Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Honoré de Balzac

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted 21:12, 19 September 2007.

---

Honoré de Balzac

I, one of the principal authors of the page, wish to nominate Honoré de Balzac as a Featured Article Candidate. It was declared to be GA on 25 Aug 07, and has undergone extensive review (including two detailed peer reviews) and revision since. (Special thanks to Awadewit for guidance through this process.) The article includes a number of references to a biography by Graham Robb, a definitive work on Balzac – it was selected by the New York Times as one of the Best Books of 1994 (4 Dec 1994, p. A3). Thank you in advance for your consideration. Scartol · Talk 11:37, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

• Comment, this looks good, but there are some WP:DASH issues, you need to have consistently either unspaced emdashes or spaced endashes around parenthetical clauses. Also non-breaking spaces before and after ellipses per WP:MOS#Ellipses.--Grahamec 15:08, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

 Done I've always used spaced en dashes; I suppose someone came along and changed one set to ems. Fixed, as are the ellipses (most of them are the sentence-ending variety, in no need of spaces). – Scartol · Talk 17:32, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Support--Grahamec 02:18, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

• Support I've been watching this article grow and expand for awhile. I gave it a minor peer review, made some minor edits and offered some minor advice to Scartol. I have nothing more to add. It's a great article. --JayHenry 16:03, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

• Support (Full disclosure: I have peer reviewed and copy edited this article.) This article is well-researched, well-written, and comprehensive; more importantly, it is a pleasure to read - Balzac really comes alive through Scartol's writing and choice of quotation. I'm so happy that he has taken the time to write on this major literary figure. Awadewit | talk 18:49, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

• Comment. I am changing to Support now that the editor has responded to the comments below.qp10qp 19:38, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Large stretches of this article seem to me of featured status, particularly the biographical sections. I'm leaning towards supporting, but I feel that a few thin or obscure passages occur. Before I bring these up, may I say how refreshing it is to see an article for a major literary figure brought to this standard here. I've tangled with Anton Chekhov and William Shakespeare in my time, so I know how tricky it is to write a short, encyclopedic article on prolific "great" writers. The most difficult bits to hit off are the critical and style sections, I've found.

(I'm going to make some further comments to the article talk page later; but those will be editing points not connected to my support or otherwise for this article.)

• I found it hard to pick the bones out of the following passage:

Soon afterwards, around the time of his father's death, Balzac wrote "El Verdugo" – about a 30-year-old man who kills his father (Balzac was 30 years old at the time). This was the first work signed "Honoré de Balzac". Like his father, he added the aristocratic-sounding particle to help him fit into respected society, but he had a more nuanced reason. "The aristocracy and authority of talent are more substantial than the aristocracy of names and material power," he wrote in 1830. The timing of the decision was also significant. Robb frames it this way: "The disappearance of the father coincides with the adoption of the nobiliary particle. A symbolic inheritance."

My impression was that this was either a highly complex way of saying something simple (after his father's death, Balzac added the aristocratic-sounding de to his name to help him fit into respected society and as a form of inheritance) or an unclear attempt to present some deeply symbolic idea that the connection between a novel about a thirty-year-old man killing his father and Balzac's assumption of his father's de signifies some kind of psycho-literary emergence that both buries and inherits the past (you see, I'm floundering already: you guessed it, I'm that dull beast, a historian). I feel that if Balzac made a deliberate connection between El Verdugo and the death of his father (that's interesting, definitely), it should be stated and reffed. If he also connected that to the de thing, that connection should be stated, too (since the readers are being nudged to synthesise the two, are they not?).

A contradiction between the two quotes in this passage strikes me. In the first, Balzac is saying that aristocratic names aren't important (which makes me wonder how that can be a "more nuanced reason" for adding the aristocratic de—forgive me if I'm being slow on the uptake here: it wouldn't be the first time). The second quote says that the change in the name is a symbolic inheritance: yet Balzac has just been quoted saying he doesn't regard that sort of thing as important. The last quote also, perhaps, would benefit from placing nearer the opening sentence of the paragraph, to which it relates, I would have thought.

Thank you for your comments and kind feedback. With regard to this passage, Robb (considered the most definitive biographer at the moment) makes the connection to El Verdugo, not Balzac. Robb also cites the quote about the "aristocracy of talent", in the same section (seven pages away), as part of his discussion on why Honoré added the de. Robb definitely does synthesize the two, so it seemed fair to pass this along. (Maybe I need to make it more clear that the connection is Robb's?)

Well, maybe; more importantly, perhaps actually make the connection overt, because the article doesn't join the dots of that together, in my opinion. It stacks the points up and leaves the readers to make the connections themselves.qp10qp 19:42, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

The passage is written as it is because I tried to provide the following in it:

1. What he did
2. Reason #1 for doing it, followed by supporting quotation
3. Reason #2 for doing it, followed by supporting quotation

But in the following, how does that quotation support the more nuanced reason (and what was the more nuanced reason)?

