A busy day. On the road, I saw an advertising copy for the sale of a house, occupational disease, and I would pay attention to the relevant information of houses in various places.

Copywriting: "Read a mountain with the breath of the sea, and taste a piece of the sea from the perspective of the mountain" probably means something like this!

One of the guardians of the Devil, Balzac

Honoré, de and Balzac (1799-1850), a famous French writer of the 19th century, was one of the most accomplished French realist writers. He wrote 91 novels and wrote more than 2,400 characters, which is a rare literary monument in the history of human literature and is known as the "encyclopedia" of French society.

Balzac was born into a family of citizens in Tours, in the region of Touraine, France. Her father was a farmer and a fickle man who quickly amassed wealth through skillful drilling, and her mother, the daughter of a Parisian banker, believed that "wealth is everything".

The eldest son, Balzac received little family warmth, and was soon sent to the suburbs of Tours, where he was raised by the wife of a gendarme, and when he grew up he was sent to the Vendôme missionary school, and Balzac had a bad relationship with his mother, who said: "I have never had a mother, she is terrible. 」

From his youth, Balzac began to read a wide range of books. After graduating from high school in 1813, Balzac entered the Faculty of Law of the University of Paris at his father's behest, but he was not interested in law and instead audited many courses at the Faculty of Letters.

At the same time, he also studied mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and other natural science courses. The accumulation of these fields of natural sciences played an important role in the formation of Balzac's style.

The Human Comedy was inspired by the French biologist Buffon's construction of a naturalist encyclopedia of the Zoological World.

When he was in college, his parents wanted him to familiarize himself with his future career as early as possible. He was assigned an apprenticeship with an attorney ad litem and a notary public.

A few years of apprenticeship have benefited him a lot, not only to familiarize himself with civil procedure, but also to get a glimpse of the mysteries of Parisian society through this legal window, to see the evils of the prosperous scene, and to accumulate a lot of material for future creations.

In 1819, Balzac graduated from law school, and in the same year he rejected the position of notary public arranged for him by his family, insisting on a literary path with no means of subsistence.

In order to prove his literary talent to his parents, he worked hard for a year almost without leaving home to complete his debut poetic drama "Cromwell".

As a result, he was greatly disappointed. An academician of the Académie Française said after watching the play: "This author can do whatever he wants. Just don't engage in literature. 」

In order to get rid of financial dependence on parents. Balzac used various pseudonyms to concoct and write popular novels for booksellers to make ends meet.

Of course, these purely commercial works for the purpose of making money did not bring him the credit he expected, and he later even denied that they were his own.

Subsequently. In order to seek a stable source of income for his serious creations. He decided to give up writing and business for the time being. From 1825 onwards. He tried his hand at publishing, opened a printing shop, and a casting factory, but each time he failed.

Four years of ups and downs in the business sea. Let him taste the pain of bankruptcy, bankruptcy, liquidation, and debt. In the end, his mother came forward to pay off his debts. Desperate, Balzac had no choice but to give up and re-enter literary creation. All the setbacks in life are transformed into successful creative material under his pen.

At this time, Balzac decided to achieve a vigorous literary achievement. He placed a statue of Napoleon in his study and carved the words on the scabbard of the statue: "What he has not done with his sword, I will finish with my pen!"

In 1829, Balzac completed the long historical novel The Juan, the first historical novel published under the signature of "Honoré and Balzac".

Although the novel did not cause a huge repercussion in French society, it did earn Balzac a solid place in the literary world.

In 1830, he published eight works, including "The Physiology of Marriage", "The Suburban Ball", "The Cat Playing Ball Shop", "The Usurer", and "The Donkey's Skin".

The frustrations and sufferings of his early life led Balzac to write with an almost masochistic industriousness. Beginning in 1830, he entered the climax of his creation, publishing dozens of novels of varying lengths at a dizzying pace, all of which attracted attention.

By the time Eugenie and Grandet came out in 1833, Balzac was already a well-known writer in Europe.

The period from 1829 to 1834 was the first stage of Balzac's creation and the gestation stage of The Human Comedy. During this period, he published a total of 42 novels, most of which were written during this period, such as "The Cat Playing Ball Shop", "The Dance Party in Sioux Town", and "The Potion of Longevity" published in 1830.

In 1831, "The Masterpiece of the Mysteries", "The Hotel of the Red House", in 1832, "Colonel Chabe", "The Priest of the Diocese of Tours", etc. The novels "The Skin of a Donkey" and "Eugenie and Grandet" are also the fruits of this period.

For Balzac, the most significant event of this period was the completion of the grand project of The Human Comedy.

He decided to serialize all his works. At first, he named this vast framework "Social Research", which was later changed to "The Human Comedy" because of the influence of Dante's Divine Comedy. There are three parts: "Custom Studies", "Philosophical Studies" and "Analytical Studies".

Balzac wanted to compare all the strife and competition, joys and sorrows in the world to scenes on the big stage of life, tragicomedy scenes.

Beginning with the publication of The Tall Old Man in 1835, Balzac entered the second phase of his creative career, that is, the stage of writing for The Human Comedy.

"The Tall Old Man" is undoubtedly the best work of this period, and the novel truly shows all aspects of Parisian society, exposing the evils of human nature under the erosion of money.

During this period, Balzac published 16 novels, 10 novellas and 8 short stories. Including "Eve's Daughter", "Antique Showroom", "Woman Stirring the Water" and many more.

Among them, "Disillusionment", published in 1839, is another outstanding work after "The Old Man". The novel's critique and exposure of the press caused an uproar, and a siege and pen war lasted for several years, after which almost all of Balzac's works were viciously attacked by the press.

