Twelfth day of 2011. I just read "SKIN ZAPA" , considered the first great novel by Honoré de Balzac (French, 1799-1850), whose subject is the misfortune of twentysomething Rafael Valentin, harassed by the will and ability, "those two acts instinctively made by man and reap the sources of his life. "
I think the woman I love (in the now is the extent of my time) and the enormous Balzac ("the coldness, the penetration, stupidity, delusions of grandeur, the nightmare, the dream of a night indigestion, " Pio Baroja's view) who wrote 15 hours a day burned in caffeine to pay their debts. I think of the tragic fate of the monarchist who tried to plot a series of interconnected novels 137 (concluding a 90) called "The Human Comedy" , where realistic key strokes would all customs, facts and historical events in France between 1815 and 1830, the monarchist frustrated that the words of Engels Marxist, "despite deplore the irremediable breakdown of high society, is never more bitter and more hurtful than when you act the aristocrats, the men and women to both apparently longed for. "
A skin sapping
Rafael, the son of an aristocrat cruelly depleted by the vicissitudes of history and has recently died, is a law student with literary instincts. Dreamer and suffering, has made a poem bombastic self-promotion. Just rejected as an angel and poor (Paulina) for an unattainable countess who in turn despises him (Fedora), and spent his last coins on the green baize. The lost and, shortly before drowning in the Seine, an event happens supernatural is, in the prodigious antique shop of an old man ("I could do the delights of a painter who modeled the eternal Father or mocking Mephistopheles) , a shagreen (sanded). This amulet this wild ass skin Middle East, would fill all their desires and passions, but you take his life by leaps and bounds if they are descomedían, at the same degree counteract herself. The old man gives him the fatal shagreen, and action is taken, is a tell-cienematográfico the second turn.
The tyranny of frustrated desire
"All I had to have known disdain for everything and settle with him." And see it not know? Is not discover the substance of the phenomenon and capture its essence? " . So warns the greedy antiques dealer Rafael, who after leaving the store is about friends who invite to the banquet offered up by a banker (the Taillefer of "The Red Inn" ) recruiting boom for the newspaper. And there, after a hearty night of drunken political, monetary and public women ravings, Rafael Emilio tells his friend who writes art reviews, the reasons for her suicide attempt: his troubled youth in impoverished nobleman and lover spurned .
A heartless woman
Among the qualities of Balzac's prose are the detailed description of settings ("something the film and its derivatives have been unnecessary?), The skeptic respect for science and above all a great omnisapiensa of the actions and psyche of men and women of his world. In the second the three parts of the book, "A woman without a heart" , we are shown to Leonora, Countess cold corrupted by the luxury ("those creatures that spend their lives trying on cashmere, without any spirit of sacrifice, and demand and look at the pleasure of sending love and never obey ") and disbelieving of love (" that leads to crime even many foolish men, "he says), marriage (" I'd rather be dead than be miserable ") and children ("are a terrible inconvenience," he says), because "all his good fortune was estimated at well in life, in social pleasures, and the feeling was nothing for her to perform a role." But the stubborn Rafael, which borrowing and write biographies on demand to speed up a promotion that is only in your mind, you should drink to the bottom of the dregs the cup of love misunderstood, and when he predicts a bitter old age Leonora, Countess replied: "I always have money , and gold will always be able to create us in our around the feelings necessary for our welfare. " There breathes fierce materialism of Balzac, that without falling into cynicism of this great comedian who is Guy de Maupassant, is almost deaf pessimism: "The world hates the pains and misfortunes, I have the same horror that contagion and never hesitates between them and the vices, the vice is a luxury, but be more majestic than a disgrace, society given trace to belittle and ridicule "...
The tyranny of wish fulfillment
After Rafael makes the story that his friend and by the end of the fun (with their stout hands squeezing all the fruit life, not about him leaving but vile lies in waste or is no longer possible to believe "), asks his shagreen two hundred thousand francs a year ... and soon appeared before the eyes of a notary with an inheritance and lost.
And after this stroke of luck (homologous misconception that lucky with money), Rafael, who becomes the Marquis de Valentin, join in the most flagrant of rakes (debauchery, drunkenness ) in the wild pleasures, blind in luxury in the performance of favors and vendettas. Three months later, his little 26, is turned into a decrepit millionaire who has a life regulated on the basis that gives orders to his subordinates, for his every desire, every sensation, discomfort or illusion threatens their existence. In this living hell of the orgasm of life in its glory and defeat, decided to examine the abominable shagreen that amengua every day. Four specialists, a chemical a naturist and the weighted two mechanics and try to stretch or break ("Science? Useless!" Acids? Clear water! "Red Potash? Disgraced!" The volcanic pile and unloading? Two toys! A hydraulic press as bread soup line! ... I believe in the devil "). The end of Raphael, whose visits to physicians are other forms of scientific nonsense erecting its own superstitions, is predictable.
the middle of last century, Borges sustuvo to write a novel try a single issue was a "laborious and impoverishing madness." Given these circumstances, it may be feasible to read Balzac in these times, with its endless descriptions, his boasts eduditos and philosophical, and paragraphs pregnant with subordination. In the era of Encyclopedists information have come down from the Olympus. But the fact remains that literature is a good in itself, beyond any private or public utility. And never is a futile exercise to climb the mountain and pick the flowers gone astray.
EVERY MAN SHOULD BE ABLE TO ALL THE IDEAS, AND UNDERSTAND THAT YOU WILL BE IN THE ARISING 
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