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GORIOT

Unlike a writer like Tolstoy,
Balzac neglected to produce one
single masterpiece that earns the
"read this first" recomendation.

   Most people seem to start
   with "Old Goriot" (1834)           aka "Pere Goriot" 
   and that makes some sense.             "Father Goriot"

   
This is story of the struggling student
Rastignac in Paris, embroiled in the    
life of the saintly Goriot and the     
villanous Vautrin...                   
                    
   At the novel's close, Goriot dies 
   in poverty, and the young Rastignac  
   stands on the hill of a cemetery.
   Looking out over Paris he screams
   out an oath, a battle-cry,
   a declaration...


I've seen a number of translations of this,
and I get a different sense of it's meaning
each time I look at it.

Here's one, from a common Penguin edition,
translated by Marion Ayton Crawford in 1951:


     Thus left alone, Rastignac walked a
   few steps to the highest part of the
   cemetery, and saw Paris spread out
   below on both banks of the winding
   Seine.  Lights were beginning to
   twinkle here and there.  His gaze fixed
   almost avidly upon the space that lay          Rather than 
   between the column of the Place Vendome        "avidly", I 
   and the dome of the Invalides; there           suspect  
   lay the splendid world that he had             "greedily" 
   wished to gain.  He eyed that humming          would be better.
   hive with a look that foretold its
   despoliation, as if he already felon 
   on his lips the sweetness of its honey, 
   and said with superb defiance,

     'It's war between us now!'

      And by way of throwing down the
   gauntlet to Society, Rastignac went
   to dine with Madame de Nucingen.


What is the war Rastignac
has in mind?

   Does he succeed in his fight,
   or did he just sell-out?     


There are a few ways of taking this: 

This is a cynical joke.
The boy makes a
ridiculously idealistic         Pledging himself 
speech, and then forgets        to revolution but
about it immediately.           marching off to  
                                dinner instead.  

       
Another view, is that      
in the "modern" Paris       
of Balzac's time, you       
might indeed conduct       
a war on Society by  
attending Society    
dinners.             
                        


Still a third: to our         
ears we expect this war                 
to be be some sort of                Consider that Balzac    
socialist revolution,                himself was always    
but maybe Balzac has                 hustling, always    
something else in mind?              looking for a big    
Rastignac may simply be              score, and sneered    
declaring that he will               at the attitude that    
never die a pauper like              one should ignore   
Goriot.                              money.              
                                                          
                                                             
                                           
There is no follow-on                                    
volume of Rastignac's        (At least no volume    
struggles, we only see       that I know of...    
him again after he's         Anyway, Rastignac's    
become financially           methods are fairly    
successful.  At that         direct: he marries    
point, there's no fire       into money.)       
left in him. He's                       
brought about no                                                  
social change, and                                                
does not seem to be                 In "A Harlot High and Low"        
trying to... he just                Rastignac encounters      
seems like another one              Vautrin once again:            
of the aristocracy of                                          
wealth.                                 "Rastignac thereupon   
                                        did what a millionaire     
                                        does when confronted by 
                                        a higywayman: he          
    After "Goriot",                     surrendered."              
    Rastignac ceases                                              
    to be an                                (translation by         
    interesting                             Rayner Heppenstall)      
    character.                                                 
                                                                   
                                                                   
                                                                      
                                                               
                                                                  

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