TEHRAN-The Persian translations of two books by the French novelist and playwright Honore de Balzac have been released in the Iranian market.

The 1830 novella “Gobseck” from his series of “The Human Comedy” and the 1836 novel “The Old Maid,” both rendered into Persian by Mohammad-Jafar Pouyandeh have been published by Now Publications.

The plot of Gobseck, set during the French Restoration period of 1815 to 1830, is framed within a conversation between lawyer Maître Derville and the Vicomtesse de Grandlieu. Derville tells a story which focuses on Anastasie de Restaud, the daughter of a rich bourgeois about whom Balzac has written his famous work “Father Goriot”.

Anastasie has married into the aristocracy but is bored by her marriage, which is loveless and passionless. She spends her fortune and turns to the usurer Jean-Esther van Gobseck for financial assistance. Maitre Derville acts as Gobseck’s lawyer, while Derville's future wife is also one of Gobseck's debtors.

Anastasie's husband finds out about her debts, so he signs a convoluted contract with Gobseck which is supposed to benefit his and Anastasie's children. However, Anastasie destroys that contract during her irrational schemings. Subsequently, both Anastasie's marriage is destroyed and her family fortune lost.

Eventually, the elderly Gobseck gains an even larger fortune through factoring. Shortly after his death, Derville discovers many treasures in Gobseck's home, including loads of spoiled food which Gobseck had intended to sell.

“The Old Maid” is a novel written in 1836. The short and incisive novel stands out for the density of its story and its rapid succession of events. Balzac takes time to carefully describe the house of Mademoiselle Cormon, the old maid, in the city of Alençon, before entering directly into the heart of the matter.

The portrait of Mademoiselle Cormon is one of the most successful in “The Human Comedy”. Balzac delivers in this novel one of his most nuanced analyses of a provincial town's social, political and financial affairs.

“The Human Comedy”, which presents a panorama of post-Napoleonic French life, is generally viewed as Honore de Balzac's magnum opus.

It is a multi-volume collection of interlinked novels and stories depicting French society in the period of the Restoration (1815–30) and the July Monarchy (1830–48). It consists of 91 finished works (stories, novels, or analytical essays) and 46 unfinished works (some of which exist only as titles).

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