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Available
Call number
Series
Genres
Publication
Parizo, Presa Esperantista Societo
Description
Classic Literature. Fiction. Romance. HTML: Fans of Romeo and Juliet will delight in the novella Vendetta, Honore de Balzac's unique take on the timeless theme of star-crossed lovers. Corsican immigrants Ginevra Piombo and Luigi Porta fall hopelessly in love, unaware of the fact that their respective families have long been ensnared in a multi-generational blood feud. Will they be able to live happily ever after in spite of their unhappy heritage?.
User reviews
LibraryThing member jasonlf
The best opening of any Balzac work I have read. And in some of the ensuing scenes, the most wooden melodrama of any Balzac work I have read, especially the scene where Ginevra confesses her love to her father who says she will die before him if she continues down this path. But there are numerous
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hints of the Balzac to come, most especially in the description of the relationship and backbiting between girls in Monsieur Servin’s painting class. There is an awful lot of Balzac worth reading before this – but if you’re looking for a short entrée or have read a bunch already, I would recommend this. Show Less
LibraryThing member nosajeel
The best opening of any Balzac work I have read. And in some of the ensuing scenes, the most wooden melodrama of any Balzac work I have read, especially the scene where Ginevra confesses her love to her father who says she will die before him if she continues down this path. But there are numerous
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hints of the Balzac to come, most especially in the description of the relationship and backbiting between girls in Monsieur Servin Show Less
LibraryThing member starbox
Readable if melodramatic novella, featuring a hot-blooded Corsican family who have settled in Paris after a bloody culmination to a vendetta back home. The old couple worship their lovely artistic daughter, Ginevra. Then one day she encounters a dashing soldier hiding from royalists in the lumber
Not up to the fabulous standard of some of Balzac's novels, but OK.
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room at her art school...Not up to the fabulous standard of some of Balzac's novels, but OK.
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LibraryThing member leslie.98
I can sum up this novella for myself (for future reference) as a combination of 'Romeo & Juliet' with O. Henry's 'The Gift of the Magi'.
The novella is melodrama and as such doesn't compare to Balzac's greater novels but I thought it deserved more than 3.5*. Maybe 3.7 but such hair-splitting has
Balzac once again demonstrates his belief that marrying against parental and/or societal wishes is doomed to failure. Yet the portrait of Corsican ideas of vengence and the look at how life changed from 1800 under Napoleon to 1815 under the second restoration was fascinating. This background to the story raised it in my estimation.
The novella is melodrama and as such doesn't compare to Balzac's greater novels but I thought it deserved more than 3.5*. Maybe 3.7 but such hair-splitting has
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little value; I only mention it because I don't want others to take my 4* to mean I felt it was equal to most of my other 4* books. If you don't like melodrama, you won't like this. Balzac once again demonstrates his belief that marrying against parental and/or societal wishes is doomed to failure. Yet the portrait of Corsican ideas of vengence and the look at how life changed from 1800 under Napoleon to 1815 under the second restoration was fascinating. This background to the story raised it in my estimation.
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LibraryThing member Isgodchekhov
As a heads up, unfortunately this was translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley. I and other reviewers agree, her translations actually detract from reading Balzac. I have read a sample of her translation of The Chouans side by side with the Penguins translators, and its like reading two different
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works. Its a shame, as the entire Human Comedy cries out for decent translations! Show Less
LibraryThing member john257hopper
This novella concerns a vendetta between two Corsican families, the daughter of one of whom falls in love with the only surviving son of the other, and is rejected by her own father. They marry against this opposition and have a very tough time and eventually perish - this was quite dramatic and
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stark and moving. Show Less
Subjects
Language
Original language
French