Young on Del Lungo, Glaudes et al. (2019)

This excellent collection examines “une sorte de lieu commun de la critique” (7)—Balzac as sociologue, an opinion affirmed by Paul Bourget, Alain, Paul Ricœur, and, recently, Allan Pasco. For Del Lungo and Glaudes, “l’aspect proprement sociologique du roman balzacien reste […] à étudier” (8-9); they consider this question both “en relation au savoir instable et non codifié de la sociologie” in Balzac’s era, and “par rapport aux acquis et aux théories de la sociologie […] dans son histoire ‘moderne’”(9). This volume offers fifteen essays, divided into three sections. The first looks at Balzac as “l’inventeur d’une méthode d’observation du réel” (10) eschewing both the positivism of the nascent field of sociology, and “la visée moralisante des enquêtes sociales” (10). As Andrea Del Lungo suggests in his essay “La méthode sociologique balzacienne,” Balzac, via an ironic use of statistics, undermines “l’intention morale de la statistique” (114) and exposes “le caractère arbitraire d’une méthode prétendument objective” (115). The second section examines Balzac’s invention of a novelistic form that becomes a fertile site for sociological readings and analysis. Finally, the third considers this form through the ideas of modern sociology (10).

Jacques Noiray’s compelling essay explores the influence of the natural sciences on Balzac’s conception and depiction of man and nineteenth-century society, and details the importance of  “[l]a méthode classificatrice” (17) for French writers of this era. Although Balzac rejects “une mise en ordre naïve et imparfaite du réel” (35), his texts nevertheless demonstrate the influence of the rivals Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire and Georges Cuvier, taking from the first “la recherche philosophique de l’unité de vivant,” and from the latter “l’étude attentive des éléments les plus infimes du réel pour reconstruire l’ensemble de ce réel même” (35). Noiray suggests that Cuvier, “malgré ses insuffisances […] peut apparaître […] comme l’un des grands inspirateurs de La Comédie humaine” (35).

Gérard Gengembre and Jean-Yves Pranchère explore Balzac’s relationship with the thought of counter-revolutionary Louis de Bonald who championed the primacy of the family. Examining Le Médecin de campagne and Le Curé de village, Gengembre suggests that Balzac “écrit un programme contre-révolutionnaire moderne” (51), offering an example of a “restauration intelligente” (50). Looking at the complex and often unhappy conjugal relations in La Comédie humaine, Pranchère explores how Balzac “a pu se reconnaître dans la sociologie bonaldienne et lui donner une extension paradoxale” (54). These essays probe Balzac’s post-1830 counterrevolutionary political ideology, the sometimes contradictory “héritage de Bonald” (53) in La Comédie humaine, and pit Balzac’s view of individualism as “un mal auquel il faut opposer l’unité […] des familles” (71), against the spirit of individualist revolt displayed by some of Balzac’s characters (55). Francesco Spandri further examines marriage and family, offering an analysis of economic growth in early nineteenth-century France, and a description of money as a “lien social irremplaçable” (79) and “dissolvant social”(77) in La Cousine Bette.

In the second section, “Lectures sociologiques de l’œuvre de Balzac,” Boris Lyon-Caen argues that the bourgeoisie in literature comprises a kind of “objet fuyant—sans aura romantique ni évidence positive,” and that Balzac “invente la petite bourgeoisie comme constitutive de sa littérature, comme étant sa force constituante” (120). He suggests that, in Balzac’s texts, the middle class is depicted as a predatory force, often described through the figure of “l’animal rampant” (124). His discussion of the “principe d’une micro-histoire” in Les Employés—recalling Balzac’s assertion that “[d]es petites révolutions partielles … [ont] … fait nos mœurs ce qu’elles sont” (126)—finds an echo in Marie-Astrid Charlier’s essay, which explores “une poétique de dévoilement de l’insignifiant” in Balzac. Through an analysis of “[le] quotidien et … la trace” (138), she offers keen observations on the “rapport entre la temporalité et l’insignifiance” (138) in Balzac, concluding that “toute sociographie de la vie quotidienne doit … traquer l’insignifiant” (152), and that: “[S]ous l’ordinaire innombrable, Balzac fait saillir l’essentiel, le côté palpable du temps” (152-3). Paolo Tortonese turns to the role of distinction and imitation in le Traité de la vie élégante, terms that evoke Pierre Bourdieu (distinction), and René Girard (imitation). Examining the destabilization of hierarchies and the formation of new identities in France after 1789, Tortonese recalls the role of “habitude” in le Traité, relating it to “la question de l’évolutionnisme” “en sciences naturelles” (166), and arguing that “l’habitude … empêche les roturiers de s’emparer rapidement des signes de la distinction, mais elle ouvre … les portes à la bourgeoisie, qui … peut lentement modifier son comportement et sa morphologie à travers les générations” (174). Owen Heathcote’s provocative “Balzac sexologue” underscores a kind of “gender trouble” present throughout La Comédie humaine, and examines “la position de Balzac en ce qui concerne la construction sociale du sexe—et la sexualité” (178), tracing the “mise en question de la différence des sexes et [la] mise en relief de toutes sortes de ce qu’on peut appeler dorénavant la sexualité” (181), and interrogating Balzac’s contribution to sexology. Jérôme David, in this section’s final essay, explores the influence of Balzac on Pierre Bourdieu, suggesting that if we read Balzac as a sociologist, it is only because sociologists “ont lu Balzac passionément, et ont […] sans doute fini par croire à ses types— et notamment, à celui du ‘petit-bourgeois’” (204). 

The essays in the third section read Balzac in tandem with Émile Durkheim, Pierre Bourdieu, Luc Boltanski, Erving Goffman, and Bernard Lahire—whose essay in this volume analyzes “quelques schèmes d’interprétation du social chez Balzac” (249-276). Pierre Glaudes’s compelling essay explores connections between Durkheim’s use of anomy, “une perturbation des mécanismes régulateurs de la société” (208) and Balzac’s “intuitions pré-sociologiques” (208). Through a rich analysis of many of Balzac’s texts, and an examination of the character of Vautrin, Glaudes suggests that Balzac contributes to the “formation d’un paradigme qui lie infini du désir, pathologie sociale et dérégulation,” and that “sa prescience intuitive saisit l’épistémologie d’une époque, mais aussi ses espoirs, ses angoisses et l’envers idéologique de ses ambitions scientifiques” (247). This volume offers a deeply satisfying interdisciplinary exploration of the complex relationship between La Comédie humaine and sociology, and opens many doors for future pistes de recherche.