"I want my time back, I want my youth back, I want my sanity back.


KAS ČIA PER NESĄMONĖ?!?!?!?!? Šitos knygos idėja labai gera ir tikrai turėjo potencialo, bet čia nuobodžiausias pasakojimas ever, kur intriga neegzistuoja. Išsvaisčiau tiek daug brangaus laiko šitai makulatūrai (mano nuomone), kad net verkt noris."

"I was really excited to read this book. I'd always had a lot of curiosity about the "troublesome" Baaaalzac mentioned in The Music Man but I'd never got around to reading him.

I started with a lot of anticipation and excitement but the further the book went on, the further my enthusiasm dwindled until it was in the negative. By the end I hated this book. I only kept reading because I knew it would be the only Balzac I ever read. (Minor spoilers below.)

1. The characters suck.
I'm sorry to say this, but they do. The word that comes to mind is...grotesque. There is a short story by Poe called "King Pest." It's about two drunken sailors that stumble into a weird meeting where all the characters have disturbingly distorted facial features. While none of the characters in this book are "gross" looking, Balzac's characters reminded me of that Poe short story. They were all icky to me. The only one who didn't bother me that much was the young doctor, Bianchon.

A further note on Eugene the "hero????" of the story. I know some people liked him, based on reviews, that is, but I found him only slightly less detestable. My favorite part of the whole book were the letters he received from his family. IMO, he didn't deserve their devotion and sacrifice.

Eugene did not wish to see too clearly; he was ready to sacrifice his conscience to his mistress.


2. Goriot is an idiot.
I don't know if Balzac meant us to feel sorry for Goriot or if he wanted us to find Goriot ridiculous. I honestly couldn't tell. I was especially appalled by the final scene between Goriot and his two daughters. It went on and on, like some parodic performance of a soap opera. (Maybe that is what it was meant to be.) I kept thinking, "this man is an imbecile." I didn't feel sorry for him at all. Not even in the end. I felt he'd "made his own bed" so to speak. Obviously his daughters were terrible people, but he made them that way.

Did Balzac really think that Goriot was the epitome of fatherly devotion? Because if he did that man had some serious issues. (I literally know nothing about Balzac or his life.) Goriot was not a good father. He was creepy. The way he obsessed over his daughters, I could see why they wouldn't want him around. I would be wildly disturbed if my own father acted that way. Knowing that time period, I'm actually amazed they didn't have him committed.

He lay at his daughter's feet, kissed them, gazed into her eyes, rubbed his head against her dress; in short, no young lover could have been more extravagant or more tender.


3. The "story."
I use the word "story" very loosely, because I didn't think there was much of one. There were a lot of rambling dialogues that went on for years. You know when you get trapped in a conversation with someone who drones on and on and you're trying to be polite but you want to run away screaming? That's how I felt reading most of this book.


4. What is the point?
I guess the biggest theme of this book, to me, was that you shouldn't spoil your children. Which Goriot seemed to realize in the end.

They both of them have hearts of stone. I loved them too much; it was not likely that they should love me...You should always make your value felt. Their own children will avenge me.


5. A random sidenote.
I have to say that I got a moment of satisfaction when I read this line:

The boarders dropped in one after another, interchanging greetings and empty jokes that certain classes of Parisians regard as humorous and witty. Dulness is their prevailing ingredient, and the whole point consists in mispronouncing a word or a gesture. This kind of ARGOT is always changing.

I was thinking, "Well Hugo, thanks to your TWENTY-THREE page tangent, I know what the word "argot" means. Thank you for teaching me one thing."

In conclusion, as I'm sure you can tell, I greatly disliked everything about this book. That said, I can see why other people might really enjoy it. If someone asked me about Balzac I would probably say, "Well, I hated the book I read, but you should give him a try. Some people really love him.""

