The Memoirs of Two Young Wives

by Honoré de Balzac

Other authorsMorris Dickstein (Introduction), Jordan Stump (Translator)

Paperback, 2018

Status

Available

Call number

843.7

Publication

NYRB Classics (2018), Edition: Reprint, 272 pages

Description

This richly drawn epistolary tale recounts the correspondence between two young women whose friendship evolves as they embark on marriage and motherhood. Although both have a distinctly different outlook, their shared observations and memories bring the beauty and difficulty of these experiences vividly to life.

User reviews

LibraryThing member jonfaith

Doubt is a duel fought within the soul, which causes horrid self-inflicted wounds.

This epistolary novel is often dismissed as light melodrama but I was engaged by it as a dialogue on the ambitions of marriage and maternity. The titular brides struggle in terms of maintenance and identity. This is

depicted rather objectively in the letters of each protagonist.

Two best friends leave a convent and embark on quests for love and purpose. [a snide Goodreads reviewer in 2019 might scoff at such misogyny] There’s a malice at play in the letters, each questions the utility of the other’s motives. [some would snipe that this anticipates Fanon on the colonized] Should one look for security, hoping love comes later? [Solzhenitsyn by way of Tina Turner/] Should one devote oneself entirely to parenting? What about younger artists? Are they worth marrying?

Alas, it all ends in tears with characters from Lost Illusions making key cameos.

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LibraryThing member DinadansFriend

An epistolary novel of two women educated in the same convent. one , is independently wealthy and finally gives up her society life for supporting a younger poet, who finally, exploits her for the sake of his sister in law. the other becomes a staid mother, who eventually aids a geay deal in the

success of her husband's political career, and creates a stable family. both are admirable characters and the art of the contrasts is well done.

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LibraryThing member smichaelwilson

The third book of Balzac's La Comédie Humaine, Letters of Two Brides is an epistolary tale told in the letters between two young women after leaving their convent. The correspondence between the two women details their diverging attitude and philosophies towards marriage and love, with one seeking

passion and romance, and the other devoting herself to selfless familial servitude. Things don't end well for one of them.

This third story in the Scenes From a Private Life section of La Comédie Humaine, like the previous two, focuses on women seeking happiness in love and marriage. While these stories have the flavor of a morality play, Balzac doesn't feel as if he is preaching a specific virtue or moral as much as he is characterizing how life often plays out in spite of our best laid plans, and how obtaining happiness can be more complicated than most perceive.

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LibraryThing member stillatim

Morris Dickstein writes, in his introduction, that this book is "not exactly a masterpiece." But really it is not even remotely a masterpiece. Balzac excels in writing about external events pushing people in directions they don't want to go. Epistolary novels are good at giving authors a way to

focus, instead, on the thoughts of the people being pushed; there's a reason Richardson wrote ever-longer epistolary novels, and Fielding's masterpiece was narrated rather than epistled. Balzac should have stuck with the narration: the two young wives aren't interesting, or smart, or attractive, and that's entirely because Balzac wasn't smart, or attractive, or interesting, when he wasn't narrating the brutality of the nineteenth century in blockish, fist-smashing prose.

I wish Jordan Stump had spent his time translating a better book.

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