For Love or for Money: Balzac’s Rhetorical Realism by Armine Kotin Mortimer

Abstract

is Meltzer’s rendition of “Moi, je buvais, crispé comme un extravagant” (136). Most of her arguments are lucid, firmly articulated, and also persuasive. But a few do overreach. Surely, the end of the envoi in Edmond Rostand’s famous “Ballade du duel qu’en l’hôtel bourguignon / Monsieur de Bergerac eut avec un bélître” has little to do with touching a ladylove and much to do with touching the vicomte de Valvert with a blade. More generally, determining the unwitting nature of various manifestations of Baudelaire’s double vision can be problematic. Still, Seeing Double constitutes a splendid performance and will represent a significant stop for anyone interested in Baudelaire and in modernity. University of Pennsylvania Gerald Prince MORTIMER, ARMINE KOTIN. For Love or for Money: Balzac’s Rhetorical Realism. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 2011. ISBN 978-0-8142-1169-4. Pp. xi + 333. $52.95. While the author specifies in her introduction that “the reader will not find here anything like a complete interpretation of La comédie humaine” (8), she does provide a very thorough and convincing roadmap of Balzac’s vast literary domain. Mortimer insists on the interaction, rather than the static dichotomy, of what she repeatedly calls the “Prime Movers” of Balzac’s realism, or “the root causes of everything” (301) in the Comédie humaine: “what Balzac invented was precisely a world in which Love needs Money and vice versa” (5). However, even though the two basic forces are inextricably intertwined, relatively few of the multitudinous Balzacian characters can aspire to both: “Happiness means either Love or Money” (133). Indeed, the interaction of the “Prime Movers” usually takes the form of a drawn-out (and most often unequal) struggle, the results of which are frequently visible under the veneer of nineteenth-century bourgeois propriety: “Everywhere Money contaminates Love: greed destroys all the possible family bonds that love might make” (148). The twenty-one chapters of this study are organized into three broad sections—“Rhetorical Forms,” “Semiotic Images,” and “Mimetic Structures” of realism—that recall (but do not mirror) the tripartite structure Balzac chose for the Comédie: “Études de mœurs,” “Études philosophiques,” and “Études analytiques.” Mortimer offers a succinct overview of the three interrelated levels of meaning that she identifies and examines: “the plot, what is being conveyed to inform the reader constitute[s] the mimesis; the semiosis concerns the methods for conveying that information; rhetoric (taken broadly) provides the tools for mimesis and semiosis and in a sense subsumes both” (11). Despite the level of sophistication of the analysis, most chapters in For Love or Money are refreshingly jargon-free. Several chapters are devoted to, or touch on, the issue of Balzac’s famously elaborate family genealogies, which not only structure the plot and adumbrate the dénouement of numerous novels, but also reflect the convoluted financial transactions that link the characters: “The circulation of money, never secondary or insignificant in Balzac, follows a complex structure analogous to the excessive complexities of the genealogy” (158). Other chapters scrutinize the variety of Balzacian character types, which, as it turns out, “are not limited to people, as there are cities, streets, dwellings, furnishings, and clothing that function as types as well” (298). Another analytical thread running through the chapters is Balzac’s notable use of “explications nécessaires”—“where he writes the instruction manual Reviews 831 for his writing” (179)—ostensibly to supply useful background and causality, thereby guiding the reader through the intricacies of the plot, but also to arrive at a sharper or more precise level of realism. One entertaining as well as perceptive chapter is devoted to Balzac’s “Language of Sex”—which, despite being euphemistic and elliptical, usually remains clear. Unsurprisingly, Mortimer illustrates her close readings by regularly supplying quotes in French, followed by English translations. A very minor quibble: one wonders why it was necessary to translate , for instance, “condottieri de l’Industrie moderne” into “condottieri of modern Industry” (95). Consistently insightful and elegantly written, For Love or for Money will likely become an incontournable text for Balzac scholars. Western Washington University Edward Ousselin REGGIANI, CHRISTELLE. L’éternel et l’éphémère: temporalités dans...