The thirty year old Woman

Woman the thirty year old is Romance French of Honore de Balzac in six parts, written between 1829 and 1842. The work is classified in the Scènes of the private life of the the human Comedy . The history of its (its) publication (S) is difficult to recall insofar as Balzac did not cease improving this text, cutting out it in fragments published in a scattered way, adding chapters there, before joining together the whole under its final title in 1842, in the Furne edition.

History of the text

In 1830, Balzac publishes without signature a sight of Touraine in the Silhouette which will be the essence of the first part of the novel, supplemented in 1831 in the Review of the Two Worlds and published under the title the Appointment . This same year, the Caricature publishes under pseudonym the Last Review of Napoleon who will form the beginning of this first part.

The Revue of Paris publishes in 1831, under the title the Two meetings , the text which will be the fifth part of the novel, then the Finger of God , who will form first half of the fourth part.

The third part of the novel, published in 1832 in the Re-examined of Paris , is entitled At thirty years . This same year, the four parts, to which the author added the Atonement , are joined together in the Scènes of the private life at Mame-Delaunay without a total title joining together them.

It is in 1834 that Mrs Charles-Béchet will publish the altered unit, with the names of the modified protagonists, and two important additions: the Valley of the torrent and unknown Sufferings under the title Even History .

Other transformations will take place for the publication of the text at Werdet in 1837, then in Charpentier in 1839.

Woman the thirty year old will take its final title, with the parts connected between them, only in the Furne edition of 1842.

Topic

In an astonishing way, Balzac dares speech of the sexual pleasure of the women, and the consequences of the lack of Orgasme. Phrased does it coat so well the topic which the subject made no scandal at the time? Or was Balzac itself a rather scandalous character so that one is not astonished by nothing coming from him? It is necessary to compare the little of agitation which surrounded this text, enough disturbing for the time, (Adultère, anorgasmy), with the incredible lawsuit which one made with Flaubert for the much less scandalous Mrs Bovary . The notes of summary of this novel pass besides often discreetly on this phenomenon. Thus find-tone in the note of Isabelle Miller this pretty elliptic sentence: When Julie de Chastillon marries, in 1813, fringant it colonel Victor d' Aiglemont, it does not suspect that it would be, hardly one year later, to complain about the sufferings of the marriage. One speaks much about the structure of the text, of the inventive quality of the author (...) with Woman the thirty year old who one of is most badly built, one of most badly come, one of the evil written, like one says, of his novels, Balzac succeeded in a performance (...) naming a reality. (...). It was said that Balzac had invented the thirty year old woman (as Parmentier invented the Potato). But it is necessary to pick in the Dictionnaire of works , to find a reference to the question of the physical love at the woman: (...) Julie de Chastillon is éprise of a beautiful officer, Victor d' Aiglemont. The father of the young girl, knows all the delicacy of heart of his daughter and the major vulgarity of Victor; also vainly seeks he to be opposed to this love. A few months later, young people are married: the incompatibility of their characters added to the physical aversion that it tests now for her husband torments Julie cruelly. Or in the notes of Samuel S. of Sacy which translates clearly under heard. When the aunt of Victor, Madam de Listomère, skilfully probes the feelings of the young Madam d' Aiglemont: She trembled to have to recognize as a Julie a disillusioned heart, an young woman with whom it one day experiment, one night perhaps, had been enough to appreciate the nullity of Victor “- If she knows it, all is said, thought she, my nephew will undergo soon the disadvantages of the marriage.

Actually, it is rather too faithful and too virtuous Julie who will undergo the disadvantages of the marriage. Adored by a young English Lord that it finds tempting, it does not yield to him and causes its death involuntarily. Corroded remorse, it ends up being resigned until Charles de Vandenesse succeeds in drawing from his abatement. Of this lover, it will have a child, an adorable boy that his jealous sister and who die in melodramatic circumstances, (undoubtedly thorough in the river by Helene, girl of Julie and Victor d' Aiglement whom his mother does not love. Julie d' Aigement will pay very expensive her adultery. His/her Helene daughter knows that his/her mother is an adulteress. And following at the very least rocambolesques circumstances and which belong to the serial, Helene flees with a brigand continued by the police force and which will become pirate seas. Helene dies too. And the novel finishes on the expiatory old age of a guilty mother.

If this novel is not, indeed, one of best of Balzac, it has the merit to coat in a melodrama with the very personal questions to the women. It is, in spite of a little bombastic style, a very modern novel.

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