PDF Modeste Mignon Honoré de Balzac 9781406912753 Books

Product details Paperback 214 pages Publisher Hard Press (November 3, 2006) Language English ISBN-10 1406912751

Modeste Mignon Honoré de Balzac 9781406912753 Books Reviews

• Great book. Just as advertised. Thanks!
• I have read many Balzac novels. He was a terrific author and you must read about his life. Very interesting character.
• Monsieur Mignon, a veteran officer of Napoleon's disastrous Russian campaign, prospers on his return but eventually loses everything through a series of disasters. He goes abroad to rebuild his fortune and leaves his family in the care of the loyal Monsieur Dumay, the Breton soldier who helped him survive Russia and whom he took on as a junior business partner. In particular, he instructs Dumay not to let his daughter Modeste marry until he returns.
  
  Family and friends now surround Modeste and thus they prevent any contact between her and the society of young men. Without having met or seen him, Modeste nevertheless falls in love with a poet whose books she quite likes. Modeste secretely writes to him, but the flippant and politically ambitious poet, named Canalis, fobs her letter off to his friend La Brière, who is a poor but hard working serious young civil servant with good career prospects. Writing to her as Canalis, La Brière falls in love with Modeste as they exchange many letters.
  
  Just as the family catches on to Modeste's affair, her father returns with millions. As rumors of his new wealth spread, Canalis decides he cannot let a fortune like that pass him by and begins to court Modeste, as does an impoverished but well bred nobleman, while she now spurns the poor La Brière for having deceived her. Yet it's obvious that the only man who loves her is La Brière and this is the man her father would like her to marry. Will Modeste choose wisely and give the novel a happy ending? Or will she marry for fame and give the novel a touch of tragedy when she realizes the superficiality of her chosen mate?
  
  I find a few faults with the novel, so I take away a star. (On principle, I almost always give five stars to classics.) For example, the story opens with Dumay refusing to give up the lease to a property formely owned by his friend and master Mignon but now lost to a business rival named Vilquin. I expected this to develop into a near epic battle of will between Dumay and Vilquin, but Vilquin is neither seen nor heard after the opening chapter, though we know he is nearby.
  
  Finally, consider this sad irony Modeste's happiness is built on the wealth her father acquired in the Far East. Monsieur Mignon invested in the opium trade, so Modeste's fortune is in fact drug money. Indeed, somewhere in China we can easily imagine a novel featuring a young girl losing her own happiness to Mignon's opium. Balzac hardly consider this, though we can hardly blame him. Few nineteenth century Westerners gave any thought to the happiness and aspirations of Asian or African people.
  
  Vincent Poirier, Montreal
• Who Shakespeare`s "Much ado about nothing`s" like, will like Balzac`s Modeste Mignon, too!
  
  An economic crisis rips Modeste`s father out of business. He leaves Le Havre to get back to new wealth.
  Modeste (after the death of her sister and after the absence of her father) the only child of her parents sees suddenly herself "guarded" of her mother and their remaining friends. They feared Modeste, as before her sister, plane to run off with a young man.
  Modeste (after the loss of wealth of the family) has taken refuge in the world of books and leaves the house almost never. Suddenly she sees herself confronted with subliminal tests/remarks, whose task it is to reveal her lover.
  Secretly she raves for a famous Parisian poet and decide to write him a letter. It develops an intimate correspondence. What Modeste did not know is, that not the poet write the letters, but his amanuensis.
  After the return of her father, now rich again, this illusion is stripped.
  Dissapointed by this, she decides, that er father sould make the desicion to select her a suitable husband.
  At this point then beginns the true Commedia DellÀrte. Her father let her the choise (and testing) between three candidates (the poet, the amanuensis and an duke).