Talk:La Peau de chagrin

As for the extended quotation from the shopkeeper, it appears in a trimmed format in the section Vouloir, pouvoir, and savoir. I didn't feel that the entire quotation was needed, when samples provide sufficient insight – and I really feel that explanation is needed more with regard to that section.

Thanks again for your feedback! – Scartol • Tok 11:43, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I think to a large extent this page has become an episode in the Life of Balzac, rather than a page about the book... I might suggest thinking about a reorganization of the material, keeping information about theme/synopsis and so on up top, and pushing the "Background" down, a little further into the background.

Ah yes, I see what you've done with the shopkeeper quote -- I usually like to let to just let the authors speak for themselves, but I have to say I like the way you interject bits about the original french and other translations. -- Doom (talk) 22:02, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I did an edit on the intro (aka lede) to show what I mean -- I just moved the second paragraph down to immediately before the last paragraph. This way it starts off with a discussion of the book itself, and then flows into a discussion of the book in the context of Balzac's carreer. -- Doom (talk) 22:17, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

While I appreciate your intent, I prefer the original design, which reflected the structure of the article itself. (I assume, however, that you'd rather see the article also rearranged.) But again, I've used the earlier pattern in other Balzac Featured Articles, and I feel that this is a "If it ain't broke..." situation. Most every book I've read about Balzac in preparation for this article – including, for example, H. J. Hunt's exhaustive analysis of the entire Comédie humaine – starts with the biographical data, then segues into a discussion of the style and themes of the work. I don't see why we should approach it differently. – Scartol • Tok 11:38, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

reflected the structure of the article -- that was not at all obvious. The way it read to me is that the intro was jumping back and forth between subjects. And yes, you're right, I'm talking about organizing the whole article that way. My attitude is, if this is a page about a book, then you talk about the book first, then deal with interesting digressions later.

I haven't read the Hunt, but I can see that if you were trying to deal with the entire Human Comedy in one work, you might as well start with the biographical information, because it's going to be the same throughout. It would seem to me that the way we do that in wikipedia land is keep the biographical info largely (though probably not entirely) in one page... By the way: (1) I sincerely appreciate the amount of work and level of detail you're putting into these pages (2) not all criticism is a ballpeen hammer to be deflected. -- Doom (talk) 22:15, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that, and I'm taking it on faith that you have the best interest of the article in mind. But if we look at some literature FAs as models, we see the pattern currently in place (background first, then novel discussion) used time and time again: Pattern Recognition (novel); Letters Written in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark; The Slave Community; etc. Obviously this is not the only way to proceed, and I understand your point – but I disagree with it. Perhaps we should get a third opinion, rather than trying to convince each other? – Scartol • Tok 13:44, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Or just let the subject sit for awhile and see what we think about it later. There isn't any need to find The Right Answer immediately. -- Doom (talk) 17:19, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(undent) Okay, but I'd like to take it to FAC before too long, and I'd like to resolve this before that happens. – Scartol • Tok 10:49, 14 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

All right, let me try to summarize my position:

Articles about a book should discuss the the book first (synopsis, theme, style), then related subjects such as the role of the book in the author's career and the influence of the book on the world. In the case of this article, that would mean moving the sections "Background" and "Writing and publication" down after "Themes" and before "Reception and legacy".

Are you up on the procedure for calling in adjudication? I haven't looked at that material in a while. -- Doom (talk) 01:13, 18 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You mean an official process? I was just thinking we post a note at

Novels project style guidelines follow the same pattern I used.) – Scartol • Tok 11:30, 18 June 2008 (UTC)[reply

]

Well thanks for the pointer toward the good the Novels style guide, and it could be I should be arguing about some things over there rather than here (e.g. I don't see why the lede should parallel the article). But take a look at the description of what material should go in the "Background" section. I don't think those paragraphs about the author's career quite fits.

(Sorry if it seems like I'm going on a lot about a minor issue: I've got this thing about how people often end up discussing celebrity when they start out trying to discuss the works of celebrities -- this is the sort of thing that happens in "music journalism" a lot. I think Balzac is a rock star with similar pitfalls.)

Anyway, I'm trying to raise this issue in the discussion page for that style guideline, let's see if anyone wants to weigh in.

