Balzac was an author who, apparently, drank 50 cups of coffee a day (ill health killed him early, no surprise there). He was also someone who thought it would be a good idea to write a dissection of the state of marriage in France, despite - at time of writing - not being married himself. I imagine the caffeine was what made him run to three volumes on the subject. I have them all, having downloaded them sometime in the past in a fit of, I don't know, curiosity or masochism or something.

In my defence, his prose has always been outstanding. I've read other books by him before, albeit fictional ones, and he is clever and witty and all credit to the translator here, as that comes across. There's also a very strong sense of tongue in cheek, as Balzac tries to find a way to whittle down the population of France in order to determine just how many honest women inhabit it. (If you are interested, the answer is not many, and all the peasant class is omitted by default.) So there's a strong sense of humour in there, which can be amusing but which makes a sometimes uncomfortable mix with the misogyny, and it would all be easier to swallow if the caffeine that clearly makes up about 90% of his bloodstream had allowed him to focus and whittle down, because the last third, especially, seemed to go on forever. He started ranting about boarding schools as bad places to educate girls and it all sort of fell apart from there.