Muleskinner Book Recommendation #15

Le Cousin Pons

( p. 1848)

(by Honoré de Balzac)

[Recommendation 5/2009]

A time for another novel in these series of recommendations, and this time it is Le Cousin Pons (1848) by Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850). The book tells basically a story from struggle over inheritance and testament left after by the main character, an old boy named Pons. Our Balzaccerian realistic drama here contains all the elements and/or personnel typical for many novels of the period, early 19^th century literature/belles lettres. It is presented as some kind of farce, and by subject 'as old as Adam', like goes the phrase. There are (fx) the ruthless (non-direct) relatives seeking for their share, the intriguing neighbours, the greedy jude (antique dealer), the corrupted lawyer, etc.

In short, the plot goes like: Pons, an appreciated Parisian composer is described as an old time tailcoat spending his later days and times in search of a dinner within upper class circles, mainly tolerated because of his great expertise on art works and antiques. Pons also has a passion, collecting the aforementioned things. However, during years Pons's appreciation in among those families has diminished and ultimately as result he becomes discriminated from their part, an unvited guest. Then, partly as consequence from malicious conspiracies against him and partly because unfortunate coincidents, Pons catches an illness and ultimately (in the end of book) dies. The latter part is devoted to describing, how during Pons illnes, all kinds of people try to interlace in the making of his last will, and catch their share from this collection, worth remarkable sum in francs, about Million or so(in 1830s currency, of course).

It must be remarked, that at first the novel gives quite mediocre impression; plot is not always so well captivating, the characters not as cleverly depicted as one would expect. And as such, its also quite typical in resembling some of the techniques of and personnel in the older examples in fiction - Say Moliere's(1622-1673) archetypical characters and drama's(Balzac also wrote few drama's in his latter days). As well, because Balzac's works mostly precede the flourishment of the so called 'Psychological novel' (or; 'Psychological realism', a genre that was just in birth/whose earliest roots are often traced back in the time of Balzacs early works, 1830s in French literature), Le Cousin Pons may appear little old-fashioned (for the modern reader). This so, even if comparing to some contemporary writings we've here earlier discussed. But it's not to say that Balzac's narration wouldn't contain a sharp psychological eye, only that his technique has some older origins. After all, he's often also honored with the title of the 'father' in French realism.

And, we must admit that book is not possibly even the best example from writings that were included in Balzac's magnicifient project, La Comedié Humaine. (A title he planned to combine together all his efforts in fiction by fx making supporting and other characters appear repeatedly in different stories – about some 90 novels and short stories he was able to publish in his life-times, though the complete work was then left partially unfinished because of author's early death). There's probably better representatives in Comedié Humaine, works that also contain the most evident features of Balzac's realism, it's richness in detail and characterization - like fx César Birotteau¹, that we could as well have presented as a noteworthy example. Also, most of his novels clearly lose in comparison to some of the masteful short-stories; like La Fille aux yeux D'or (The Girl with the Golden Eyes; 1833) or Sarrasine (1830), to mention a few.

So, why have we chosen here Le Cousin Pons? Basically, because its also story from the collector, a point of interest to us here.

The collector aspect is in every way deliberate choice for personnel type, and actually the main character (Pons) has later often been also interpreted as some kind of alter ego from Balzac himself (who was collecting paintings and antique). But this is not the only explanation ; It could be seen as intentional choice also because such character often appears as showing opposing kind of attitude to consumerist values and other socially favourable behaviour. Of course, Pons is not any kind of 'rebellious hero', but from literature histories we also learn that those processes (the early formations in the development of capitalism and subsequent change in society values) were largely taking place at the time when Balzac was writing his realistic novels during the early 19^th century - and indeed the bourgeusie life and his disapproval from its features are among the themes in plenty of the works in La Comédia Humaine. Balzac is also recognized as some kind of example from the earliest bohemists, later admired from that by fx Baudelaire (1821-1867), though these attitudes have been also interpretated as expressions of Balzac's royalist opinions.

