Cananyone give me his opinion about Balzac's work? But please, be honest and answer only if you've read smth

Answer 1

The human comedie is both fun to read and tough going for us today, read in the original or translated. OLD GORIOT and COUSIN BETTE are his 2 best works. He is usually translated as a skilled journalist who over does his take an Parisian society and the squalor of the working class. He has been compared to Dickens but he lacked Dickens humanist and comical genius. One of the most prolific writers in history, he is credited with creating, along with Voltaire, Realism which Theodore Dreiser and Frank Norris championed in American literature. I think there are livelier, more moving ways of writing, employing more imagination, linguistic music, and metaphor. William Faulkner typifies this more "poetic" style. Henry James had the more psychological style...but it all becomes one cloth in the end. Best to read Balzac in French, I'm sure, to get the full measure of his style and feelings.