COUSIN BETTE(贝蒂表妹)

The Penguin paperback of Balzac's Cousin Bette runs 444 densely printed pages, so a three-hour abridgment can hardly be more than a shadow of the original. Claire Bloom's reading is stately and self-assured, as are the main characters in this novel of lust, greed and revenge in nineteenth-century Paris. But the version she reads is so heavily edited that it lacks any continuity or narrative flow. Scenes are often a few brief sentences, and Bloom barely pauses between them. The result leaves the listener disoriented and, unless he or she is well acquainted with the novel, largely unable to follow the complexity of the plot. D.B. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Book Description
Written in 1846 at the height of Balzac's literary powers, this novel portrays the stunningly malevolent Cousin Bette and her intricate plans for revenge against the wealthy relatives on whom she depends and whose condescension she bitterly resents. This is the official hardcover tie-in to the upcoming major motion picture from Fox Searchlight, starring Jessica Lange.

The Merriam-Webster Encylopedia of Literature
Novel by Honore de Balzac, published in 1846 as La Cousine Bette. The novel, part of Balzac's epic series La Comedie humaine (The Human Comedy), is considered one of his two final masterpieces. Thematically a testament to female vindictiveness, Cousin Bette recounts the story of Lisbeth Fischer, an embittered, unmarried peasant woman who hides her envy and hatred behind a mask of kindness as she attempts to ruin the Hulot family. She succeeds up to a point, but eventually the family regains its wealth through judicious and fortuitous marital and business connections. Bette herself, bitterly disappointed, sickens and dies.

From AudioFile
The Penguin paperback of Balzac's Cousin Bette runs 444 densely printed pages, so a three-hour abridgment can hardly be more than a shadow of the original. Claire Bloom's reading is stately and self-assured, as are the main characters in this novel of lust, greed and revenge in nineteenth-century Paris. But the version she reads is so heavily edited that it lacks any continuity or narrative flow. Scenes are often a few brief sentences, and Bloom barely pauses between them. The result leaves the listener disoriented and, unless he or she is well acquainted with the novel, largely unable to follow the complexity of the plot. D.B. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Inside Flap Copy
Written in 1846 at the height of Balzac's powers, this novel portrays the stunningly malevolent Cousin Bette and her intricate plans for revenge against the wealthy relatives on whom she depends and whose condescension she bitterly resents. As Bette's insidious deceit relentlessly unravels the lives of the obsessive womanizer Baron Hulot and his angelic wife, Adeline, Balzac displays a sense of verbal comedy as acute as Dickens's and creates a world that is vivid and densely real. Henry James considered him the greatest of all novelists; in Cousin Bette Balzac gives ample proof of his genius.

Fox Searchlight's film adaptation, starring Jessica Lange and Elizabeth Shue, will be in theaters in June 1998.

Book Dimension
Height (mm) 199 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 Width (mm) 131