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027 - Balzac in English · Reviews

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  Speaker 1: Section twenty six of reviews by Oscar Wilde. This is
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  Speaker 1: a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer place, visit LibriVox dot org.
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  Speaker 1: Recording by Israel. Reviews by Oscar Wilde, edited by Robert Ross,
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  Speaker 1: Section twenty six Balzac in English Paul Maulgazette, September thirteenth,
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  Speaker 1: eighteen eighty six. Many years ago, in a number of
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  Speaker 1: All the Year Round, Charles Dickens complained that Balzac was
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  Speaker 1: very little read in England, and although since then the
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  Speaker 1: public has become more familiar with the great masterpieces of
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  Speaker 1: French fiction, still it may be doubted whether the comedie
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  Speaker 1: Men is at all appreciated or understood by the general
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  Speaker 1: run of novel readers. It is really the greatest monument
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  Speaker 1: that literature has produced in our century, and mister Tayne
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  Speaker 1: hardly exaggerates when he says that, after Shakespeare, Balzac is
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  Speaker 1: our most important magazine of documents on human nature. Balzac's same,
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  Speaker 1: in fact, was to do for humanity what Buforont had
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  Speaker 1: done for the animal creation, as the naturally studied lions
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  Speaker 1: and tigers. So the novelists studied men and women, Yet
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  Speaker 1: he was no mere reporter. Photography and poseverbal were not
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  Speaker 1: the essentials of his method. Observation gave him the facts
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  Speaker 1: of life, but his genius converted facts into truths, and
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  Speaker 1: truths into truth. He was, in a word, a marvelous
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  Speaker 1: combination of the artistic temperament with the scientific spirit. The
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  Speaker 1: latter he bequeathed to his disciples. The former was entirely
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  Speaker 1: his own. The distinction between such a book as mosiez
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  Speaker 1: Les Lessonnoir and such a book as Balzac's Ill Jean
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  Speaker 1: Perdeu is the de distinction between unimaginative realism and imaginative reality.
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  Speaker 1: All Balzac's characters, said Blaire, are gifted with the same
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  Speaker 1: ardor of life that animated himself. All his fictions are
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  Speaker 1: as deeply colored as dreams. Every mind is a weapon
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  Speaker 1: loaded to the muzzle with will. The very scullions have genius.
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  Speaker 1: He was, of course, accused of being immoral. Few writers
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  Speaker 1: who deal directly with life escape that charge. His answer
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  Speaker 1: to the accusation was characteristic and conclusive. Whoever contributes his
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  Speaker 1: tone to the edifice of ideas he wrote, whoever proclaims
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  Speaker 1: an abuse, whoever sets his mark upon an evil to
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  Speaker 1: be abolished always passes for immoral. If you are true
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  Speaker 1: in your portraits, if by dint of daily and nightly
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  Speaker 1: toil you succeed in writing the most difficult language in
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  Speaker 1: the world, the word immoral is thrown in your face.
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  Speaker 1: The morals of the personage of the Comedy Men are
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  Speaker 1: simply the morals of the world around us. They are
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  Speaker 1: part of the artist's subject matter. They are not part
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  Speaker 1: of his method. If there be any need of censure,
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  Speaker 1: it is to life, not to literature, that it should
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  Speaker 1: be given. Balzac, besides, is essentially universal. He sees life
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  Speaker 1: from every point of view. He has no preferences and
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  Speaker 1: no prejudices. He does not try to prove anything. He
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  Speaker 1: feels that the spectacle of life contains its own secret.
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  Speaker 1: Il Creermunde isute, and what a world it is, What
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  Speaker 1: a panorama of passions, what a pellmell of men and women.
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  Speaker 1: It was said of troll Up that he increased the
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  Speaker 1: number of our acquaintances without adding to our visiting list.
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  Speaker 1: But after the Comedie Men, one begins to believe that
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  Speaker 1: the only real people are the people who have never existed.
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  Speaker 1: Lucian Dorri Bampo, Letergorieu, Ursule Miroue Marguerite class, the Baron Ulleux,
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  Speaker 1: Madame marnef Lucus, appons de Marcies all bring with them
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  Speaker 1: a kind of contagious illusion of life. They have a
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  Speaker 1: fierce vitality about them. Their existence is fervent and fiery colored.
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  Speaker 1: We not merely feel for them, but we see them.
