Lost Illusions

I LOVED this book. This is my second Balzac novel. This was much better written, and it was a page turner. This man could write. I was transported back to a time where class and geography (provincial city versus Paris) meant everything (maybe it still does?) in France.

I cannot wait to get the 2021 movie from the library, but I have to wait for 9 more people to watch it before me. Maybe the summer?

What a tale. I don't want to spoil it. 

Here is why James Mustich thinks it should be one of the 1000 Books You Read Before You Die:

Lost Illusions is a massive novel—more than six hundred pages. Written in three parts between 1837 and 1843, its several story lines conspire to display most of the author’s abiding concerns: the claustrophobic dullness of provincial society and the ruthless snobbery of its Parisian counterpart; the wounds inflicted by every class distinction; the corruption of love and art by money and intrigue; the tawdry expediencies of the literary world; the cynicism of the press; the energies of commerce and industry; youth’s endless capacity for delusion. Balzac no doubt poured his own youthful disenchantments into Lost Illusions. But he filters these disappointments through an intelligence so alert to every nuance of physical, social, and commercial experience that his novel exudes a loyalty to life that no amount of disillusion can diminish.