Skip to content
Description
By: Honoré De Balzac
Two very intelligent, very idealistic young women leave the convent school where they became the fastest of friends to return to their families and embark on their new lives. For Renée de Maucombe, this means an arranged marriage with a country gentleman of Provence, a fine if slightly dull man for whom she feels admiration but nothing more. Meanwhile, Louise de Chaulieu makes for her family’s house in Paris, intent on enjoying her freedom to the fullest: glittering balls, the opera, and above all, she devoutly hopes, the torments and ecstasies of true love and passion. What will come of these very different lives?
Despite Honoré de Balzac’s title, these aren’t memoirs; rather, this is an epistolary novel. For some ten years, these two will—enthusiastically if not always faithfully—keep up their correspondence, obeying their vow to tell each other every tiny detail of their strange new lives, comparing their destinies, defending and sometimes bemoaning their choices, detailing the many changes, personal and social, that they undergo. As Balzac writes, “Renée is reason...Louise is wildness...and both will lose.” Balzac being Balzac, he seems to argue for the virtues of one of these lives over the other; but Balzac being Balzac, that argument remains profoundly ambiguous. “I would,” he once wrote, “rather be killed by Louise than live a long life with Renée.”
Two very intelligent, very idealistic young women leave the convent school where they became the fastest of friends to return to their families and embark on their new lives. For Renée de Maucombe, this means an arranged marriage with a country gentleman of Provence, a fine if slightly dull man for whom she feels admiration but nothing more. Meanwhile, Louise de Chaulieu makes for her family’s house in Paris, intent on enjoying her freedom to the fullest: glittering balls, the opera, and above all, she devoutly hopes, the torments and ecstasies of true love and passion. What will come of these very different lives?
Despite Honoré de Balzac’s title, these aren’t memoirs; rather, this is an epistolary novel. For some ten years, these two will—enthusiastically if not always faithfully—keep up their correspondence, obeying their vow to tell each other every tiny detail of their strange new lives, comparing their destinies, defending and sometimes bemoaning their choices, detailing the many changes, personal and social, that they undergo. As Balzac writes, “Renée is reason...Louise is wildness...and both will lose.” Balzac being Balzac, he seems to argue for the virtues of one of these lives over the other; but Balzac being Balzac, that argument remains profoundly ambiguous. “I would,” he once wrote, “rather be killed by Louise than live a long life with Renée.”
You may also like
Top Trending
Dog Man 14: Dog Man: Big Jim Believes: A Graphic Novel (Dog Man #14)
Sale priceHK$85.00
Regular priceHK$150.00
In stock
Press Start! #17 The Super Jump Between Worlds! (Branches)
Sale priceHK$55.00
Regular priceHK$98.00
In stock
Billy and the Mini Monsters: Monsters Play Football
Sale priceHK$59.00
Regular priceHK$98.00
In stock
Darkstalker: A Graphic Novel (Wings of Fire: Legends Graphic Novel)
Sale priceHK$99.00
Regular priceHK$154.00
In stock
Pocket Potters Bundle with Limited free Tote Bag
Sale priceHK$239.00
Regular priceHK$520.00
In stock
Anzu and the Realm of Darkness: A Graphic Novel
Sale priceFrom HK$85.00
Regular priceHK$140.00
In stock
