Gentle Journey Book

I present Balzac's The Lily in the Valley summarized, because, well, I just couldn't resist. Despite the fact that the first fifty pages or so felt like getting a lobotomy, I really got into it by the time the novel ended, which shows above all that Balzac knows his stuff, I guess. Look away for fear of spoilers now (but, come on, it's a Romantic version of La Princesse de Cleves - you don't need to think too hard to figure out what goes down). Alors, Balzac was begged by his critics to write a novel about a "virtuous woman," for once. And this is what came out of it:

Preface: "This novel, La Princesse de Cleves of Romanticism…" Oh no.

Romantic childhood. Suffering and injustice all around.

Following years of spiritual and sexual repression, Felix takes the opportunity offered by Madame de Mortsauf's bare shoulders for an impromptu, one-sided makeout session in a corner of a ballroom. Madame de Mortsauf does not report him.

Felix stays with family friends. They conveniently live just across from the Mortsauf estate.

Madame de Mortsauf says, "I have kids, an unstable husband, and my life generally sucks. Love me like my aunt did." (Seriously, Balzac? You couldn't have come up with some equally platonic, but less ridiculous, than an aunt?)

Felix is cool with this.

Pages upon pages of further sexual repression.

Balzac spends five pages describing a bouquet. (Professor later says, "But the bouquet is an allegory for sex!" Oh. Shouldn't have skipped that bit…)

Monsieur de Mortsauf is prevented from kicking the bucket by the attentions of his wife and Felix. Christian charity wins out over desire. It is a little maddening, even for the reader.

Felix goes a-traipsing with a heathen Englishwoman.

The French talks smack about the English.

The English talk smack about the French.

Madame de Mortsauf has moments of weakness and expresses an un-Christian desire for the Englishwoman's blood.

Felix spends some time being tossed between the two women in the most passive aggressive match of human football in literary history.

Madame de Mortsauf takes a really long time to die.

Felix dumps the Englishwoman.

Madame de Mortsauf leaves Felix a letter to be read only after her death - a really, really hot letter, actually, which expresses just how badly all this time she wanted to f----

This becomes the most sexually frustrating novel in existence.

Natalie de Manerville, Felix's current lover and the reader to whom the entire novel is addressed, writes back the equivalent of, "You insensitive twat," and dumps him.

Somehow, Balzac manages to capture men and women and society and sex, all in painfully Romantic prose. (Professor says, pay good attention to Natalie's letter: read it as a break with the idealistic body of the novel, consider it as Balzac's own critique of his text…)

But the reader trots off to continue with Anna Karenina.