The Thirteen

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

4.0

Word count: 731K words
Chapters: 74

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 Thirteen by Honoré de BalzacAuthor: Balzac, Honoré de, 1799-1850,Language: English, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: Sep 19, 2004

Editor's review

The Thirteen is a novella in Balzac's La Comédie Humaine, centered on a secret society and marked by strong drama and suspense. Balzac interweaves power, desire, and loyalty in Parisian high society, and the narrative moves at a tighter pace than some of his longer novels, making it a good entry point into La Comédie Humaine. The portrayal of the society's members has a romanticized heroic quality, alongside a cold-eyed observation of human weakness, showing Balzac's ability to balance popular plotlines with serious social observation. Readers who have already read Old Goriot or Eugénie Grandet will find it deepens their understanding of Balzac's secret societies and the workings of power; for those new to Balzac, it is moderate in length and strongly plot-driven, and relatively easy to finish. Note that this is an English translation in a nineteenth-century style, with some long sentences, so readers may wish to slow down.

Who it's for

A good fit for

English-language readers who want a shorter entry into Balzac's La Comédie Humaine
Readers who enjoy suspense and power themes in nineteenth-century French literature
Fiction lovers interested in narratives of secret societies and Parisian high society

Not a good fit for

Readers who prefer contemporary plain-language translations and are unused to nineteenth-century English syntax
Researchers who want to study all of Balzac's works systematically but are unwilling to read English translations
Readers with overly high expectations for suspense who seek a modern mystery pace

Reading tips

First learn the basic framework of La Comédie Humaine, then read this book to better place the characters and themes
Pay attention to how the society's members are introduced, and keep a simple character-relationship chart as you read
When encountering long sentences, grasp the main clause first and then review the modifiers, to avoid being derailed by complex syntax
After finishing, compare with longer novels such as Old Goriot to see how Balzac handles narrative strategy at different lengths

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

Can I read this directly without having read other works in La Comédie Humaine?

Yes. The plot is relatively self-contained and the book is short, making it suitable as an introduction. However, characters and themes in La Comédie Humaine are interconnected; if Balzac interests you after finishing, reading longer novels such as Old Goriot will give you a more complete picture and let you look back and understand this book's place in the whole.

Is the English translation difficult to read?

This is a public-domain English translation with nineteenth-century English sentence habits; some sentences are long and heavily modified, making it harder than contemporary popular fiction. Readers with college English proficiency (CET-4 or above) and experience with classic English novels will adapt more easily; when starting out, slow down and don't force yourself to parse every word.

What kind of story does The Thirteen mainly tell?

It centers on a secret society of thirteen members and involves the workings of power, loyalty, and desire in Parisian high society. The story has suspense and drama, but its focus remains on character relationships and human nature; it is not a mystery novel in the modern sense. Readers can see it as a combination of Balzacian social observation and popular plot.

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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.