His is a case that should be approached
indirectly. If one plunges straight into Balzac, at the beginning of
criticism, it is hard to find the right line through the abundance of
good and bad in his books; there is so much of it, and all so strong
and staring. It looks at first sight as though his good and his bad
alike were entirely conspicuous and unmistakable. His devouring
passion for life, his grotesque romance, his truth and his falsity,
these cover the whole space of the Comedie between them, and nobody
could fail to recognize the full force of either. He is tremendous,
his taste is abominable--what more is there to say of Balzac? And that
much has been said so often, in varied words, that there can be no
need to say it again for the ten-thousandth time.
Such is the aspect that Balzac presents, I could feel, when a critic
tries to face him immediately; his obviousness seems to hide
everything else. But if one passes him by, following the track of the
novelist's art elsewhere, and then returns to him with certain
definite conclusions, his aspect is remarkable in quite a new way. His
badness is perhaps as obvious as before; there is nothing fresh to
discover about that. His greatness, however, wears a different look;
it is no longer the plain and open surface that it was. It has depths
and recesses that did not appear till now, enticing to criticism,
promising plentiful illustration of the ideas that have been gathered
by the way.
Pages:
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211