In 1841, Balzac and the publisher formally signed a contract for the publication of the 16-volume Human Comedy. All of his early works are compiled into a coherent whole.

In 1842, Balzac's creation entered the third stage, the stage of systematically publishing The Human Comedy. While revising and compiling old works, new works are constantly being added.

The Peasant, which reflects the disintegration of the manor economy, is an important achievement of this period. The Human Comedy is published at a rate of three to four volumes per year. By 1846, 16 volumes had been published.

From the autumn of 1846 to the spring of 1847, he published two more novels, "Aunt Pei" and "Uncle Bunce". These two works are supplemented as the seventeenth volume of The Human Comedy. Published in 1848.

At this point, a "Human Comedy" composed of more than 90 novels has been basically completed.

In order to complete the huge creative project of "The Human Comedy", Balzac worked day and night for 20 years.

He often goes to bed at 6 p.m. and wakes up at 12 a.m. every night. Dressed in the robes of Santo Dominic. Light four candles. Work 16 hours in one breath, only shower at 7 a.m. and take a break. The publisher would send someone to get the manuscript, and in 1834, it was 20 hours a day.

Balzac's biographer, George Saintsbury, once said, "No one can tell whether he is living or writing".

He wrote hundreds of thousands of words of "Old Man Gao" in one go in three days, "Country Doctor" took 72 hours, and "Saicha, Pirodo" was written in 25 hours.

Balzac also often worked as a proofreader, making six or seven revisions to a manuscript, making drastic changes until he was satisfied, and sometimes demanding changes to the published content, which led to an increase in the publisher's expenses.

In a 200-page book, proofs often add up to more than 2,000 pages. Balzac neither smoked nor drank heavily, but in order to keep his writing sober, Balzac was a strong coffee addict, and whenever he had free time during the day, he went to the streets of Paris to buy coffee beans.

There is no milk in the coffee, no sugar is added to it, it is bitter enough to numb the stomach, and he once said, "I will die of 30,000 cups of coffee." According to experts, he drank about 50,000 cups of strong coffee in his lifetime.

Coupled with the fact that he was plagued by debts all his life, constantly pursued by usurers and publishers, and often forced to flee his residence to avoid debts, Balzac's health deteriorated from the age of 40, and after the age of 50 he was seriously ill.

One of Balzac's many dreams in his life was his marriage to a wealthy lady, the 24-year-old who had fallen in love with Madame Bernie, who was 44 years old.

Madame Berne was said to be the only woman who really loved Balzac.

After he became famous, he went in and out of the salons of French high society, had several houses and villas in Paris, went out in the most ornate carriages, wore uniforms as a servant, had affairs with many mistresses, had several illegitimate children, and borrowed money from his girlfriends and mistresses to pay off his debts.

Once he had money and spent it casually, he was intoxicated with luxury and pomp, and his mother borrowed money from him, but Balzac was stingy in lending.

In 1850, he married Mrs. Hanska, whom he had been in love with for a long time, in Russia, and the two returned to France after the wedding. Balzac fell ill on the way, nearly blind.

When he arrived in Paris, he was already ill, and in a coma, he called out the names of the miracle characters in "The Human Comedy" Biloan and Horace: "If Biloan had been here, he would have saved me!" On August 18, Balzac died, ending his hard life.

"The Human Comedy" has completed 91 films. Three days later, the funeral was held at the Père Lachaise cemetery, and the procession of Parisians who came to pay the funeral stretched several streets.

The famous French sculptor Rodin personally sculpted a bust for him. Shortly after his death, his wife cohabited with a painter nicknamed "Grey Lice", but nevertheless paid off all his debts for Balzac and published the complete works for him.

Balzac's place in the history of French literature is very important. Before him, French novels had not been able to completely break away from the structure of the story, and the subject matter and artistic expression had certain limitations.

Balzac expanded the artistic space of the novel, expanding the subject matter of literature almost infinitely, so that all aspects of society, including those that seem to be incompatible with the poetic and pictorial meaning of literature, can be depicted.

He borrowed the characteristics of other literary genres, and integrated various art forms such as drama, epic, painting, and modeling into the creation of novels, which enriched the artistic skills of novels so greatly for the first time in the history of Western literature.

The critic Tanner praised him: "What really makes him a philosopher, and above all great art, is that all his works are joined together into one work, and all the works are connected to each other, the same figure is repeated and related to each other."

No artist has ever amassed so much brilliance in the characters he is depicting, and there has never been such a perfection What makes Balzac truly great is that he grasps reality, and holds the whole, his great system, and his painting is powerfully unified, faithful and interesting. 」

Balzac's greatest contribution to realist literature lies in his detailed portrayal of typical characters and social customs, and in expressing the changes and development of characters' personalities in the social environment.

He described the rising bourgeoisie as a "chronicle" year by year, depicting the increasing impact of the rising bourgeoisie on aristocratic society. The characters he created, such as Old Man Gao, Grandet, Gobusick, Rastigne, Lucien, Aunt Pei, and Votolen, have almost become model images of representatives of different types of bourgeoisie in literary history, and have had a profound impact on later realist literature. Although these characters are all typical, they have distinct personalities.

Although Balzac's novels ruthlessly exposed the injustice and darkness of society, he himself was not in favor of large-scale social revolution, which is why he did not join the French Romantic literary movement that was in full swing at the time. He once said, "Nothing can change the hierarchy of human society except slow improvement. 」

Balzac's self-assessment was: "If I collected all the stones thrown at me, it would be enough to build the greatest monument to the writers, and what I would acquire from others would not be stealing, but conquest, merger." (To be continued......)