Eugenie Grandet - Honore De Balzac (1833)

 Eugénie Grandet

Honoré de Balzac is an author I will get back to a few times on the List. As far as I can see he has three entries, but I may be missing some. “Eugénie Grandet” is his first entry.

The titular Eugénie Grandet is the daughter of a cooper, Grandet, turned winegrower turned landowner in provincial France. Grandet is elaborately characterized as a miser of the worst sort. Exceedingly good at making money and even better at not spending them, he and his family, Eugénie and her mother, live an extremely frugal life as if they were poor despite his wealth of millions.

Hovering around the Grandet family are the vultures in the form of the Cruchot and de Grassin families. They are themselves important families in the provincial town, but have their eyes on the wealth of Grandet. They are the only ones with an idea of how enormous his fortune is, as Cruchot, the lawyers, and de Grassin, the bankers, handle Grandet’s affairs. Both eye the prospect of marrying one of their family to Eugénie Grandet and thereby become sole heirs to the fortune.

Then arrive Grandet’s nephew, Charles Grandet, from Paris. He is a fob, used to an expensive lifestyle in Paris, but has been sent to his uncle by his father to get him out of the way before his bankruptcy and suicide. So, Charles arrives full of arrogance but soon to learn he is entirely penniless. Grandet sees him as a liability he must get rid of as soon as possible, and is arranging for shipping him to the colonies, while Eugénie falls completely in love with her cousin.

This causes a strife between father and daughter and although it eventually heals, her infatuation with Charles keeps her in a mental prison, especially as Charles turns out to be a scoundrel.

“Eugénie Grandet” was a part of a larger project of de Balzac called “La Comedie humaine”, which consists of scenes from different parts of life. In this sense “Eugénie Grandet” is supposed to represent something general, though I am struggling to see exactly what. Is it a portrait of a miser? Of how a miser can ruin a family? Is it the generational rebellion of a younger generation? Or even the rebellion of a woman against a father or a lifestyle? All these are intimated, but none of them seems satisfying. In fact, I am having problems working out what the point is with the book.

Balzac uses a lot of generalizations, constantly pointing out how this or that part of the story is representative of something general, both about misers and vultures circling around money, but especially on women. He appears to have some pretty deep-rooted ideas on what and how women are and most of these are prejudiced in the extreme. Therefore, it is clear to me that “Eugénie Grandet” must be read as representative of something general, as a scene that can be found as typical. But is this just to try to explain how people become what they are? Or is it a cynical portrait of people Balzac did not like? He was a spendthrift himself, constantly in debt, and it is very likely he wanted to see his creditors lampooned, but is that all this is?

As a novel, I was not particularly impressed with this story or its style. There is a build up to a crisis, and strife between father and daughter, but it never really explodes, but merely fizzles. This may of course be my 21st century self expecting more than a 19th century author would deliver, but I do believe “Eugénie Grandet” can be compared to the novels of Jane Austen where every one of them had deeper crisis’s and far more interesting resolutions than is the case for “Eugénie Grandet”. I would not go so far as to say it is boring, but it is very much a lost opportunity for something far better.

The only excuse would be to serve some point, and it is this point I am missing. As “Eugénie Grandet” is a highly celebrated novel, it is likely just me being dense.

I already mentioned the style of Balzac to use generalizations and prejudices and even when I try to think like a 19th century reader, this grinds badly on me. He comes through as a bigot who does not care much for his characters and even his protagonist comes through weak and miserable.

I cannot honestly call this an enjoyable novel, and the only real blessing is that it was short. Other readers may disagree.