"I think this book speaks more about Balzac than Balzac speaks through this book about the 19th century parisian society. Although Goriot gives the name of the book, I wouldn't consider him the main character, as he is unrealistic built, underdeveloped and one dimensional, having such a static interaction with other characters, that it makes one wonder if he is not only one of the prop-characters, that offer the writer a narrative backdrop and support for his true main characters : Rastignac and Vautrin. The Hero and the anti-Hero. I think one can find a very young and naive Balzac in the provincial law student, that discovers that ambition, talent or intelligence mean nothing in the unscrupulous parisian good-society. Though, he succeds in making his way in this superficial world, that he apparently loathes (both Balzac and Rastignac). His anti-Hero represents, partly, the author's strong and harsh views about how unjustice the society is, partly the rebellious atitude towards this society, an atitude that he condemns and, in the end, punishes. Also, the way he depicts women in his book striked me as a very subjective one. Possibly inspired from his own expectations and experiences regarding them, he constantly swings between the dull, trivial and penniless women and the glittery, shallow and rich ones. Nevertheless, as a wishful revenge and serve of justice, both categories recognize his true value and show interest in him.
Reading this novel, I didn't had a better view of the 19th century world, but, rather than that, I understood the writer's battles in a world he considered to be unfair.

Overall, I wouldn't debate the value of Balzac's novels, but I have serious doubts about their objective realism."

"

“It is not true that, in time, one ‘gets over�� almost anything. In time, one survives almost anything. There is a distinction.��

I'm so glad I found this book thanks to the new Faber edition. What a vicious, yet entertaining, little slice of 1920s life in NYC. Just as heart-wrenching as Edith Wharton, but more salacious.

It's hard to describe Ex-Wife because, on the one hand, it's a very entertaining soap opera about marriage, divorce, love affairs and scandal... but, on the other hand, it is deeper, more meaningful and more sad than it would first appear. It's a story about women, marriage and relationships; about how women gained some freedoms but lost other things. It contains depictions of domestic abuse, sexual assault, (view spoiler)[loss of a child and abortion (hide spoiler)].

Pat has just been left by her husband, Peter, and this loss devastates her. Pat pretty much touches upon every state of grief as she attempts to move on and reevaluate her life's path now her dreams are shattered.

Parts of it are horrible to read. While Pat certainly wasn't blameless in the decline of their relationship, Peter is a piece of shit by my 21st Century standards, and I felt intense horror and secondhand embarrassment for Pat as she attempts to hold onto him long after he has dumped her.

Lucia, another "ex-wife" and a fabulous character, supports Pat through her recovery, offering advice, encouragement and no small amount of humour.

The novel covers only a few short years, yet it feels immense. Pat's journey from distraught dumpee to who she becomes at the novel's close is complex and bittersweet. If Pat wasn't already in her twenties when the story starts, you'd likely call this a bildungsroman because a huge part of this book is her growth from a naive and starry-eyed young woman to someone tougher but more jaded.

There is something very sad about Pat's growth in this book. It feels as if, as she gets clued in about the nature of men, women and relationships, her bubble bursts and part of her gives up on her desire for romance, her belief in the love she once believed in. Maybe that's life. Maybe it's true, and that's why the book hurts so much.

This quote from near the end made me feel devastated:

There were crowds of people hurrying about as if they had somewhere important to go. I wished that I had somewhere important to go.

I saved so many quotes I don't know what to do with them. Here's a few.

On youth: I have never been as sure of myself since, as I was then, when I was twenty-four.

On promiscuous men: “Great Lovers—men who’ve ‘known a hundred women,�� and boast of it—they remind me of the man who wanted to be a musician and so took one lesson on each instrument in the orchestra.��

On love: [..]one did not love a man because he was worth loving, or because one felt worthy of his love in return, or for any reason that one’s acquaintances would think was sound.

On motherhood: I was crazy about him; in intervals between feeling that I had neither energy nor interest for anything, and never would anymore.

On the status of women: The choices for women used to be: marriage, the convent, or the street. They’re just the same now. Marriage has the same name. Or you can have a career, letting it absorb all emotional energy (just like the convent). Or you can have an imitation masculine attitude toward sex, and a succession of meaningless affairs, promiscuity, (the street, that is) taking your pay in orchids and dinner-dates instead of money left on the dresser. (This whole speech by Lucia in chapter 6 is quite something)"