Like his father, he added the aristocratic-sounding particle to help him fit into respected society, but he had a more nuanced reason. "The aristocracy and authority of talent are more substantial than the aristocracy of names and material power," he wrote in 1830. qp10qp 19:42, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the paragraph is complicated, but I don't feel that it's necessarily contradictory. It's true that Balzac said that traditional forms of aristocratic lineage aren't as important as "aristocracy of talent", but this doesn't preclude a belief in the idea of aristocracy itself. Further, this connects to his view of his father, who worked his way into aristocratic (or near-aristocratic) circles through his hard work and talent.

That helps. So I presume Balzac is saying, "the aristocracy of names may not be as important as the aristocracy of talent, but aristocracy of talent isn't going to get me tables in restaurants so I might as well have the de as well, while I'm at it".qp10qp 19:42, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I put the Robb quote at the end of the paragraph to provide a kind of full-circle coherence to the passage – but it's clear that I didn't do as good of a job as I thought. I do think the elements in the paragraph are valid, however. (Does my explanation help clarify things?) – Scartol · Talk 16:21, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

It does help. Thanks.qp10qp

I've added some stuff in the article to explain there what I've explained here. – Scartol · Talk 20:28, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

• The following seems to me a rather thin passage. What I mean by that is one where the information outlined on the page is outweighed by the information off the page needed to colour it in.

When the July Revolution broke out in 1830, Balzac solidified his political standing as a Legitimist, but with qualifications. He felt that the new government was disorganized and unprincipled, and called for "a young and vigorous man who belongs neither to the Directoire nor to the Empire, but who is 1830 incarnate…." He tried to be such a candidate, appealing especially to the higher classes, but in the end a near-fatal accident caused him to abort the effort.

Although the three political references are wikilinked, it isn't made possible to understand them without leaving the page. The best wikipedia practice, in my opinion, is to use phrases of explanation to help the reader in situ (I know this is difficult: it stretches one's powers of concision to the limits and requires all sorts of editing judgements about how much detail to attempt). The difficulty is intensified here, in my opinion, by the fact that we haven't yet been told anything about Balzac's political views or activities. Yet, if I read this passage right, he already had views that now "solidified" (so, what did he think of the old government?); and it appears that he now stood as a candidate ("tried to be such a candidate" is enigmatic to me: did he actually stand?): good grief, did he want to be elected emperor, or the head of the government (I wouldn't put it past him)? Or does "man" in the quotation mean "men": in other words, should I read this as: "Balzac called for young and unaffiliated men to be elected to the government and put himself forward as one of them"? The reader needs more help, I think. (Speaking for myself, I'd also like to know the nature of his "near-fatal accident".)

 Done Agreed. I've amended this passage, and added some additional context to the previous ¶ on Les Chouans. – Scartol · Talk 16:48, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Wow that really is a wonderful improvement. I understand now. I'm glad to see that "solidified" and "aborted" have gone too. (Dreary though laying all the details out can be to anyone who cares about writing, the process does tend to chase out semi-metaphorical language that can be awkward in an encyclopedia.)qp10qp 19:38, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

• I found the following a little thin also:

Balzac planned to include 48 additional works in the Comédie – which remained unfinished at the time of his death – and he grouped the books by subject matter, rather than chronologically. This piecemeal style is reflective of the author's own life. "The vanishing man," writes Pritchett, "who must be pursued from the rue Cassini to … Versailles, Ville d'Avray, Italy, and Vienna can construct a settled dwelling only in his work."[71]

I'm not clear how many works he wrote. The opening of the article says: His magnum opus was a sequence of almost 100 novels and plays collectively entitled "La Comédie Humaine", which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the fall of Napoléon Bonaparte in 1815. The questions that raises for me are: did he finish all of those? How many novels did he write? Did he write any works that are not considered part of La Comédie Humaine, or is that a term for all of his work, even though he only thought of it in 1832? Do the pseudonymous works count in the "almost 100" or not? Are the extra 48 that he never wrote counted as part of the almost 100? Could space be found for some of that information in the body of the article?

Sad to say, you're not clear on how many works he wrote for the same reason I'm not – it's just not clear. Some works (for instance, Illusions Perdues) are multi-volume. Some count them as multiple individual works, some count them together as one. Counting the publication dates in Bertault, I get 90. But other sources (for the reason listed above) cite higher numbers. Robb lists 99. The pseudonymous works are not included – I've included an explanation of such at the start of the LCH section of the article. – Scartol · Talk 17:05, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

That really helps.qp10qp 19:38, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

He grouped the books by subject matter: I think we ought to be told how they were grouped, in that case. What were the groupings? And under which of them do the most famous novels fall? Such information, while basic, is encyclopedic and could give body to what strikes me as a rather flimsy opening paragraph to an important section.

