Eugénie Grandet by Honoré De Balzac

Dickens and Balzac have been clumped together for more than just humoristic purposes. Well versed literary critics agree that Honoré is for the French what Charles was for the English. They both describe an interesting shift in time, Balzac the decline of monarchy in France and Dickens the Victorian England and London in particular, the buzzing city life versus the life in the country. What thrilled me to read this book in particular was the foreword that described Honorés life as a struggling writer, always poor, always invested totally in his work. To value art above the struggles of survival is an art in itself.  

Balzac's story Eugénie Grandet is about a young girl who lives in the village of Saumur with her mother and father. The father is a shrewd money loving uncivilized farmer who tactically expands his wealth sacrificing his relationship to his daughter and wife as he does so. One day, when the beautiful Eugénie is already come of age, they receive a visitor,  old Grandet's (the fathers) nephew. Eugénie falls madly in love with her handsome cousin (as was appropriate of the time) and he in turn promises to come back and marry her. While the cousin travels to India, Eugénie pines away remembering her first kiss under the oak tree, always waiting for his return. In due time old Grandet finds out that his daughter has given her cousin all her fortune, a purse of rare gold coins. This is for the father the most abominable sin and he curses his daughter, in so doing, causing the mother to become fatally ill. Old Grandet locks up his daughter for the offense and feed her only bread and water for a year or so. The villagers in Saumur rally to help her but as a true Christian she is ready to suffer for her faith. The good deeds she did was done out of love. Sheer greediness later propels old Grandet to let his daughter out but the family drama continues. Grandets wife who is throughout the book described to be a yellow, crumpled up woman with no voice of her own and described as one destined to the torment under such a husband as hers, only pleads for her daughter in the face of a merciless master. Eventually Eugenie's mother dies and the father only then blesses his daughter as she resigns her right to inheritance. Eugenie's ideology is that money is nothing and love is everything. 

The core of the story, for me, was pretty much the relationship between Grandet and his daughter, Eugénie. At the end of course old Grandet dies and leaves everything to his daughter. She proves herself to be a trustworthy keeper of his fortune but yet she considers the earthy riches inferior to the things she has in Christ. She remains intact even after discovering that her cousin, whom she loved, was corrupted by the world and decided to go another way, marrying for a title a woman that he didn't love. Honoré paints a beautiful picture of a woman who endures despite hardships to maintain the most valuable treasures of all, those immaterial. He seems to say that women in general are better to bear up under hardships than men who easily fall into various temptations. He's was also perhaps unawares to himself, a feminist, in essence describing in Eugénies relationship to her father, the way of earthly fathers in general: they will bless you when you give away your power and right to speak, but will curse you if you defy them with your words or actions. Earthly fathers are only fathers for a time, they too shall pass. As the book of Hebrews says "For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but He for our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness" chapter 12 verse 10.  

I'll confess I haven't finished even one Dicken's yet, but started many. Not counting David Copperfield that i eagerly read through and trough in my adolescence. Eugénie Grandet was a easily approachable novel even though there was no happy ending, happiness can also be more sublime than momentary marital bliss, in Christian terms to "Finnish the race" (2 Timothy 4) is more better, higher goal, to keep the faith until the end and live accordingly, since life forevermore is at stake. A good story with much wisdom to take away.