I’ll admit I have little to zero knowledge about French Classic Lit. So, I began this book without any idea of what I was going to read, besides the blurb in the back.

If I remember correctly, Balzac was a realist writer (apparently, according to Wikipedia, I remember perfectly) and this novel, of course, is full of details. He gives a lot of description of setting and clothes, which helps to give the book a more realistic tone. At least, they helped me picture 19th century Paris more vividly. That’s one thing I really like about Realism, if you ask me.

The story centers around the Hulot family. They have a poor cousin (Bette, of course), who spends most of her time in their home (now that I come to think about it, it was a little odd. She didn’t like her family at all, who spend so much time there?). She’s forty-two and still single, which has embittered her quite a bit (maybe an understatement). She finally implodes when her cousin Hortense, a pretty young girl, falls for Wenceslas Steinbock, a polish refugee Bette has saved from suicide earlier. Bette actually has reasons for thinking this way, as Hortense thinks Wenceslas was Bette’s beau and she wanted to steal him from her.

Actually, the family was pretty shitty.

After Hortense and Wenceslas marry, Bette decides to let her fury win over and begins planning her revenge. She takes advantage of M. Hulot’s constant infidelities, by asking one of her friends (Valerie Marnett) to seduce him, in order to drain the family’s money. She also asks her to seduce Wenceslas and Crevel, a family friend. Oh, and Montés, a Brazilian baron.

Throughout the book, Bette conspires to make the Hulots miserable and succeeds to do so. The family is utterly crashed by their debts and the decaying moral ambience around them. Then again, the whole family pretty horrible characters. Even the mother, who is supposed to be some sort of saint, thinks it’s a good idea to make Bette suffer. I don’t mean to say that they deserved Bette’s crazy plot. They do deserve some shit, not the crapload Bette throws at them.

The most decent human being in the family is easily the mother, Adeline. She suffers her cheating husband, supports her daughter after she leaves Wenceslas, and so on.

AND THEN SHE DIES.

To add insult to injury, her husband gets married to a maid just after she dies. What an asshole, really. I’m not his fan. I mean, half of the problems of the family come from him not being able to put it into his freaking pants. He should have died, not his decent wife. I almost threw the book to the wall at this point, though it was almost in the final pages.

But I liked, overall. I mean, there are lots of infuriating moments, but the book is really good and it keeps you going. That’s not a small feat for a classic lit piece (although I have to say that I’m an English Major, so my standard may be different from other people’s). So give it a read, at least once in a lifetime.