You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.91 AVERAGE
3.91 AVERAGE
Ok.. There's no review on this book so I thought that it is really a shame because it is absolutely great! Balzac has an amazing way of setting up the atmosphere, the environment and then the nature of each character and he also does it in this one.
More surprisingly is that even if it was published between 1838-1847 most of it is still very actual. Just change the decor, the clothing and some of the etiquette and there you go: 2019 and the Kardashians all over the place. Ok, maybe not the Kardashians. The characters have more depth than that but you get the point :)
I will not spoil this book. I will just tell you that it has (a lot of) drama, it has action, it has investigations, it has a lot of intrigues, it has (of course) love, it has history and it feels complete and balanced. Nothing is "too much" or "less" than expected. I loved it. If you decide to give it a try I hope you will have the same feeling.
More surprisingly is that even if it was published between 1838-1847 most of it is still very actual. Just change the decor, the clothing and some of the etiquette and there you go: 2019 and the Kardashians all over the place. Ok, maybe not the Kardashians. The characters have more depth than that but you get the point :)
I will not spoil this book. I will just tell you that it has (a lot of) drama, it has action, it has investigations, it has a lot of intrigues, it has (of course) love, it has history and it feels complete and balanced. Nothing is "too much" or "less" than expected. I loved it. If you decide to give it a try I hope you will have the same feeling.
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
Grave bien ???? À part la fin un peu rapide et meh MAIS c'était bien !!
challenging
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
Well written but I felt like I’d come in to the middle of a long running conversation.
challenging
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Monumental, mais si je dois encore une fois devoir décrypter l'accent de Nucingen... ce sera trop.
(Beaucoup de passages chiants mais aussi beaucoup de passages tout bonnement INCROYABLES et terriblement prenants.)
(Beaucoup de passages chiants mais aussi beaucoup de passages tout bonnement INCROYABLES et terriblement prenants.)
I kept expecting a twist that never came. It was an OK, if depressing, story.
A glorious mess of a novel, a weird concoction of straight melodrama and almost proto-postmodern metafictional theatrics.
It looks like this English translation is, form the few snippets I've compared, although maybe not ideal and idiosyncratic in some ways, a lot better than the older translations available for free on the internet.
One small criticism of the edition: Penguin ought to be ashamed for putting the e-book version of this 1970 translation on the market with so many obvious OCR errors remaining in the text. There's only one case where it renders a sentence completely unreadable, but that's one too many – and there are many other instances of non-fatal but still annoying little errors that look like OCR errors to me. (I admit I haven't compared the e-book with the print version, but the quality of proofing in the 70s was on the whole a lot higher than is displayed in this text.)
It looks like this English translation is, form the few snippets I've compared, although maybe not ideal and idiosyncratic in some ways, a lot better than the older translations available for free on the internet.
One small criticism of the edition: Penguin ought to be ashamed for putting the e-book version of this 1970 translation on the market with so many obvious OCR errors remaining in the text. There's only one case where it renders a sentence completely unreadable, but that's one too many – and there are many other instances of non-fatal but still annoying little errors that look like OCR errors to me. (I admit I haven't compared the e-book with the print version, but the quality of proofing in the 70s was on the whole a lot higher than is displayed in this text.)
fast-paced