READING: Lost Illusions (and why I hate the French)

Fuck you, Balzac. You broke me. On page 250, after the eleventy millionth time Lucien cried, I gave up. I just couldn't find it in me to trudge ahead 500 more pages. I wasn't getting anything out of it. I wasn't looking forward to reading. Many times, I contemplated death. Not mine: Lucien's. But since there's another book after Lost Illusions (A Harlot High and Low) -- the only way that would happen is if I took time out to write some fanfic which: not so much.

So yeah. I'm done with Balzac. Unless someone writes in with a compelling reason to pick him up again, Balzac's dead to me. 'Course, he's dead to everyone else. Which means Balzac's fucked me again. Goddammit.

I was going to blame French literature in general. I kicked off this year of reading with Stendahl's The Red and the Black and hated almost every page of it. Two hundred and fifty pages of Balzac didn't endear the French to me much, either. Both novels were pretty similar: unlikable heroes struggle with unlikable secondary characters towards some sort of unsatisfying finish. Throw in a lot of irony and sardonicism (which is totally a word, so don't even bother looking it up in the dictionary) (no, really: stop) and you've got yourself (I'll come to your home and take that dictionary away) a French classic.

Just when I was getting ready to write off an entire country and its literature, though, I remembered how much I love Alexandre Dumas and his Musketeer novels, as well as The Count of Monte Cristo. Dumas, unlike Stendahl or Balzac, isn't necessarily trying to comment on French society. Mostly, he's just writing kick-ass adventure stories. (Though The Count of Monte Cristo is a little deeper than that. I mean, yeah, it's a lot of fun and there are cross-dressing lesbians in it -- but I think Dumas is saying some pretty profound and interesting things about the nature of regret and revenge.) Stendahl and Balzac want to be the conscience of their times -- and that, for this reader anyway, leads to some pretty uninteresting reading.

I'm also a fan of Victor Hugo. Both The Hunchback of Notre-Dame and Les Miserables are pretty fantastic reads -- though I gotta tell you, the musical of Les Miserables? Made me motion sick, what with that damn spinning stage. And again: he's not commenting so much on the irony of the society so much as he's telling some powerful human stories with interesting characters whom you actually end up caring about. Lucien, from Lost Illusions, cries to much to really care about.

My favorite French book of all time, though, and maybe one of my Top 10 Books, is Madame Bovary. Emma Bovary frustrates me and breaks my heart. She's also a hand mirror for me, sometimes, as she famously was for Flaubert himself. ("Madame Bovary c'est moi.") Emma Bovary finds herself in the unfortunate position of tragically discovering that life really isn't at all like a novel -- and things don't end well for women who don't grasp that in time. The way Flaubert ends Emma's life is a bold move at a time when realism wasn't quite so hip with the kids. It's jarring, fitting, and upsetting all at the same time.

So, clearly, it's not the French so much as it's these two particular Frenchies that have me staging beret burnings in the courtyard of the apartment building (though burning them indoors might actually help combat that old-person smell). The downside is, it's a book I bought that I couldn't finish. The upside is, I've got two free spots on my bookshelf.

Up next, Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Based on the cover alone, it's gotta be better than Lost Illusions, right?

Right?