"Nothing is insignificant" "Nothing is insignificant" ... is a line of Balzac's. It is also the opening line of Robb's biography. And one would like to say that Robb's biography is a living example of Balzac's truism. But, if so, it would stretch to innumerable volumes. Alas, the first fourteen years of Balzac's 51 are contained in only the first chapter. That's thirty pages out of 420, or one-fourteenth of a book for two-sevenths of a life. (Later chapters would cover just one year of Balzac's life.) But you know how it is; none of... more info
Follow The Bouncing Balzac One of the major accomplishments of this biography is that it will make you want to go out and read all of Balzac. This is because Mr. Robb has sprinkled a liberal number of excerpts from the novels throughout his text. Balzac was both a keen observer and a tireless researcher, with an interest in, literally, everything. He was also tremendously sensitive. When you put all of these qualities together, you get prose that has great depth....resonating between the internal and the external. Mr. Robb, though a... more info
The best biography of Balzac in English since Stefan Zweig. A superlative biography by Graham Robb, Balzac traces the life and career of the nineteenth-century novelist from his beginnings in the beautiful heart of the Loire Valley to his untimely death in 1850, only months after his marriage to the Polish Countess, Mme Hanska. Robb's portrait of the private man, tormented by debt and romantic frustration, is as compelling as his treatment of the literary genius. The result is an impressive, not to say monumental work that, unusually for a book of real academic... more info