So, one might then ask what kind values Pons holds different to those of early consumerism in the society at the time of this description? Is his collectorial habit something similar to habit of preservation of the old family furniture and other things that once belonged to owners parents or date back even further times in family's ancestral tree? Kind of more archaic attitude (each object carrying some recollected memories and notes from past relatives and personnel) that can be described as 'curatorial pattern of consumption', like defined by fx Grant McCracken in his research from consumption. This is rarer practise these days and originates back to 18^th century; in times when people generally inherited more than they possibly gained otherways². But in the times of the novels happenings it may have still been more conventional. However, concerning our particular example here (Pons collections); these aren't similarly related to his family lineage's, since he hasn't inherited them, but collected them using his own sharpened skills and foresighted abilities. And indeed, If Pons collections are interpreted as some storehouses for his own memoirs, they are merely memoirs from his personal victories and successes on that field(the collectors hobby). We would even say that in more typical to modern consumerism appears the basic nature of collecting, for some level a capital-related practise, too as shows also quote from Balzac's text:

” [...]and at length, in the pleasures of collecting, he found such ever-renewed compensation for his failure, that if he had been made to choose between his curiosities and the fame of Rossini--will it be believed?--Pons would have pronounced for his beloved collection.

Pons was of the opinion of Chenavard, the print-collector, who laid it down as an axiom--that you only fully enjoy the pleasure of looking at your Ruysdael, Hobbema, Holbein, Raphael, Murillo, Greuze, Sebastian del Piombo, Giorgione, Albrecht Durer, or what not, when you have paid less than sixty francs for your picture. Pons never gave more than ahundred francs for any purchase. If he laid out as much as fifty francs, he was careful to assure himself beforehand that the object was worth three thousand. The most beautiful thing in the world, if it cost three hundred francs, did not exist for Pons. Rare had been his bargains; but he possessed the three qualifications for success--a stag's legs, an idler's disregard of time, and the patience of a Jew. This system, carried out for forty years, in Rome or Paris alike, had borne its fruits. Since Pons returned from Italy, he had regularly spent about two thousand francs a year upon a collection of masterpieces of every sort and description, a collection hidden away from all eyes but his own; and now his catalogue had reached the incredible number of 1907. Wandering about Paris between 1811 and 1816, he had picked up many a treasure for ten francs, which would fetch a thousand or twelve hundred to-day. Some forty-five thousand canvases change hands annually in Paris picture sales, and these Pons had sifted through year by year.

[...]

Pons had begun by collecting snuff-boxes and miniatures; his name was unknown in bric-a-bracology, for he seldom showed himself in salesrooms or in the shops of well-known dealers; Pons was not aware that his treasures had any commercial value." (Le Cousin Pons)³

Clearly, Pons acknownledges the monetary value of his collections though it may not be his principal target in the habit (in the novel also is described that he's quickly pretty aware from the greedy hands reaching for his testament). But, as well the collector seems to some level resemble the more archaic attitude towards objects and buying of them. He is not necessary aware of their exact value and not interested in profit making, but purchases in bargain prices also make part of the exitement in the hobby. Collecting may (for Pons) be a personal enterprise, but it has a social motive. And this perhaps underlines the nature of collecting very well; it sort of makes an 'borderline case' where these objects are freed from the common consumerist circle (new – valued / used – less valued / old – worthless) that keeps the stuff in strickt discipline, devoid from any other values (but not necessary all collecting is as tied to the financial /monetary values as our example here, art collecting. Many collections of objects are not generally valued worth any remarkable sums of money). Therefore, the collector and main character in the story here (Pons) is also some kind of border-line case; he's in-between the past world and current times, and that also emphasizes his being sort of a peculiarity in social circles.

So, we could (perhaps) interpret those collections as some kind of 'ticket' he hopes to achieve for himself– to gain an acceptance in circles of the upper class of the time, dances and celebrations their most obvious expressions. To some level it also perhaps matches with Balzac's bitter despise on the raise of the bourgeousie life-styles, intensifyingly in formation during early 19th century and imitating the aristocracy's manners of life in their outer appearances.

But, it would be reducing the total scope and complete thematics in this novel if we limited this discussion to just collectorial thematics. It's also a well developed (in spite of occasional weaknesses in plot) novel from the human greed, presented with rather naturalistic descriptions. Though almost all Balzac's characters (in La Commédie Humaine) are rather plain in description, they seem to bring in extreme the certain specialities typical for the individual (human). His special form of realism, say it's just Balzaccerian kind, is also acknownledged as having widened the 'gallery' of typical characters in classic literature of the time (as well as affected for the social range of literary heroes to use) and significantly contributed fx in the making novel a dominant form of 19^th century literature.⁴ So, those little simplified side-persons and their actions, exaggerated but not at all to proportions unbelievable, play large part in this hilarious novel from that ever-so timeless topic.

