Balzac's Pere Goriot

A newcomer to the best society of Paris in the first third of the nineteenth century would have been startled to see a robust figure of a man consuming "a hundred oysters and dozen cutlets with frills" at one sitting, washed down by huge quantities of coffee. After dinner he would have observed the same man dominating a brilliant conversation covering a wide range of topics. There was nothing about the life of Paris in that period of which Balzac did not have knowledge gained through personal experience. In everything that he did Balzac displayed tremendous energy. In addition to ninety-four novels and numerous tales accredited to him, Balzac published under a pseudonym numerous others at the beginning of his career. He was a prodigious worker, a prodigious eater, a prodigious observer, with a remarkable memory for events and details. He had the capacity to identify himself completely with the lowliest workman in Paris and with the most brilliant society woman in the Faubourg St. Germain. It was through this unusual power of complete identification with hundreds of persons, most of whom appeared in his books thinly disguised, that Balzac found an outlet for such stupendous energy. The Human Comedy, the Society of Manners, is a living out of Balzac's conflicts in a myriad of characters and in an epoch of events. To say that Balzac was a manic personality and that he suffered from depressions is true, but does not in any way explain his tremendous accomplishment—which few other manic-depressives have ever equalled.

Balzac observed all phases of contemporary life and stored thousands of details in his massive memory to utilise them in the lives of his characters. Few writers have ever worked so hard as Balzac. It was his custom, dressed in a monk's robe,