Old Goriot

ISBN: 1441784624

Author: De Balzac, Honore

Condition: New

Review ''[A] meticulously observed story of love and greed . . . Reminiscent of King Lear, it also resonates today with the clarity of the poet's barbed pen . . . (Narrator) Frederick Davidson is brilliant, deadening his voice for the dreadful daughters and their ghastly husbands, as well as portraying each ridiculous tenant in the boardinghouse . . . But it is Goriot's deathbed scene that causes the hairs to rise on the backs of listeners' neck. Listeners . . . cannot remain unmoved.'' --AudioFile Product Description [MP3CD Audiobook format in vinyl case.] [Read by Frederick Davidson] Balzac's universally loved novel explores the great theme of money and its effect on the human character. Old Goriot is a lodger at Madame Vanquer's Parisian boarding house. At first, his wealth inspires respect, but as his circumstances are reduced, he is gradually shunned by the others. He moves into smaller and less desirable rooms in the house, and soon his only remaining visitors are two beautiful young women. The mystery as to who they are and what is happening to Goriot's fortune involves several other boarders, including Rastignac, an ambitious youth who hopes to rise in society. With its complicities and alliances, mysteries and betrayals, passions and ambitions, the house becomes a microcosm of the grasping Parisian society of the 1820s -- a perfect setting for Balzac's masterful portrayal of la comédie humaine, the whole comedic parade of human life. About the Author HONORÉ DE BALZAC (1799-1850), was born at Tours, educated at the Collge de Vendme, and studied law at the Sorbonne. His father wished him to become a notary, but he left Tours in 1819 to seek his fortune as an author in Paris. He wrote eighty-five novels in twenty years, but his life was one of frequent privation. In 1850, he married Madame Hanska, a rich Polish lady with whom he had corresponded for more than fifteen years but only just met in person. Three months later, Balzac died at Paris.