It's of course more or less pessimistic depictorial/drama. But, one gets the feeling that Balzac's opinion from Pons (as well as from some other characters) is rather more warmer than from the people hoping to benefit from mans testament (his collection of art and bric-a-brac). All in all, one might say, the exaggeration and slight caricatures of characterization of course only underline the human greed presented in their typical actions in that drama. The repulsive plan and action carried out by those side-characters are underlined with certain hilarious tone in narritive, also present in many of Balzacs other writings too. And so, we might perhaps say that though the novel lacks some finishing touches in narration and personnel, it more than succeeds in it's rude descriptions from these aspects of life. (Balzac's realism contains at the same time some naturalistic part but also certain idealization as well, not favoring either. As said before, he's often basically just curious from the human kind).

Likewise, we notice that Balzac's main strenghts rest on his capability to draw delicate (not boring) stories from almost anything in life. As well, these descriptions from the collector character – actually only small part in the whole of it - are among the earliest presented in modern literature and also suffice to give us a reason to include it in our series.

^{--------------}

^Notes:

^{1. Histoire de la grandeur et de la décadence de César Birotteau – like the complete name for the novel is (p. 1837).}

^{2. McCracken, G. , Culture and Consumption. New approaches to the Symbolic Character of Consumer Goods and Activities (1988). McCracken's consumption study begins with an examples from this kind of object-relationships where old furniture and other things are interpeted as containing some 'mnemonic value' that strenghtens the relation to past times and personnel and where their 'ownership' is mainly a way for keeping alive the memory from the ancestors in family lineage.}

^{3. Quote from Project Gutenberg Online Book Catalogue (plain-txt edition). Balzac's narrative (which, at least partly tempts to be interpreted as author's own words from the pleasures of collecting) also states: ”Pons had received many objects by trade, which is among the pleasures of the collector. Owning the rare objects gives less joy than trading them.”}

^{4. In addition to some perhaps older archetypical characters like the miser and the abandoned lover, these personifications also include the philistine, the shady dealer, the erotomaniac, arch-crook, genius-inventor, philanthropist, etc (presented in various novels of La Comédie Humaine). Also it's said for Balzac's praise that his fictional world closely resembles the real world of his own days, as presenting the fragmentariness of the ordinary life in these (dis)appearing and reappearing characters. (Answers.com → French literature companion ) ...And we don't disagree, many from these (characters) are quite easy to imagine in existence, especially as most are described only by general appearance, and not too much detaily.}

Species Endangered (MS-Blog Series from) - I / 09

Proboscis Monkey

Class: Mammalia; Order: Primates;

Latin name: Nasalis Larvatus;

IUCN Status: EN (Endangered) / Cites: Appendix I

(as 2009 situation).

Proboscis Monkeys (Nasalis Larvatus - earlier sometimes named as Dutch monkey and also as the Long-nosed monkey) are among the curious looking creatures in nature. They belong in the family of Cercopithecidae (Old World Monkeys) and apparently the name derives from their extremely large noses. The nose even larger on the males, supposition being that it may hold a cooling task in radiating animals excess body heat (other explanations mention that related to their breeding behavior). These animals are only found at the Island of Borneo; thus from Indonesia, Brunei and Malaysia.

The species lives mostly in the jungles close to rivers cutting though islands forests. The habitat areas consist almost exclusively from mangrove forest, that adjoin the rivers and streams. Proboscis monkeys are mostly plant eaters, and they have cellulose digesting bacteria in stomach which allows them to use of food other animals mostly avoid, fx mangrove leaves and other toxic chemicals containing forest plants. Also they are mentioned as most aquatic from all the primates and excellent swimmers.

But, as we don't necessary hold any especial, particular knowledge to present but there's actually amounts of information about them in web in form of pics, videos, etc (see those fx at Arkive), we can as well loan here a brief description:

