La Peau de chagrin

Par Honoré de Balzac

Une édition de référence de La Peau de chagrin d’Honoré de Balzac, spécialement conçue pour la lecture sur les supports numériques.
« Le jeune homme se leva brusquement et témoigna quelque surprise en apercevant au-dessus du siège où il s’était assis un morceau de chagrin accroché sur le mur, et dont la dimension n’excédait pas celle d’une peau de renard ; mais, par un phénomène inexplicable au premier abord, cette peau projetait au sein de la profonde obscurité qui régnait dans le magasin des rayons si lumineux que vous eussiez dit d’une petite comète. Le jeune incrédule s’approcha de ce prétendu talisman qui devait le préserver du malheur, et s’en moqua par une phrase mentale. Cependant, animé d’une curiosité bien légitime, il se pencha pour la regarder alternativement sous toutes les faces. » (Extrait du Talisman.)

• Langue: Français
• Éditeur: Primento Digital
• Date de sortie: 1 janv. 2012
• ISBN: 9782806240347

Honoré de Balzac

Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) was a French novelist, short story writer, and playwright. Regarded as one of the key figures of French and European literature, Balzac’s realist approach to writing would influence Charles Dickens, Émile Zola, Henry James, Gustave Flaubert, and Karl Marx. With a precocious attitude and fierce intellect, Balzac struggled first in school and then in business before dedicating himself to the pursuit of writing as both an art and a profession. His distinctly industrious work routine—he spent hours each day writing furiously by hand and made extensive edits during the publication process—led to a prodigious output of dozens of novels, stories, plays, and novellas. La Comédie humaine, Balzac’s most famous work, is a sequence of 91 finished and 46 unfinished stories, novels, and essays with which he attempted to realistically and exhaustively portray every aspect of French society during the early-nineteenth century.

Avis sur La Peau de chagrin

[jonfaith · Évaluation : 4 sur 5 étoiles]

He made fun of everything, his own prospects included. Always short of money, he remained, like all men with a future before them, wallowing in inexpressible idleness, condensing a whole book into one epigram for the benefit of people who were incapable of putting one witticism into a whole book. Lavish of promises that he never kept, he had made his fortune and reputation into a cushion on which he slept, thus running the risk of coming to his senses, as an old man, in an almshouse. With all that, keeping faith with his friends to the point of death, a swaggering cynic and as simple-hearted as a child, he worked only by fits and starts or under the spur of necessity.

This marked my return to Balzac, a welcome one after many years. When I spend time with my friends' children I make point of telling them to avoid Zola and stick with Balzac.

The Wild Ass's Skin is simply stunning. The depictions of emotional uncertainty and the fluctuations of fortune were remarkable. The display of ornate and obscure objects, avocations and sundry theory were equally compelling.

[tanyaread · Évaluation : 4 sur 5 étoiles]

Gritty, depressing.

[nosajeel · Évaluation : 5 sur 5 étoiles]

Fortunes made and spent and made and spent, obsession, debauchery, Rastignac, and Bianchon--in other words The Wild Ass's Skin is classic Balzac. Which was not exactly what I expected, since I thought this relatively early novel that he categorized in his "Philosophical Studies" section of the Human Comedy would be different from his "Studies of Manners" that is the category for most of his novels and stories. But the surprise was a mostly pleasant one.

The Wild Ass's Skin does have a fantastic basis, centering around a magical skin that confers wishes--but in doing so shrinks with each wish until when it is gone the owner will die. But the execution is purely realistic, as the wishes come about almost by coincidence and the descriptions are firmly rooted in Paris circa 1830.

It begins with Raphael de Valentin losing his last gold piece at the gambling table, going to commit suicide, and then ending up in a shop where he acquires the Wild Ass's Skin. He wishes for a debaucherous party--which is what is described over the course of the first part of the book, with interesting discussions of the role of journalism and art. In the second part of the book Raphael recounts the sequence of events that led him to his almost suicide, with the juxtaposition of a more simple, virtuous woman to a beautiful, heartless one who epitomizes "society". Finally the third part picks up Raphael sometime after the party when he is living in seclusion, walling himself off from the world and any possible desires--in an attempt to avoid making any wishes and thus shrinking the magic skin and killing himself.

The Wild Ass's Skin is mostly about obsession, desire, and the attempts to control and channel it. And it is also about society, wealth, love, art, Paris, politics, and all the other themes of the Human Comedy.

[p_s_patrick · Évaluation : 5 sur 5 étoiles]

