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Stefan Zweig

According to Stefan Zweig's friend and editor, Richard Friedenthal, his biography of Balzac was intended to be a much more monumental work than this, the culminating achievement of all his biographies. However, the not-altogether-finished manuscript was left behind in Bath when Zweig went to South America in 1940. Zweig continued to work on it briefly, but he quickly lost interest, and eventually he committed suicide in 1941. On at least one occasion the manuscript was narrowly saved from destruction during German air raids before it saw its way to publication in 1946.

Balzac was a prolific writer with a marvellous constitution which he proceeded to abuse mercilessly for most of his adult life. At the age of 33 he dedicated himself to writing a comprehensive collection of novels that would attempt to realistically describe every aspect of mid-19th century French society for posterity. This major work he called "La comedie humaine" (The Human Comedy). This monumental opus was projected to consist of 150 novels comprising some 2000 characters. In fact, Balzac achieved about two-thirds of this remarkably ambitious undertaking, which includes such well-known titles as "Le pere Goriot," "La cousine Bette," and "La recherce de l'absolu."

Balzac wrote thousands of words virtually every day of his adult life. Or, to be more exact, every night: he slept by day until late afternoon at which time he allowed himself to socialize and, more importantly, to absorb every detail of that which he saw and heard; then at midnight, he would sit down at his desk -- for years in unheated garrets in the poorer neighborhoods of Paris -- and write prodigiously until dawn.

During this time Balzac seemed to almost revel in living a life on the edge of financial disaster and emotional collapse; for most of his life he was constantly evading his creditors: "...he adopted a hundred devious ways of holding his creditors at bay, aided by his intimate knowledge of the laws, his inventive skill, and his unscrupulous effrontery."

Traductor William Rose | Dorothy Rose
Idioma Inglés
Publicación 1920 (1970)
Editorial Cassell
Categoría Biografías y Memorias


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