Chapter 24 Balzac

France in the nineteenth century was rich in novels.Balzac, Stendhal and Flaubert were the three greatest novelists of their time.I think, on the whole, Balzac is by far the greatest novelist.Like Dickens, he prefers to describe the bizarre characters and stories rather than the uncommon, and he prefers to describe the villains more than the good characters.Yet his creativity is more astonishing than Dickens's and involves a wider range.He tried to describe the social history of the time, and to some extent succeeded.When you read Balzac, you will feel that what you have come into contact with is not just a certain group, but the whole society, because the book contains major events of the times that are more important than the ups and downs of personal fate.I think he was the first novelist to realize the importance of big events.His characters, some running shops and some doing business, make or lose money, and although love plays a large part in his novels (as it does in other novelists), money is still The dynamics of the world he created.He wrote poorly, to extremes, and without good taste, but he had a passion and boundless energy of his own that enabled him to create characters who were presumptuous and deformed, fierce and magnificently alive.Balzac's stories are often accused of being too melodramatic, but, like a storm, it needs mountains and seas to create momentum, how can such extraordinary characters live in a world of order?It is difficult to pick one of Balzac's many fascinating novels for this list, but I think it is the most thrilling and colorful, so this is the book I want to recommend to you.