“Proboscis monkey (Nasalis larvatus) - The swimming star with the giant nose

Everyone who has the opportunity to see a Proboscis monkey is struck by its giant nose. But there is a second feature which is very typical for Proboscis monkeys and their relatives, the so called Leaf-monkeys - it's their large belly. Indicated by the name of that group of apes, they almost exclusively feed on leaves - and leaves are not easy to digest. Moreover leaves are not very rich in energy-content. So Proboscis monkeys have to eat a lot of leaves and spend most of their time on feeding. In order to obtain enough energy from their meagre nourishment, Proboscis monkeys have got a complicated stomach divided into several parts. Their stomach is quite similar to that of ruminants, which have to face the same problems. Adult Proboscis monkeys are large animals. Males reach a length of about 70 cm and a weight up to 24 kg. Females are significantly smaller, reaching lengths of 60 cm and weights of just 12 kg. The tails of Proboscis monkeys are about as long as their bodies. Their fur is brick-red, the front and the cheeks are of brighter colour and the arms and legs are more greyish. The most obvious feature of Proboscis monkeys is the male's extremely long nose, shaped like a cucumber. Noses of females and young are not small either but don't reach the sizes of the noses of males by far.

Proboscis monkeys inhabit Borneo. They are endemic on that South-Asian island. The prefered habitat of Proboscis monkeys are rainforests of the lowlands and most of all mangrove-forests at the river mouths. They live on trees and wander about in groups of sizes from 10 to 30 animals. Mostly several adult males can be found in one group, but groups with just one single adult male are known too. Proboscis monkeys move quite rapidly on the trees. They are able to swing from branch to branch using their hands but are also very skilled in running on all fours. If Proboscis monkeys are in a hurry, they jump from tree to tree. They prefer this way to move when they have to cross rivers or escape from predators like the Clouded leopard, a cat which is closely related to the Tiger. If there's no other opportunity to escape left, Proboscis monkeys drop themselves into the water even from high branches. They are very skilled swimmers and divers. This is not very common among apes, since most ape species are said to be more or less scared of water. But it's a necessity of life to be able to swim in a habitat that is dominated by rivers and river mouths. But accidents are very common; sometimes Proboscis monkeys are driven out to the open sea by river currents.

Adult male Proboscis monkeys are imposing figures. They are quite aggressive towards members of other groups. But before initiating a fight they try to clarify their positions by showing threatening behaviour. Doing a lot of fuss they break branches and give loud calls. But there are not much further details known about Proboscis monkey behaviour and their social life in the wild. Long-term studies of Proboscis monkey groups are extremely difficult, because they can be observed only by boat in the mangrove-forests. In spite of the unapproachability of its habitat the Proboscis monkey is regarded to be endangered, since habitat destruction doesn't stop even at such places.” (This article was originally published at magazine.naturspot.de. Link to the original article )

It seems that until recent times their specialities (in forms of diet and habitat area, mostly) was permitting these monkeys to remain relatively safe, even when many wild animal species next to their habitual areas had become threatened in just few decades. In addition to the best known Orangutans, various other unique species (of Borneo) have suffered from the combined process of loggings and land clearing for agricultural use - Its noticeable, according to these articles from Mongabay that from 1980-90s to recent years about 80 per cent of the primary forests in Borneo witnessed unforeseen(in global scale, even) rate of loggings, leaving then ao remaining 1.2 million hectares of mangrove forests degraded (and as 'refugee areas' for the forests wild animal species). Late in wisdom we (ourselves, here) then also find remarked that most of the timber cut went for such stuff and products sold in the industrialized countries as garden furnitures (and not forgetting to mention here as well: also for paper pulp and chopsticks...), whose material could have easily been obtained from other woods and unquestionably by ecologically less harmful way (; U.S. And Japan markets were the main direction as mentioned in article. But, the European customers wouldn't have too much grounds for condemn and resentment, since at least part of the imported garden stuff for the continent as well still recently originated from uncontrolled destruction of Congo Basin rainforests, carried out by the commercial business needs.)

Returning to our particular topic here, the Proboscis monkeys that prefer mostly habitat impenetrable for humans that until latest times was found of little commercial value. So, they were still (quite) recently flourishing, but the river-sides are now also harvested, and so modern drainage technology has reduced former mangrove swamps to narrow edges along rivers. As consequence, nowadays Farming has been noticed as the most extensive reason to reduction of mangrove forests - these disappearing by faster rate (globally about some 20 per cent loss during 1980-2005) than the regular rainforests, fx. These monkey's in question are not known easily accustomed to living in zoo's, and the likely chance - as well as for the many other particular species in the areas - is in the conservation areas where exist the remaining untouched spots, often surrounded by established plantations.


