Book Review | Lily Of The Valley

Honoré de Balzac was born in France on May 20, 1799. He produced great works in the novel genre. He was a pioneer of Realism in a period when Romanticism dominated in the 19th century and produced works in this direction. It is seen that he presents the events of the time in a great reality picture in his novels. He allows people from all walks of life to enter the world of the novel. There are people from every class, profession, settlement and age in his works. The author decided to collect all his works under the name of The Human Comedy. He planned The Human Comedy as a whole consisting of three parts and 137 books. However, this plan was not fully realized. Some of the author’s novels: Father Goriot, The Charmed Leather Jugenie Grandet, Lily of the Valley, The Absolute Pursuit.

The Lily of the Valley is a novel from the “Scenes from Country Life” section of Honore de Balzac’s The Human Comedy. It was first serialized in the Revue Paris newspaper in 1835 and completed in 1836. The events in Lily of the Valley take place in the French countryside and Paris between 1809-1836. The novel’s heroes are not ordinary people, but noblemen. Balzac, who portrayed the society he lived in and the distinctive types in this society with a unique observation and meticulousness, has a special place in his life, “Lily of the Valley”, which is about a platonic and hopeless love. Lily of the Valley did not receive the expected attention when it was first published (1836), became one of Honore de Balzac’s least-sold books, and greatly disappointed its author. However, Honore de Balzac believed that he had created one of his most worked on, most flawless, and greatest novels. But time proved Balzac right. Lily of the Valley later became one of the author’s most beloved and most read novels. Balzac says the following about his novel ‘Lily of the Valley’: “They will see that I give as much importance to the secret and open events of every day, to the actions of individual life, to their causes and principles, as historians have hitherto given only to the events of the general life of nations. The secret war that took place in the Indre Valley between Madame de Mortsauf and her love is perhaps as great as any of those famous wars that everyone knows.” This novel emerges at the crossroads of the two great trends of nineteenth-century French literature, romanticism and realism, and takes its true place as one of the most famous love novels in the world. While Balzac gives love a deep realism, he also takes great care to reflect the social facts and conditions of his time. Balzac wrote Lily of the Valley in 1835, at the age of 36, fifteen years before his death. In a letter he wrote to his wife Hanska a year before his death, Balzac speaks of “the monstrosity of his mother.” Balzac, who did not want to follow the educational path his family had drawn for him, identified the struggle to become a writer and earn money with the struggle for freedom, and dealt with bankruptcies and debts throughout his life, was also tirelessly searching for the woman of his life. Félix de Vandenesse, the main character and narrator of Lily of the Valley, to the extent that he overlaps with Balzac, offers us a kind of autobiography that tells of Balzac’s life struggle, his searches, turmoil, disappointments, “dead years” and “long pains” that began in boarding houses when he was a young child. Lily of the Valley is a novel from the “Scenes from Country Life” section of the author’s Human Comedy. It was first serialized in the Revue Paris newspaper in 1835 and completed in 1836. The events in Lily of the Valley take place in the countryside and Paris of France between 1809 and 1836. The heroes of the novel are not ordinary people, but nobles. The subject of the novel is love. The novel takes place in the town of Tours in France. The main character of the novel, Feliks de Vandenesse, is a young man who is far from the love of his parents, belittled by his siblings, and has a suppressed childhood, the youngest son of a rich and noble family. Feliks, who is in Paris with his mother and siblings, goes to Tours upon his father’s invitation. In Tours, his father invites Feliks to a ball. At the ball, the shoulders of a beautiful woman he has never met fascinate Feliks. After kissing these shoulders with an irresistible desire, he falls in love with this woman. The novel begins with these events. Feliks later sees this woman, whom he is in love with, at the Château de Clechogour. He learns that the woman whose shoulder he kissed is a countess. This woman is Count Mortsauf’s wife, Madame de Mortsauf, who is married and has two children. Madame de Mortsauf also begins to love Feliks with a platonic love and becomes attached to him. Now, for Felix, the Countess is the lily of the beautiful valley where the castle is located. This woman helps Felix to rise. She provides Felix with the support of her mother and father, who have a good place with the King. Felix becomes a good advisor and a trusted man of the King. He rises rapidly in his jobs here. But he does not give up his love for the Countess. He and Madame de Mortsauf constantly correspond. The Countess’s life is full of pain. The troubles and pains she suffered in her childhood continue to grow during her marriage.