I'm not sure that grouping the works by subject rather than chronology is a self-evidently piecemeal process. That point might be explained more, I suggest. And I don't feel the reader is given an explanation for the use of Pritchett's quote to justify the point that "this piecemeal style is reflective of the author's own life". On the contrary, the quote appears to be saying that whereas Balzac's life was unsettled (I presume this how the quote relates to "piecemeal"), his work was, by contrast, settled (in which he found "a settled dwelling"). The piecemeal life-piecemeal work comparison may be a valid one given Balzac's protean impulsiveness, but it needs an apter quote to source it, in my opinion.

 Done Agreed. I removed the bits about how the works are arranged – probably best for an article on La Comédie itself. I rewrote that first ¶ in the "Style" section. – Scartol · Talk 17:05, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

That's much better because a connection is now made between Balzac's tendency to move from dwelling to dwelling and jump from work to work. I'm still not sure about it, though. If Pritchett says that on the referenced page, he sure doesn't say it in that quote. He actually says the opposite: that Balzac constructs a settled dwelling in his work.qp10qp 19:38, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. I suppose we can conceive of him trying to make such a settled home, though only Balzac knows if he succeeded for sure. (I would doubt it.) – Scartol · Talk 20:18, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

• Balzac's use of repeating characters, moving in and out of the Comédie's books, provided Balzac with a sociological power not available to most writers. "When the characters reappear," notes Rogers, "they do not step out of nowhere; they emerge from the privacy of their own lives which, for an interval, we have not been allowed to see."[84] He also used a technique which French novelist Marcel Proust called "retrospective illumination", whereby a character's past is revealed long after she or he first appears – not unlike real life.

Is Rogers' point connected to the one about sociological power or a separate one? It seems separate to me, but I expected it to support the first point, which is otherwise not sourced or supported here. I feel the connection needs to be strengthened. The third sentence in the three-sentence paragraph introduces the idea of Proust's "retrospective illumination", which seems to me a different point again. As a reader, I sense a connection between these three apparently separate points that has been left from the page (one doesn't usually associate Proust with sociological observation, for example). The synthesis needs to be brought out, I feel, and more specifically referenced.

Agreed. I've revised the ¶. – Scartol · Talk 17:14, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. The dots are joined up now.qp10qp 19:38, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

• On a similar point, I don't see any sociological point being made by Flaubert in the following:

French author Gustave Flaubert was also substantially influenced by Balzac. He once wrote of the author's sociological acumen: "What a man he would have been had he known how to write!"[100]

It's a wonderful quote, but I don't actually understand it. For others in the same boat, could a more useful phrase of explanation perhaps be found?

I think I introduced the quote poorly. I've revised it. – Scartol · Talk 17:16, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Much better, cheers.qp10qp 19:38, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

• On Proust, the following one-sentence paragraph (could it perhaps be moved to help the other Proust point?) requires some explanation for those of us who haven't read either or both the works (I claim no more than having listened to a dramatisation of ALRDTP on the radio and mixed quotes from it into some dance music, to the annoyance of less pretentious friends):

Marcel Proust similarly learned from the Realist example; he adored Balzac and studied his works carefully.[104] Balzac's story "Une Heure de ma Vie" (An Hour of my Life, 1822) is a clear ancestor of the style used by Proust in À la Recherche du Temps Perdus.[105]

(in the voice of Comic Book Guy): Um, excuse me, but I believe that paragraph is two sentences. Thank you. (/voice) I've added some explanation in the article. (Although, trying to do seven things at once, I started to make changes into the section you quoted here. Yeesh!) – Scartol · Talk 17:23, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, it's a rule of Wikipedia that as soon as one starts to prognosticate to others, one will sure as hell cock up oneself. I can only plead taglexia, the inability to read tags and punctuation simultaneously. (Actually I made this mistake on purpose, to get you to do the Comic Book Guy voice.) qp10qp 19:38, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Anyway, smashing article. Do forgive any pedantry in the above and of course ignore anything that strikes you as feeble-minded. I will check back another time (green ticks not required). qp10qp 16:01, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Note to self: Always read entire comment before adding green ticks. Argh! Thanks again for your feedback and detailed notes. I hope the revisions and explanations are useful. – Scartol · Talk 17:23, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

It's like this direction test I am always sorely tempted to give my students. :) Awadewit | talk 18:39, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

(voice) Worst direction test ever. (/voice) Thanks again for your comments and (now) your vote of support. – Scartol · Talk 20:18, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.