenie within their own relations they are much chagrined when Eugenie falls for her cousin Charles. Eugenie gives Charles all her money as he sets out to make his fortune, both swearing undying love. When M Grandet finds out what Eugenie has done he banishes her to her room to live on bread and water, thus making his wife ill. Whilst his wife is on her deathbed M Grandet makes up with Eugenie, eventually tricking her out of her mother's inheritance. When M Grandet eventually dies though, Eugenie comes into the Grandet fortune. Now Charles is back in France and has made a fortune of his own will he and Eugenie become married, or have the fates other plans in store? What really makes this novel so memorable is M Grandet, the avaricious and miserly, but astute and wily businessman. With his affected stammer and selective hearing he is a highly entertaining character, worthy of Dickens at his best. Saint Eugenie "Eugenie Grandet" starts off slowly, with a lot of ponderous scene setting and excessive over-description by Balzac. Nothing much happens for quite a while as the characters of the main protagonists are developed by the author. We meet Grandet, the shrewd miser (who would probably be much admired in todays society), his submissive , long suffering wife and their only child, the saintly Eugenie. The main themes in the story are the conflicts between love and money, worldliness and religion, selfishness and altruism , as Eugenie's love for her cousin causes major fissures within the predictable confines of her small family and the rural community in which she lives. Eugenie bears her suffering and loneliness with stoicism and dignity and Balzac's portrait of her becomes a memorable one as the novel reaches its conclusion. Related Categories: >> >>Books >>Special Features >>Look Inside!