When I got up in the morning and opened several WeChat groups, the first one without exception was - "Today is August 18, 2021." In 1850, the famous French literary giant Balzac died at the age of 50. "It shows how much balzac's influence was. He wrote 91 novels in his lifetime, and his works have been hailed as "the encyclopedia of capitalist society". How could such a prolific and exalted writer live only 50 years? In other words, how could such a short-lived writer write so many genius novels?
I am reminded of a book I saw a few days ago, "Writers with Eccentricities." It records the incomprehensible fetishes of 84 famous writers, and Balzac's "quirks" and "stains" are particularly eye-catching, and they are by no means the "perfection of personality" that Hugo said in his famous eulogy. Admittedly, gifted writers have an almost morbid fetish. Some people get up early to write, some people stay up all night; some people can't leave behind closed doors, some people write on an empty stomach, someone needs the catalyst of cigarettes, alcohol, coffee or drugs... Schiller smelled the smell of stinky apples to get inspired, and Agatha Christie sat in the bathtub writing (this woman!). Yeats was running down the street writing poetry, Capote had to lie in bed to write, and Detective Woman Writer Haysmith had to sit on the bed when she wrote, but also surrounded by cigarettes, ashtrays, matches, coffee, donuts, and a plate of candy, and a large glass of spirits before writing. Zhang Dai of China's Ming Dynasty even said: "People cannot have intercourse without fetishes." It's just that other people's habits don't hurt, but Balzac's vices are deadly.
Balzac was a money addict, thinking about making a fortune all his life, and the first thing he thought of doing anything was to make a profit. In order to join the upper class, he actually pretended to be an aristocrat, and the result was exposed. In desperation, he chose to seduce the noble lady to bed, and did not care about the beauty and ugly age of the other party. Someone did a study after his death, and he could have more than a dozen mistresses at the same time, and the total number was equal to the number of his works! But this only satisfied his vanity, but he did not get money from them.
So he resigned from the law firm despite his parents' objections and wanted to make a name for himself as soon as possible with writing. Balzac began to write popular third-rate novels at the time, and he couldn't make much money. In order to dig up the first pot of gold as soon as possible, he decided to engage in publishing with a businessman- a collection of books that used to sell well. He first invested 2,000 francs in the bookseller, who said that the business was in difficulty and wanted to invest more and double the share. The money-obsessed Balzac believed, took out all his savings of 9,000 francs, borrowed another 14,000 francs, and lost all his money. As soon as he analyzed, the problem was the cost of printing. He simply borrowed sixty thousand francs in one lump sum to buy a printing plant. At the age of 29, when the printing house went bankrupt, he was saddled with a huge debt of 50,000 francs. Creditors come to their doors every day, and police warrants follow. He had to sneak away, hide in anonymity, and hide in a dirty slum. In order to make money as soon as possible to pay off his debts, he had to write. Three years later, Balzac published works such as Donkey Skin and The Stage of Private Life, and for a time became one of the most famous writers in Europe. Once he had the money, Balzac "healed the scars and forgot the pain" and began to splurge uncontrollably, causing him to fall into a dilemma again; so he wrote like crazy, and so on, and so on, that he had the immortal monument in the history of world literature, "The Comedy of Man".
It was to pay off his debts and fool around with women that he wrote day and night, cup after cup of coffee. He wrote great works, but also damaged his health, and eventually died of chronic coffee poisoning at the age of 50. Otherwise, we will definitely see a more wonderful story than "The Tall Old Man".
Source: Reading Times, No. 9, 2021
Author: Pan Yijun
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