Sbohem a jiné prózy – de Balzac Honoré (2022)

In general awareness, Balzac often remains noted as an author who, despite his romantic beginnings, matured into realism, into a critical depiction of life and morals of French society in the first half of the 19th century. In the worst case – as a result of decades of Marxist interpretations – he is seen as a critic of bourgeois society and its dehumanized relationships. This selection of eight novels and stories aims to present Balzac not as a critic of society and human vices, but as a writer of many different genres and thematic positions. He tackled military themes in the novella Goodbye. In immensely impressive, almost apocalyptic scenes, he depicts the disaster of the demoralized French army by the banks of the Berezina River during their retreat from Russia in November 1812; in another part of the novella, he remarkably portrays a woman who has gone mad due to the hardships of war. In the novella The Secrets of Princess de Cadignan, an experienced, even shrewd woman from high society, who has experienced much and squandered not only her wealth, flirts with and manipulates a young, shy writer in such a way that he, blinded by love, sees in her a saint, a pure and noble soul, a suffering victim of her surroundings. Balzac here orchestrates, as only he can, the dynamics of their relationship. The fantastic,…