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    The Magic Skin
    The Magic Skin
    The Magic Skin
    Audiobook9 hours

    The Magic Skin

    Written by Honoré de Balzac

    Narrated by John Bolen

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    "The possession of power, no matter how enormous, does not bring the knowledge how to use it."

    Raphael, a failed writer, finds himself deep in debt and unrequited in love, so he decides to take a suicidal plunge into the Seine River. Before he can, however, he discovers a magic leather skin in an antiquity shop. Its supernatural powers grant him his every wish, but it extracts a terrible toll! This parable depicts the malaise of nineteenth-century France.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateJun 8, 2009
    ISBN9781400180868
    Author

    Honoré de Balzac

    Honoré de Balzac (Tours, 1799-París, 1850), el novelista francés más relevante de la primera mitad del siglo XIX y uno de los grandes escritores de todos los tiempos, fue autor de una portentosa y vasta obra literaria, cuyo núcleo central, la Comedia humana, a la que pertenece Eugenia Grandet, no tiene parangón en ninguna otra época anterior o posterior.

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    Reviews for The Magic Skin

    4.5/5

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    • 5/5
      Fortunes made and spent and made and spent, obsession, debauchery, Rastignac, and Bianchon--in other words The Wild Ass's Skin is classic Balzac. Which was not exactly what I expected, since I thought this relatively early novel that he categorized in his "Philosophical Studies" section of the Human Comedy would be different from his "Studies of Manners" that is the category for most of his novels and stories. But the surprise was a mostly pleasant one.The Wild Ass's Skin does have a fantastic basis, centering around a magical skin that confers wishes--but in doing so shrinks with each wish until when it is gone the owner will die. But the execution is purely realistic, as the wishes come about almost by coincidence and the descriptions are firmly rooted in Paris circa 1830.It begins with Raphael de Valentin losing his last gold piece at the gambling table, going to commit suicide, and then ending up in a shop where he acquires the Wild Ass's Skin. He wishes for a debaucherous party--which is what is described over the course of the first part of the book, with interesting discussions of the role of journalism and art. In the second part of the book Raphael recounts the sequence of events that led him to his almost suicide, with the juxtaposition of a more simple, virtuous woman to a beautiful, heartless one who epitomizes "society". Finally the third part picks up Raphael sometime after the party when he is living in seclusion, walling himself off from the world and any possible desires--in an attempt to avoid making any wishes and thus shrinking the magic skin and killing himself.The Wild Ass's Skin is mostly about obsession, desire, and the attempts to control and channel it. And it is also about society, wealth, love, art, Paris, politics, and all the other themes of the Human Comedy.
    • 5/5
      I love this book! La peau de chagrin is one of the oddest of Balzac's novels (on par with La Recherche de l'Absolu and Le chef-d'oeuvre inconnu), and one in which he lays bare his debt to romanticism, the movement of Victor Hugo which he will later attempt to shed as rigorously as possible (with dry "realist" works like Eugenie Grandet). Being a fan of Hugo and a greater fan of Rabelais, I was pleased to see Balzac pay homage to both of his illustrious predecessors while giving voice to his own unique style of writing in this early novel. I am dismayed, incidentally, by the remarkably low rating this novel has received!
    • 4/5
      I've only read a few books by Balzac and I found them depressing. This book I liked although it does have it's drawbacks. It's about a poor young man who overnight acquires the power to become rich. Not only rich, but he has the power to do or have anything he wants. There's one catch, as he uses the power he also uses up his life. Do you think he would use that power to do great good in the world? Or at least give himself his heart's desire so that he, at least, could live a happy life? NO. The man is so paralyzed by the fear of losing his life, he never fully lives. The story is good. The setting is excellent, (Paris in the 1600's, I think.) The ending is very passionate. If this book hasn't already been made into a movie, it should be. Oh, the drawbacks- Balzac has his main character go up into the mountains to meditate on the meaning of life for pages and pages and pages. Very tedious reading. Just skip that part and you will find a very enjoyable story.
    • 4/5
      A miserable, poor young man goes through tough times but turns to a rich man. Not quite a happy ending but extremely complex in itself.