Title: Great Novel, Great Translation
Review: I had four days to read this for a class, so I budgeted my time and decided to read around 70 pages a day. But this book was so enjoyable that I couldn't put it down, and I ended up reading 90 pages on the first day and the remaining 190 on the second. This is an engrossing story of devotion, betrayal, ambition, humility, crime, and innocence, told at a pleasantly brisk pace and peppered with profound observations on human nature. Goriot, Rastignac, and Vautrin are amazing characters, right up there with the creations of Dickens and Shakespeare.As for the translation, I don't know French and therefore can't judge Henry Reed's faithfulness to Balzac's expression. But as English, Reed's prose is flawless.
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