Father Goriot - Honore De Balzac (1835)

 

Old Man Goriot

With “Old Man Goriot” (or "Father Goriot") we are getting another book by Honoré de Balzac, but where I was disappointed with “Eugenie Grandet”, I can finally see why Balzac is as big a star as he is. “Old Man Goriot” is an impressive book.

An instalment in Balzac’s “La Comédie humaine”, “Old Man Goriot” takes place in and around a boarding house in Paris in the year 1819. This is a boarding house in the lower price range and the boarders are generally out of their luck. There is the girl Victorine, whose very rich father has disowned her to avoid offering a dowry, there are the mysterious and booming Vautrin, full of schemes but the main characters are Old Man Goriot and the young student Rastignac.

Goriot moved in years before as a wealthy man, but has moved to cheaper and cheaper accommodation and now resides in the worst room of the house. Keeping to himself, he is generally ridiculed by the other boarders, and it is rumoured that he lost his money on high-end prostitutes. At least he is frequently seen with women much smarter than he is.

Rastignac is intent on enjoying the Belle Monde of Paris, but although of a noble family, he is very short of funds. The short cut seems to be to find a wealthy mistress and through his cousin Comtesse de Beauséant, he is introduced to this world. He learns that Madame de Restaud and Madame de Nucingen are actually Goriot’s daughters, Anastasie and Delphine. By starting a love affair with Delphine, Rastignac also befriends Goriot.

But not everything is as it seems...

There are a lot of things happening in “Old Man Goriot”. It is like a window into a complex world populated with real, though slightly extreme characters. There is a plotline where Vautrin wants Rastignac to marry Victorine, then get her brother “accidentally” killed in a duel, landing the inherence on her and by implication on Rastignac. In return, Vautrin would be setup up as a plantation owner in America. However, in my reading, I see two overriding themes.

One is the saintly father who gets abused for his love of his children. This is a variation on the King Lear story, though less bloody than in “Ran”. Goriot sacrifices everything for Delphine and Anastasie, but gets very little in return. They only need him when they need money and when he has no more to give, they need him no more. Is it the fault of the father to love (spoil) his children too much? Or is it the crime of his daughters and sons in law to not give the filial love he deserves? Or maybe it is simply the corruption of Paris.

The second theme is “the training of Rastignac”. Rastignac is the naive outsider, keen on getting involved in Parisian life. He presents outside eyes on his world and through his involvement with Vautrin and the other boarders of the boarding house, Madame de Beauséant and Goriot’s daughters, he (and we) is taught of the dark side of the Belle Monde. This is a world of wild luxury, but also of villainous behaviour, egocentrism and hidden tragedies. Rastignac is trained on how to successfully manoeuvre in this world, but he is also trained to see it for what it is and be disgusted in the process. What we do not know is whether this will make him a player or whether it will teach him to stay out of this game. I like to think it is the latter, but Balzac is ambiguous.

This is in fact a curious trait of Balzac’s writing in this book. He writes a lot about what the characters are and then makes them do or say things that are contrary to this description. As if his own characters have more integrity and are more real than his own narration. It takes a bit getting used to, but it is fascinating to experience.

In general, “Old Man Goriot” is a far more riveting and multifaceted story than “Eugenie Grandet” and although there is a real danger of getting lost in the details, they also add so much texture to the story that it becomes alive and relevant.

It also made me curios about the larger project of “La Comedie humaine” and I cannot rule out I will dive more into that at some point.

Highly recommended.