Can someone give me the run down on Balzac. I'm dying to

>>8447863
I don't see how it is sustainable or edifying to read every author's works before moving onto the next one. If i am wrong about this, please show me your wisdom.

Why do you have to get over this self-imposed mountain, as you call it? Will you be struck down if you don't?

I liked Old Goriot by Balzac, which is part of a series but it is often read in isolation. But I guess you can't do that, I forgot.

>>8447900
It probably isn't but, for now, it's a habit I'm working through.

It's been profitable as far as learning to write, especially Joyce and Dostoevsky.

I suppose I mean Balzac is a mountain in the fact he has almost 100 written works, I just want to see if I can tackle that.

>>8447931
He isn't as forbidding as Joyce and Dostoevsky. You could do it, and by doing so you may gain a rarefied insight. Would it be an insight worthy of the labour?

>>8447972
That might be the case, but I'd like to get a complete set or at least know where to start to assemble one

>>8447995
If you have an e-reader there is a complete set on Amazon. There is a suggested reading order on a Balzac website, probably the first one if you Google Balzac reading order.

>>8447863
>but I've gotten into the habit of reading an author's complete works before moving on to the next one.


you may want to avoid Proust, then.

What's the best author who has a short bibliography? I'd like to be able to say I've read someone's complete works.

>>8449988
Petronius. Literally half a novel

>>8447863
more like ballsack lmao

>>8449982
OP Here, already bought the box set.
I flipped a coin between him and Balzac

>>8447863
Start with his most famous works and see if they actually give you the motivation to read the rest : Père Goriot, Lost Illusions, A Harlot High and Low, Colonel Chabert, The Wild Ass's Skin, the Unknown Masterpiece. This should already take you some time.

Read his Cousin Bette and also Cousin Pons - two sides of the same coin. I think that Cousin Bette is his best woerk.

i liked The Wild Ass's Skin

also Barthes wrote a lot about Balzac so it may be something to read along if for some fucked up reason you want to get into literary theory

>>8449988

Juan Rulfo only wrote two books, they arent very long, Pedro Paramo, and El llano en llamos (the burning plain, the plain in flames depending on translation)

>>8447863
frog here

Basically reading ballsack's complete works means reading the human comedy (La comédie humaine). Read the wikipedia entry about it (yeah, i know), and you'll get how the whole balzac thing's going.

His most important books and those we study at school out here are Old Goriot (Le père Goriot), Eugénie Grandet, Cousin Bette (La cousine Bette), and The Lily of the Valley (Le lys dans la vallée).

Balzac was also a pioneer in the fantastic genre in french litterature, and we used to study The Magic Skin (La Peau de chagrin) which also belongs to the Comédie Humaine.

Reading the whole Comédie Humaine means reading 91 books so if you're really into that then go ahead, but I think you'll get a good idea of how he writes with those 5 major books.

Why read 90 Balzac books when you could read 5 or 6 Flaubert WHO WAS THE BETTER WRITER

>>8451519
Why wouldn't he read both ? They're very different from each other. You're not being helpful.

>>8451519
>>8451537
I'll read both. It's all I do anymore. Fifty sixty pages on weekdays, sometimes two hundred a day weekends