Ursula


Read by Bruce Pirie

(5 stars; 5 reviews)

“Ursula,” first published in French in 1841 as “Ursule Mirouët,” is part of Balzac’s great suite of novels, collectively titled “The Human Comedy.”

A wealthy, elderly doctor has raised as his goddaughter a child who is the daughter of his deceased brother-in-law — a man who was himself illegitimate by birth. The doctor retires to a provincial town that is filled with his relatives by birth and inter-marriage. By French inheritance laws of the time, these relatives have a right to expect at least a share of the doctor’s wealth upon his death. In contrast, the beloved goddaughter — who is legally not “related” to him — has no automatic claim to inheritance. This sets up a situation in which the crass and materialistic relatives frantically try to lay hands on the whole of the doctor’s inheritance.

There is also in the novel a strand of occult spiritualism. Balzac was fascinated by paranormal and mystical experience. Here we see evidence of his interest in Franz Mesmer’s theories (“mesmerism” prefiguring the later science of hypnotism) and the ideas of the Swedish mystical theologian Emanuel Swedenborg. Modern readers — who may think of Balzac as one of the founders of realism in fiction — probably scoff at and discount the brief episodes of seances and occultism. In truth, however, Balzac’s interest in these fields was shared by many European intellectuals and artists of his time. However improbable these elements may seem to us today, for Balzac, the spiritual and the material worlds were not contradictory exclusions, but realities that reach into each other’s realms.

Balzac himself considered this novel to be the very best that he had written up to this point in his career. - Summary by Bruce Pirie (10 hr 52 min)

Chapters

The frightened heirs 36:23 Read by Bruce Pirie
The rich uncle 33:57 Read by Bruce Pirie
The doctor's friends 33:28 Read by Bruce Pirie
Zélie 29:18 Read by Bruce Pirie
Ursula 30:11 Read by Bruce Pirie
A treatise on mesmerism 42:00 Read by Bruce Pirie
A two-fold conversion 21:27 Read by Bruce Pirie
The conference 24:34 Read by Bruce Pirie
A first confidence 30:10 Read by Bruce Pirie
The family of Portenduère 29:45 Read by Bruce Pirie
Savinien saved 39:00 Read by Bruce Pirie
Obstacles to young love 24:46 Read by Bruce Pirie
Betrothal of hearts 40:46 Read by Bruce Pirie
Ursula again orphaned 22:31 Read by Bruce Pirie
The doctor's will 38:35 Read by Bruce Pirie
The two adversaries 21:28 Read by Bruce Pirie
The malignity of provincial minds 36:08 Read by Bruce Pirie
A two-fold vengeance 31:55 Read by Bruce Pirie
Apparitions 40:28 Read by Bruce Pirie
Remorse 19:04 Read by Bruce Pirie
Showing how difficult it is to steal that which seems very easily stolen 27:01 Read by Bruce Pirie

Reviews

D I elightfully French!


(5 stars)

Bruce Pirie is the perfect reader for this material. Charming from first word to last.


(5 stars)

Greatest of H. de Balzac by one of the greatest reader in Librivox ! Highly recommend this book.

Compelling story, well read by Bruce Piere


(5 stars)