The Classics Club Spin delivered number ….
… thus giving me the chance to read La Cousine Bette (Cousin Bette) by Honoré De Balzac.
Published in 1847 which is roughly when the novel is set, Cousin Bette is about a middle-aged woman who plots the destruction of her extended family.
Bette resents her cousin Adeline Hulot who secured a wealth and prestige when she married a Baron. Bette has had plenty of suitors of her own but they were interested only in her because of her connections to the Hulots. So at 43 years old she’s unmarried and destined, it seems, for the life of a spinster.
Until a chance encounter with a sculptor who captures her heart. A wedding is on the cards but never materialises. Bette blames the Hulots and swears to enact vengenance.
According to a Wikipedia entry, Cousin Bette is considered the last of Balzac’s great novels. Its bleak outlook and blunt connections between characters’ origins and behaviour making it a forerunner to the naturalist literature of writers like Émile Zola. .
I’ve read (and enjoyed) one other Balzac novel — Old Goriot — and I love Zola so the signs are good for Cousin Bette.
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