AG-1

A peculiar novella, this is along the lines of what I would have expected from something classified as a "Philosophical Study" (unlike the Wild Ass's Skin, which was actually more of a conventional novel).

Louis Lambert is recounted in the first person by a narrator who appears to be Balzac and is focused on an almost supernatural philosophical genius, Louis Lambert. It recounts all of the events of his short and uneventful life in several sustained segments of narrative, the longest being the beginning of the novella, which are quite good and interesting and sympathetically convey his love of reading, philosophy, and the hostility and misunderstanding he faces, especially from his rigid school. Louis Lambert does better when it is distantly describing his philosophy, his youthful masterwork "The Treatise of the Will," almost in the way Borges would have. Where it loses me (and I suspect most) is when it actually at great length start reproducing it, his somewhat repetitive love letters, and a conclusory series of almost fortune-cookie like philosophical observations that are reproduced in numbered order.

Without all of this, it would have been an interesting short story or even short novella that provided various, partial glimpses filtered through a narrator who is far from omniscient about the life of someone who only briefly crossed paths with him. But unfortunately it is weighted down with much more. ( )

A peculiar novella, this is along the lines of what I would have expected from something classified as a "Philosophical Study" (unlike the Wild Ass's Skin, which was actually more of a conventional novel).

Louis Lambert is recounted in the first person by a narrator who appears to be Balzac and is focused on an almost supernatural philosophical genius, Louis Lambert. It recounts all of the events of his short and uneventful life in several sustained segments of narrative, the longest being the beginning of the novella, which are quite good and interesting and sympathetically convey his love of reading, philosophy, and the hostility and misunderstanding he faces, especially from his rigid school. Louis Lambert does better when it is distantly describing his philosophy, his youthful masterwork "The Treatise of the Will," almost in the way Borges would have. Where it loses me (and I suspect most) is when it actually at great length start reproducing it, his somewhat repetitive love letters, and a conclusory series of almost fortune-cookie like philosophical observations that are reproduced in numbered order.

Without all of this, it would have been an interesting short story or even short novella that provided various, partial glimpses filtered through a narrator who is far from omniscient about the life of someone who only briefly crossed paths with him. But unfortunately it is weighted down with much more. ( )