-- Doom (talk) 19:46, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Since the feedback has been almost unanimously "it's fine either way", I'd like to leave it as it is for simplicity's sake, if you don't mind terribly. I've composed two other Balzac FAs in the chronological style, and I'd just as soon keep going in this manner. – Scartol • Tok 17:17, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This article was automatically assessed because at least one article was rated and this bot brought all the other ratings up to at least that level. BetacommandBot 04:35, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as stub, and the rating on other projects was brought up to Stub class. BetacommandBot 04:14, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

According to Sunstein, "Balzac, who had been influenced by Frankenstein in his Peau de chagrin, cited [Mary Shelley] and Ann Radcliffe as proof that women outdo men in imaginative invention." (Sunstein, Emily W. Mary Shelley: Romance and Reality. Boston: Little, Brown and Co. (1989), 366) - I wonder if we can find more on the Frankenstein connection?

Clearly this isn't much to go on. The other books have no mention of either Mary Shelley or Frankenstein, so I doubt I'll be able to find anything soon. Still, I'll keep my eyes open and hope that some kind of lighting strikes, like the tree outside young Victor's vacation home. Scartol • Tok 21:33, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Alas, clearly I think every article on Wikipedia should connect to either

talk) 01:39, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply

]

Well, last time we had a Balzac TFA (the article on the man himself), it was a right gruesome vandalfest. Let's see how bad it gets this time. Thanks in advance to all the counter-vandalism soldiers on the front line! Scartol • Tok 00:07, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Lots of questions from a curious mind, sorry :) What was the reception abroad? Did the novel receive any critical attention in other European countries, or elsewhere, upon its launch? I know Balzac ended up having a significant influence on both British and Russian literature, for example; did he only start to be noticed there later once his reputation in France was secure, or did the fact this publication caused such a stir in France raise his international profile? How long was it before the first major translations of this work appeared (I suppose I am thinking particularly of the first major English translation, and how it was received critically and in sales terms, but I suppose Russian and German translations, for instance, would also be of interest)? On a slightly different note, has modern critical reception been generally positive, now that the book can be viewed as part of Balzac's complete oeuvre? Although its fantastical elements may not be particularly critical to its literary value, they do presumably make it stick out among Balzac's complete work in a way that contemporary reviewers would not have been able to predict. In retrospect has this work been seen as relatively immature, or representative of Balzac's developed style? What features, if any, distinguish this book from the rest of the Comedie humaine?--78.32.103.197 (talk) 01:14, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

All good questions — alas, in my extensive studies, I've not found many answers. Mostly discussions about English translations and overseas reception have focused on the work as a whole, not particular novels. And although we've got many pages about the impact of this novel, I haven't read much about this book's differentiation from the rest of LCH, except as already delineated in the article. Thanks for the questions, and if I find more info of course I will add it. Scartol • Tok 12:53, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It seems that many of Balzac's works required decades to appear in English translation.

Ellen Marriage (clearly quite a prolific translator, judging from her Project Gutenberg record) produced a translation (etext), published in 1895 with an introduction by George Saintsbury. There is a New York Times review of it here, referring to it as a "new translation" but giving no comparison to previous translations. There is only a slight critical commentary on the quality of translation, but it receives praised for reading "easily and naturally, and preserving the weight and richness of the original". There is quite an extensive summary of Saintsbury's introduction, which seems to suggest that Balzac was not well-known or popular in the United Kingdom around that time (presumably he was better known in French-reading literary circles). Confusingly, the NYT refers to the translation as the "Wild Ass's Skin" whereas the Gutenberg etext gives the title as "The Magic Skin". According to the Encyclopedia of literary translation into English by Olive Classe, page 98 (which seems to list all of the major translations of Balzac into English), this was part of a "The Human Comedy" series edited by Saintsbury published from 1895-99 in London, but which omitted a couple of works from the Comedie.

The same source shows that another translated collection by G. B. Ives et al ("The Human Comedy, Now for the First Time, Completely Translated into English") was published around the same time (1895-1900) in Philadelphia and London. A bit of googling suggests to me that this is George Burnham Ives (1856 - 1930), who appears to be another prolific translator from French to English, although I can't find a biography (for what it's worth most of his work seems to be published by the Riverside Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and he appears to have been an 1876 Harvard B.A. graduate, if that helps anyone track him down). Ellery Sedgwick is listed as a co-translator in this edition by The Oxford guide to literature in English translation by Peter France, page 277. The Oxford guide describes this edition as "lavishly illustrated", and slightly preceding the Saintsbury collection (which apparently has lasted longer due to its incorporation in the Everyman's Library).