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  Speaker 1: They dominate our fancy and defy skepticism. A steady cause
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  Speaker 1: of Balzac reduces our living friends to shadows, and our
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  Speaker 1: acquaintances to the shadows of shades. Who would care to
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  Speaker 1: go out to an evening party to meet Tompkins, the
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  Speaker 1: friend of one's boyhood? When one gets see at home
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  Speaker 1: with Luciandro ru Bampo, It is pleasanter to have the
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  Speaker 1: entree to Balzac society than to receive cards from all
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  Speaker 1: the duchesses in Mayfair. In spite of this, there are
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  Speaker 1: many people who have declared the comedy men to be indigestible.
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  Speaker 1: Perhaps it is, but then what about traffles. Balzac's publisher
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  Speaker 1: refused to be disturbed by any such criticism, as that
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  Speaker 1: indigestible is it? He exclaimed, with what for a publisher
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  Speaker 1: was rare good sense. Well, I should hope so who
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  Speaker 1: ever thinks of a dinner that isn't. And our English publisher,
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  Speaker 1: mister Routledge clearly agrees with Monsieur pole Melascy as he
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  Speaker 1: is occupied in producing a complete translation of the comedy Men.
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  Speaker 1: The two volumes that at present lie before us contained
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  Speaker 1: Cesar Berutau, that terrible tragedy of Finance, and Lilus Tregudissar,
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  Speaker 1: the apotheosis of the commercial Traveler. The Duchesse de Langes,
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  Speaker 1: most marvelous of modern love stories, Luce do' raconnu, from
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  Speaker 1: which mister Henry James took he is Madonna of the Future,
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  Speaker 1: and that extraordinary romance in Passion donno desire. The choice
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  Speaker 1: of stories is quite excellent, but the translations are very unequal,
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  Speaker 1: and some of them are positively bad. The lustre Godissa,
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  Speaker 1: for instance, is full of the most grotesque mistakes, mistakes
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  Speaker 1: that would disgrace a schoolboy. Bon concail with annoys do
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  Speaker 1: Lemma is translated good advice is a n eag in
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  Speaker 1: the hand ECUs rebelle is rendered rebellous looker, and such
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  Speaker 1: common expressions as fer la barbe atenre lavant Nonreria paliurn
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  Speaker 1: affaire are all mistranslated. De busdo cosso Ferracurdon is not
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  Speaker 1: a few trees to slice into toothpicks, but as much
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  Speaker 1: timber as would make a toothpick. So nor ent fermidence
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  Speaker 1: in grandar moire. Roublanngue is not a clock which he
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  Speaker 1: kept shut up in a large oblong closet, but simply
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  Speaker 1: a clock in a tall clock case. Journalviaget is not
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  Speaker 1: an annuity. Gers is not the same as farce, and
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  Speaker 1: de Saint Desander are not drawings of the indies. On
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  Speaker 1: the whole, nothing can be worse than this translation, And
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  Speaker 1: if mister Routledge wishes the public to read his version
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  Speaker 1: of the comediew Men, he should engage translators who have
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  Speaker 1: some slight knowledge of French. Caesarberoutout is better, though it
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  Speaker 1: is not by any means free from mistakes. To suffer
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  Speaker 1: under the maximum is an absurd rendering of Subero maximum.
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  Speaker 1: Perse is chins, not persian chins. Entre la pambini is
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  Speaker 1: not to take the wafer. Riviere is hardly a filate
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  Speaker 1: of diamonds. And to translate sun cur vetalclusal andredloayis by
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  Speaker 1: his heart was a callous in the direction of Alise
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  Speaker 1: is an insult to the two languages on the whole.
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  Speaker 1: The best version is that of the Duches Dolanges, though
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  Speaker 1: even this leaves much to be desired. Such a sentence
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  Speaker 1: as to imitate the rough logician who marched before the Pyroonians,
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  Speaker 1: while denying his own movement, entirely misses the point of
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  Speaker 1: Balzac's imitillo Logicianki marchedovone Pirna quig Niello movement. We fear
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  Speaker 1: mister Routledge's edition will not do. It is well printed
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  Speaker 1: and nicely bound, but his translators do not understand French.
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  Speaker 1: It is a great pity for La coomedeu men is
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  Speaker 1: one of the masterpieces of the age. Balzac's novels in English,
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  Speaker 1: The Duches Dolanges and Other Stories Cesarberoutou, Brautledge and Sons.
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  Speaker 1: End of section twenty six. Balzac in English