The Atheist's Mass

Balzac, Honoré de, 1799-1850Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.8

Word count: 38K words
Chapters: 4

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Atheist's Mass by Honoré de BalzacAuthor: Balzac, Honoré de, 1799-1850,Language: English, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: Dec 3, 2005

Editor's review

Balzac's The Atheist's Mass is a short but substantial novella, one of the Human Comedy's pieces on faith and human nature. The story revolves around a doctor who openly professes atheism and a seemingly contradictory mass, and through an observer's pursuit gradually reveals the characters' hidden motives and emotions. Balzac shows restraint and tension in the short form: rather than elaborate social panorama, he advances through suspense and the inner contradictions of behavior, and the emotional turn at the end carries real force. As a public-domain ebook, it is a light entry into Balzac's work and also suits reading alongside other Human Comedy pieces on religion and morality, to appreciate his insight into human complexity.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers wanting a short introduction to Balzac and the Human Comedy
Those interested in faith and moral themes in nineteenth-century French literature
Readers who enjoy suspense-driven short stories with ending twists
Students and teachers needing short texts for literature course discussion

Not a good fit for

Lovers of Balzac's long novels expecting grand social panoramas and multi-strand narratives
Readers of only contemporary fast-paced genre fiction
Readers uninterested in religious themes and moral discussion

Reading tips

Read it through in one sitting first to preserve the suspense, then revisit the opening's foreshadowing and dialogue details.
After reading, compare it with other religious short stories in the Human Comedy to compare Balzac's approaches.
If reading in English, note the difference in tone between the doctor and the narrator, and excerpt key dialogue for notes.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this story part of the Human Comedy?

Yes. The Atheist's Mass is usually grouped within Balzac's Human Comedy, among its novellas on religion, faith and human nature. It can be read independently or understood within the overall framework of the Human Comedy.

Is the 'mass' in the title religious propaganda?

No. The mass is the central event that drives the plot and reveals the characters' motives; Balzac uses it to explore faith, emotion and human contradiction, not to preach. Readers need no religious knowledge to follow the main story.

Is it short enough to read in one sitting?

The story is not long and can usually be finished in one or two readings. It is best to read continuously the first time to preserve suspense, then revisit the opening details on a second reading to appreciate Balzac's foreshadowing and the ending's turn.

Comments

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About the author

Balzac, Honoré de, 1799-1850 Author

Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) was a French novelist best known for his vast series La Comédie humaine. The library holds 143 of his works, including Father Goriot, Lost Illusions, Eugénie Grandet, and several volumes of La Comédie humaine. His writing is distinguished by dense detail, a large cast of characters, and an intricate social network, often linking separate works through recurring figures to portray nineteenth-century French society. He excelled at depicting the power of desire, ambition, and money through precise settings and strong narrative tension, and he exerted a lasting influence on later realist fiction. Beyond the broad outline of his life, public information is limited, so this note focuses on the themes and style of his works.