Père Goriot
by Honoré de Balzac · Le Père Goriot
Assigned by 1 of the 9 reading lists, catalogue entry only
- Written
- 1835
- Form
- Novel
- Language
- French
- Length
- Medium · 300 pp120 to 300 pages
- Difficulty
- Moderate2 of 5 for a first-year reader
We recommendPère Goriot, translated by A. J. KrailsheimerOxford University Press (Oxford World's Classics), 2009A faithful, current translation with a good introduction; the Penguin translation by Olivia McCannon is also sound.
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In a shabby Paris boarding house in 1819, the young law student Eugène de Rastignac learns how society works. His fellow lodger Goriot, a retired pasta merchant, has beggared himself for two daughters who have married into the aristocracy and are ashamed of him; another lodger, Vautrin, is an escaped convict who offers Rastignac a shortcut to wealth by murder. Goriot dies abandoned by his daughters, and Rastignac, who alone attends the burial, looks down on Paris from the cemetery and challenges it. The novel that launched Balzac's Human Comedy.
No reading guide yet
The catalogue entry above is complete: the dates, the form, the themes and every program that assigns Père Goriot are verified against each program's published list.
What is missing is the part that takes real work: the summary, the key passages, and a recommended translation. The edition named below is the one most programs assign, so the buy links are useful already.
