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The Ball at Sceaux

Gelesen von Bruce Pirie

(5 Sterne; 8 Bewertungen)

The novella “The Ball at Sceaux” is part of Balzac’s great life work — the expansive fiction series titled “The Human Comedy.”

The central character is Émilie de Fontaine, youngest daughter of a noble but impoverished family in post-revolutionary France. Her hapless father hopes to find her a good marriage, but Émilie, spoiled and willful, has repeatedly turned away suitors. She has a list of requirements for any prospective husband, one of which is that he must, of course, be “the son of a peer of France.” (The peerage was an elite aristocratic distinction.) She holds firm to this resolve, but events have a way of turning out surprisingly.

Balzac was a master of irony and realism and his writings were hugely influential in the development of European fiction.
- Summary by Bruce Pirie (2 hr 43 min)

Chapters

Section 1

37:14

Read by Bruce Pirie

Section 2

31:26

Read by Bruce Pirie

Section 3

28:59

Read by Bruce Pirie

Section 4

40:18

Read by Bruce Pirie

Section 5

25:42

Read by Bruce Pirie

Bewertungen

excellent story and well read

(5 Sterne)

Congrats to the reader for taking on those difficult French names.