The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 18 June 2013
by Honoré de Balzac
What is the point of collecting valuable trinkets and baubles? Who knows, maybe this junk will make you rich someday. What ever happened to all those folks who thought Beanie Babies were a valuable investment? Perhaps they're just waiting for them to appreciate. Then again, you might be a bargain hunter. You know where the value lies. There is a joy in getting something great for a low price; the proverbial Monet at a garage sale. Historical evidence shows that Honoré de Balzac himself was a bit of a bric-a-brac collector. And thus we meet Sylvain Pons, a man thought to be poor (making this book one of a duet, with Cousin Bette, Balzac styled Poor Relations). He shuffles through Paris in threadbare clothes badly out of date. He sponges off his distant wealthy relatives, luxuriating in their lavish dinners. He lives seemingly hand-to-mouth on his work as the conductor of a small theater orchestra and occasional piano teacher. He lives with Schmucke, a fawning German musician, in a relationship akin to a loving marriage. Pons, however, has been collecting his bric-a-brac for decades, and it's grown in value to a million francs (not a trivial amount in 1846). Pons runs afoul of his relatives, though, somewhere in the middle of the book, and they just then learn of the value of his collection. Here, Balzac himself states, is where the real story begins. A spiralling cloud of vultures begins to circle over Pons and his riches. Forces start to push him toward the grave. Legal and filial powers begin to pick at Pons and Schmucke. Creepy greedy characters wander in from the wings, making deals with one another, promising money and position if only Pons's inheritance could be steered their way.
The story here is dark and Balzac's descriptions merciless. Pons, and especially Schmucke, are swept up into a whirlwind of legal wrangling designed to overwhelm their simple goodness, all in service of essentially stealing their hidden wealth. Both are done to death, and Balzac's wit and grim opinion of the Human Comedy keep the story dark, unpredictable, and ultimately genuine in its description of human behavior that looks familiar to us now, more than a century and a half after his writing. The book is somewhat uneven and said to be rife with flaws (it was written very late in its author's career). It doesn't have the honed wit of its companion Cousin Bette, but it is definitely a beast of a similar kind. A great observational story about life in Paris, among the poor as well as the rich, in a society of climbers and graspers. Does an innocent soul like that of Schmucke or Pons have any chance in such an environment?
Also by Balzac: [Cousin Bette] [Ursule Mirouët] [Eugénie Grandet] [Pére Goriot] [Gobseck]