Name: Gambara
SKU: 56590854
Price: 18.59 EUR
Availability: InStock
Author: Honoré De Balzac
ISBN: 9781545265253

Type

Physical Book

Author

Translated by

Publisher

Language

English

Pages

Format

Paperback

Dimensions

22.9x15.2x0.4 cm

Weight

0.10 kg.

ISBN13

9781545265253

Synopsis "Gambara"

The Milanese nobleman count Andrea Marcosini strolls to the Palais-Royal in Paris, where he spots in the crowd the extraordinary face of a woman with fiery eyes. She tries to escape him, but he chases her as far as a sordid alley behind the Palais-Royal where she disappears. If he is "attached to the step of a woman whose costume announced a deep, radical, ancient, inveterate misery, who was no fairer than so many others he saw each night at the Opéra", it was his eye that was literally spellbound. As soon as he inquires after her he discovers that her name is Marianna and she is married to a composer, performer, instrument-maker and expert on music theory called Gambara - though his music is only beautiful when he is drunk. Marianna sacrifices herself for him, working in humble jobs to pay for their household's upkeep, for she strongly believes in her husband's misunderstood genius. After having tried to save the couple from their miserable existence, to support Gambara from his own means by giving him money (or even worse, by giving him drink), the count finally takes the beautiful Marianna from her husband but then abandons her for a dancer. Marianna then goes back to her husband, more miserable than ever.

Honoré De Balzac

(Author)

View Author's Page

Honoré de Balzac (1799-1851), novelist, playwright, literary and art critic, essayist, journalist, and French printer, is considered one of the great writers of realism. Born in Tours, in 1814 he moved to Paris, where he studied law and began working in a law firm, but his love for literature drove him to abandon his career and dedicate himself to writing. He undertook several businesses, which ended in failure and left him in debt. With The Last Chouan (1829), he achieved great success. From then on, he began a feverish activity, writing, among others, The Physiology of Marriage (1829) and The Wild Ass's Skin (1831), with which he began to consolidate his prestige. In 1834, Balzac, a tireless worker, conceived the idea of making an exhaustive portrait of French society of his time by having the same characters appear in different stories, which began to give his work a unitary sense under the title of The Human Comedy, to which belong titles such as Eugénie Grandet (1833), Father Goriot (1835), Splendors and Miseries of Courtesans (1838-1847) or Cousin Bette (1846), although of the 137 novels that were to make it up, fifty remained incomplete. An extraordinary writer, capable of deploying in his works sublime reflections and ideas, creating an interesting story with strong social criticism through exquisite prose of great poetic level and philosophical depth, Balzac is considered the founder of the modern novel.

See less