Rich in realistic details and the atmosphere of its age (1830s Paris), this takes half a step up in the air from the comparatively grounded world of many of Balzac's other works, in order to see the nature of the world and its concerns all the better from this vantage. Power, money, fame, lust, social standing, all of man's vain desires and concerns are examined here in their want and excess. The story begins with Raphael on the verge of suicide, disgraced and having lost his final coin in gambling. Wasting time until it is dark enough for him to jump into the river, he wanders into an Alladin's cave of an antique shope, wherein he is offered the magic leather skin that grants every wish of its holder. As with all good Faustian tales, this bargain does not come without a catch – every expending of its power shrinks the talisman and correspondingly the lifespan of the holder. Despite being warned of this catch he is determined that if he is going to die anyway, he will make the most of life while he can. Thus begins his sordid tale. This is not a story tale for children, nor is it told in anything less than a convincing fashion if we accept the premise of the skin. It is a lens on vice and the dark selfish side of human spirit, of the vanity and superficiality of society, and the folly of those not content with the things that really matter. When Raphael finally discovers this, it is too late and he cannot enjoy the happiness that has found him from unexpected quarters. The main character is never particularly evil, but he is also not particularly likeable, and this story works all the better for his selfish rotten character. This is not to say that we cannot sympathise with him in parts throughout the story, and understand his actions, yet he plays the anti-hero well.I thought this was a much better story than Balzac's Eugenie Grandet, and Village Curate, which are the two other longer novels of his Comedie Humaine that I have read so far. While there are some other short stories with a slightly supernatural twist, such as Melmouth Reconciled, this stands out in its conception, telling, and deeper implications. What lets it down are that some sections are a bit unneccessarily long, which do not add much to the novel. Though Balzac sometimes lacks the ways with words, the literariness of other writers, what he has in abundance is his Dickensian detail, understanding of human emotions, plot conception, and vision of reality. In total this is a good novel and an appealing introduction to Balzac's works for those who have not read him before.

[leslie398 · Évaluation : 2 sur 5 étoiles]

This entry in Balzac's "The Human Comedy" (also known as "The Wild Ass's Skin") is the first of the Philosophical Studies division and I think that has a lot to do why I didn't really like it that much. Or maybe it was the character of Raphael (before he comes across the eponymous skin) - I was frustrated while he described his relationship with Feodora since basically his attitude was because he loved her and she didn't love him, she must be a horribly heartless woman. His love was entirely selfish and when he hid himself in her bedroom so he could spy on her while she thought she was alone, I almost stopped reading right then.Another small negative was the narration by John Bolen, which was done with a strong French accent but with very little difference in the voices of the varying characters. I'd give the narration (separate from the content) a 3* but it needed a better narration than that to bring up my rating for the book overall.

[jasonlf · Évaluation : 5 sur 5 étoiles]

Fortunes made and spent and made and spent, obsession, debauchery, Rastignac, and Bianchon--in other words The Wild Ass's Skin is classic Balzac. Which was not exactly what I expected, since I thought this relatively early novel that he categorized in his "Philosophical Studies" section of the Human Comedy would be different from his "Studies of Manners" that is the category for most of his novels and stories. But the surprise was a mostly pleasant one.The Wild Ass's Skin does have a fantastic basis, centering around a magical skin that confers wishes--but in doing so shrinks with each wish until when it is gone the owner will die. But the execution is purely realistic, as the wishes come about almost by coincidence and the descriptions are firmly rooted in Paris circa 1830.It begins with Raphael de Valentin losing his last gold piece at the gambling table, going to commit suicide, and then ending up in a shop where he acquires the Wild Ass's Skin. He wishes for a debaucherous party--which is what is described over the course of the first part of the book, with interesting discussions of the role of journalism and art. In the second part of the book Raphael recounts the sequence of events that led him to his almost suicide, with the juxtaposition of a more simple, virtuous woman to a beautiful, heartless one who epitomizes "society". Finally the third part picks up Raphael sometime after the party when he is living in seclusion, walling himself off from the world and any possible desires--in an attempt to avoid making any wishes and thus shrinking the magic skin and killing himself.The Wild Ass's Skin is mostly about obsession, desire, and the attempts to control and channel it. And it is also about society, wealth, love, art, Paris, politics, and all the other themes of the Human Comedy.

[foomy_1 · Évaluation : 4 sur 5 étoiles]

A miserable, poor young man goes through tough times but turns to a rich man. Not quite a happy ending but extremely complex in itself.

[mldg_1 · Évaluation : 4 sur 5 étoiles]

I've only read a few books by Balzac and I found them depressing. This book I liked although it does have it's drawbacks. It's about a poor young man who overnight acquires the power to become rich. Not only rich, but he has the power to do or have anything he wants. There's one catch, as he uses the power he also uses up his life. Do you think he would use that power to do great good in the world? Or at least give himself his heart's desire so that he, at least, could live a happy life? NO. The man is so paralyzed by the fear of losing his life, he never fully lives. The story is good. The setting is excellent, (Paris in the 1600's, I think.) The ending is very passionate. If this book hasn't already been made into a movie, it should be. Oh, the drawbacks- Balzac has his main character go up into the mountains to meditate on the meaning of life for pages and pages and pages. Very tedious reading. Just skip that part and you will find a very enjoyable story.

[jkorta_2 · Évaluation : 5 sur 5 étoiles]

I love this book! La peau de chagrin is one of the oddest of Balzac's novels (on par with La Recherche de l'Absolu and Le chef-d'oeuvre inconnu), and one in which he lays bare his debt to romanticism, the movement of Victor Hugo which he will later attempt to shed as rigorously as possible (with dry "realist" works like Eugenie Grandet). Being a fan of Hugo and a greater fan of Rabelais, I was pleased to see Balzac pay homage to both of his illustrious predecessors while giving voice to his own unique style of writing in this early novel. I am dismayed, incidentally, by the remarkably low rating this novel has received!