Colonel Chabert

by Honore de Balzac, Carol Cosman (Translator)

Overview

The story of a French military hero of the Napoleonic Wars, long assumed to be dead, tries to recover his fortune and former wife through the help of a famous Parisian lawyer.

Colonel Chabert, a Napoleonic War hero supposedly killed in the Battle of Eylau, returns to Paris after a long convalescence to find his wife remarried, and his pension gone. He employs a young, well-known lawyer to at least reclaim his pension. It is a game of wits: first to convince the lawyer that he is who he says he is; secondly to get his wife to admit to his identity and thereby give up some of her wealth. Once the lawyer believes Chabert's story, the wife must be made to part with his pension...

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780811224994
Publisher:	New Directions Publishing Corporation
Publication date:	07/13/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	101
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850), born in Tours, ranks among the great masters of the novel. In 1816, he began studying law at the Sorbonne, but after receiving his license in 1819 he decided to abandon it for literature. By the time of his death, he had written over one hundred novels, novellas, and plays, many of them part of his greatest work, La Comedie humaine –– a reproduction of the French society of his time, picturing in precise detail more than 2,000 characters from every class and every profession.
Carol Cosman has translated works by Albert Camus and René Daumal, among others.

What People are Saying About This

Stephan

"Balzac...worked out in his mind to the last detail, his vast structural design of the multifarious forms of human society."

Sommerset Maughan

"I suppose Balzac is the greatest novelist who ever lived."

Editorial Reviews

Reading Balzac is not a reassuring experience. It challenges our humanism, if we have any, but it ultimately does not destroy it.” —A.N. Wilson

From the Publisher

Part of Balzac's COMÉDIE HUMAINE, this novella comes to an ending that either is or is not a happy one, depending on how you think about it. Narrator Bill Homewood's deep, resonant voice—suitably lightened for female characters—carries us along as Chabert, a Napoleonic hero mistakenly listed as having been killed in battle, returns to Paris and tries to reclaim his life. Balzac did not much admire the upper classes, but Homewood only occasionally uses voices and accents to caricature them. The text makes them seem awful enough without his help. The author drew on a wide range of emotions, and this narrator brings them all out evocatively but without unnecessary exaggeration. D.M.H. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine

OCTOBER 2021 - AudioFile

Part of Balzac's COMÉDIE HUMAINE, this novella comes to an ending that either is or is not a happy one, depending on how you think about it. Narrator Bill Homewood's deep, resonant voice—suitably lightened for female characters—carries us along as Chabert, a Napoleonic hero mistakenly listed as having been killed in battle, returns to Paris and tries to reclaim his life. Balzac did not much admire the upper classes, but Homewood only occasionally uses voices and accents to caricature them. The text makes them seem awful enough without his help. The author drew on a wide range of emotions, and this narrator brings them all out evocatively but without unnecessary exaggeration. D.M.H. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine

OCTOBER 2021 - AudioFile