La bourse

Par Honoré de Balzac

1832. La Comédie humaine - Études de moeurs. Premier livre, Scènes de la vie privée - Tome I. Premier volume de l'édition Furne 1842
Hippolyte Schinner, jeune artiste peintre, fait une chute dans son atelier. Il se réveille entouré de ses deux voisins, madame de Rouville et sa fille, Adélaïde. Devenu habitué de leur maison, Hippolyte découvre leur vie de misère et rencontre d'étonnants personnages qui, tous les soirs, viennent perdre de l'argent au jeu. Un soir, Hippolyte oublie sa bourse. Adélaïde dit ne pas l'avoir trouvé, il y a un doute sur la moralité de ses deux voisins ...
Cette nouvelle de Balzac est une peinture de personnages vivants en huis-clos délicat d'un amour naissant, avec ses moments de joie et de doute.

• Langue: Français
• Éditeur: Elmac
• Date de sortie: 6 avr. 2020
• ISBN: 9781409954170

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.

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[bale_5 · Évaluation : 5 sur 5 étoiles]

The Purse is a brief novella (less than 34 pages) that falls within the larger context of Balzac’s La Comédie humaine (The Human Comedy). Briefly, this series is devoted to Parisian life during the 19th century: social realism. Balzac was one of the first to use this method in fiction. In, The Purse, Balzac looks at how we perceive others and the criteria we use to do so. Paranoia comes into play. The fear of communing and being associated with the wrong crowd is dominant. Money influences most actions, including love. Despite the fact this novella is part of a larger collection; it holds its own independently. Yet, it is better understood in relation to the author’s larger body of work. If you wish to get an overall sense of Balzac’s texts, read Cousin Bette. Otherwise, take the time to indulge yourself in the brilliant Balzac collection, The Purse, included.

[leslie398 · Évaluation : 3 sur 5 étoiles]

Nice to read a short story from Balzac's "Scenes from Private Life" which doesn't end in misery!

[smichaelwilson · Évaluation : 4 sur 5 étoiles]

Another entry from the Scenes From Private Life section of Balzac's Human Comedy, The Purse follows the emotional struggles of a young artist who falls (literally, it seems) for a young attractive neighbor, but finds himself torn by guilt and suspicion. Elements of class bias and the presumptive judging of people's appearances cloud the mind of the up-and-coming painter as he puzzles over why the target of his affection and her mother live in what appears to be thinly-disguised poverty. A pseudo-detective fable reminiscent of O. Henry's Gift of the Magi, The Purse also contains other common themes present throughout Balzac's Human Comedy, including love, emotion, artists, and historical context - in this case, the aftermath of Napoleon's reign.