The very first translation of the complete Comedie into English (and apparently, therefore, of La Peau de chagrin) was by Wormeley. Unfortunately Classe gives her name as

Katharine Prescott Wormeley and France as Katherine Prescott Wormeley. Her NYT obit of 1908 is available here

and gives her as "Katherine" (together with a fascinating set of obituary notes including "George Washington Holland, one of the earliest bankers and brokers of Wall Street", and William Lavino, who was Vienna and later Paris correspondent for the Times of London). She seems to have been famous both as a translator (France notes contemporary critical praise for her Balzac translations) and as a nurse for the Union army in the Civil War (an experience she also wrote about). I get far more ghits for her when spelled "Katharine", particularly for library catalogues etc.

Casse lists two individual translations for La Peau de chagrin. One is by Cedar Paul - London: Hamish Hamilton, 1948 under the title "The Fatal Skin". I think this alternative title for the book should be listed in the article, somewhere in the lede.

The other translation, and as far as I can the one used in most current editions for sale, is that by

Royal Holloway, and according to this obituary

a noted Balzac scholar (I note that some of his scholarship is used in this article).

While French's Oxford guide doesn't give much detail about the history of Balzac's reception in the English-speaking world, Casse's encyclopedia begins a substantial section on this, on page 100. One reason for slowness in translations to appear was apparently the perceived immorality of Balzac, and the idea that only certain of his works (not including La Peau de chagrin) were suitable for female readers. In general it seems that translations of individual works appeared faster in America than in the UK. It seems that many translations were obscure and printed in small numbers, and have simply been completely lost to history, so a full list of 19th century translations is impossible. Here's something really fascinating - in 1859, Wilkie Collins wrote an article saying that Balzac "is little known because he is little translated" (commentating more on the British situation than the American one). According to Casse, Collins had memories of an early translation of La Peau de chagrin but was not certain whether they were accurate, suggesting there may have been a translation which is now lost. Collins' article apparently launched a kind of British Balzac translation boom (which does not seem to have included La Peau de chagrin), but the quality of the translations was critically savaged and due to the difficulty of translating Balzac well, there was another lull for a couple of decades.

Unfortunately my google preview of Casse stops on page 100, just as he launches from the very earliest translations into the major ones by Wormeley et al. It seems that many a Balzac article could be augmented by information from Casse and French (Casse goes on to include a series of quite thorough critical reviews of a full range of translations of Old Goriot and Cousin Bette), although it's a shame about the information missing from the google preview. 78.32.103.197 (talk) 15:36, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is great info — thanks for sharing it! I do wonder if it is best to try and work it into this article, or into the article about Honoré de Balzac himself. (That article could use some work, even though it is currently an FA.) I can see myself picking up one of them there Encyclopedias you mention, since it's probably full of good info. In the meantime, it looks like (as I said) most info about translations and reception abroad is general, relating to the Comédie humaine as a whole. Alas!

There are actually a number of different translations for the title that I have come across; the challenge in Wikipedia, of course, is to give comprehensive information without weighing down the prose with all the existing variations. Scartol • Tok 16:44, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, most of it is general unfortunately. I do think there ought to be a fairly comprehensive list of titles this work has been called in English somewhere (to be honest there aren't that many, and "The Fatal Skin" is clearly one of them) but this is purely a personal opinion. I agree most of the information does not belong here (I can imagine there is enough for an article purely on translations of the works Balzac into English), but some of it is quite specific - it seems that barring the interesting possibility of a "lost" translation of La peau de chagrin, the first translations of this work did not appear until the arrival of translations of entire collections. And for instance, the NYT review of the Marriage translation is quite specific to this article, as are the two 20th century translations of La Peau de chagrin which did not form part of larger collections. 78.32.103.197 (talk) 16:55, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In the interest of avoiding a series of short, choppy paragraphs, I combined the different parts of the "Influence" section. Soon afterwards, Pol098 split it up again. Rather than engage in an edit war, it seems better for us to discuss it here.

While I understand the desire to divide bits of info into different topics, I feel that we must avoid a series of one- and two-sentence paragraphs, and we should combine the discussions of various interpretations and adaptations into one paragraph. What do other folks think? Scartol • Tok 13:45, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Presumably the title is a pun? Yet the article doesn't mention this anywhere. Readers who know French might get this; but readers who don't know French might either a) assume that chagrin has the same meaning as in English; or b) guess (based on their similar sounds) that chagrin is French for shagreen. The article should address the title. Doops | talk 16:33, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]