La Peau de chagrin by Balzac, Honoré de
French
Novel
7 chapters
90,321 words
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Uploaded by daniel
Blurb (Provided by JAHayhurst)
"Fantasy and philosophy, symbolism and social history."
The imaginative breadth and the intellectual depth of The Wild Ass's Skin make is one of the greatest of Balzac's 'Etudes philosophiques". With its central symbol of the magic piece of shagreen, it expresses the peculiarly Balzacian idea of the human will and dramatizes with startling urgency the choice between ruthless self-gratification and asceticism, between vice and virtue, between dissipation and restraint. The symbolism is powerful but not overpowering: sheer psychology, superbly chiselled dialogue and the sheer energy of the descriptive passages - the gambling den, the orgy, the devastating finale - give The Wild Ass's Skin a compelling and forceful realism.
(Taken from "The Wild Ass's Skin", Honoré de Balzac [translated by Herbert J. Hunt], Penguin, London, 1977)
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