The mentioned things (and other information, fx one Proboscis monkey population having extinct in during this period of time) of course then leaves a rather anxious feeling from the prospective future and from animal species populations survival chances in general. Fire breaks, expected to increase in the future as result of climate change advancing, now expose the vulnerable forests left for further rapid destruction (Forest fires having caused massive forest destruction in Borneo at the 1997-98 already). But basically, this development don't seem to been much different process from that in the northern hemispheres during some hundred of years (if not comparable, because it has been more directly joined with today's global economics). With modern technology and commercial industrial practices in use all this only seems to have happened in far shorter time, some 30 years. Some of the few regions (in the world) with such rich biodiversity now disappeared by large part, hopefully this not shows what can take place in coming years.


Later (29/07/09) added: It's also newsed that conservation parks maybe also have effect by reducing the deforestation in the areas surrounding them, as noted from parks in Sumatra (although the effect is admitted controversial and in the case of Sumatra may be a result from other co- factors too). As well, although the history and origins of the idea from conservation areas is sometimes mentioned (/recently newsed, see "Yosemite model") as much controversial and often over-romanticed, it feels that the coin always has two sides(as usual) ; (from the MSW perspective) seems clear that the existence of parks in most cases has more benefits for the wildlife than the absence. On the other hand, it is of course as much obvious that people who have lived in the area for longer time, some thousands of years, more often are probably living right (noted in the above Yosemite-article). But it is as much obvious, the need for such parks, in the first place, raises from the phenomenom known/described fx as modernization - and no-one has yet invented the universal model to stop its side-effects/destruction it usually carries.

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Bits- & (De)-vices

: MulSkinner Technoid Wrap-Up : I/2009 (Spring)

After our envisage visioning and futuristic predictions, it leaves rather ambivalent feeling for these recent comps/devices-surveys – especially knowing that here in MSW these always are delayed like the bus you just expected (sometimes, somewhere) to arrive last week. Also, in spite of all that amazement that now fills us when gazing the wonders, we cannot but notice that evidently astonishing large amount of it always goes to E-waste basket all the way(too soon). On the other hand, forward looking and tech-believers as we are, doesn't probably do harm if we occasionally here write some brief enthusiastic remarks from latest arrived front-ends.

From the most urgent hot-potatoes, Windows's new version probably was making most noise, even in MSW. And the prospective views and promises announced include full support for Blue-Ray, the regular codecs (xvid and companions), IE fully separable (one can completely uninstall it for good and be happy with whatever your favorite browser to use), also necessary decorations and spicings on desktop, etc, it's probably more flexible for customization (if that's the word...) and several other things... Currently on latest Release Candies level, customers were promised that Vista would benefit from on-coming SP2 too; fx support for writin' on Blue-Ray as well, finally there's long promised Search 4.0, improvements on Wifi-efficiency, Media Center support on TV, and even more improvements on this and that...Suprisingly then, they also state that the latest generation (Win 7) now lands with XP-virtualization platform, giving users possibility jumpin' over Vistas and find their progs and stuff not natively running on latest version still usable. So (it seems) entrepreneurs would finally be satisfied (however, feels a bit odd – at least to us – if this virtual platform wasn't able to included within Vista's (fx professional, etc. versions)...Anyway, also they say that now the subnotebooks are going to be sold with slightly reduced version, just to tempt the customers buying full versions for their main laptops (seems a bit more surprising even, but basically it's probably just the same tactics as with the preceding generation; Premiums, Profs and Basics ...but if this here then presents an example from a commercial front-end, to use that term? It also seems there is already long gone been pocket-size maccines with 120 Gb hd and Vista's...). Well, who cares...Whatever the actual bare bones in the business, also the Android is then mentioned to now having some boost for markets beyond phones, namely the recently most fastest growing field of notebooks (hope that makes some competition). How soon, we didn't yet find, but can as well then end these thoughts in some estimates; (Win)3.1 reigned the market respectable period of 5-6 years, 95/98 (combined) about 5, leaving the also-runs aside, XP quite the same (depends when you time the actual success), Vista (most wishful thinking) about 3-4, so can we predict this generation to hold for 3 years? ...although they promise, this time it would be more lasting since they've finally been able to overthrow the old (x86?)-architectures...well, (sooner) the better, even if lately arrived...

But let's get serious; there's more - micro-USB standard for mobiles and finally it frees you to use universal charging (cables). Available even here at MSW, though we didn't see anything from such new invention in adverts – not much encouraging, and only makes us also comment that these propably could also have been on shops'n'sales couple years already, hasn't the business been devoted merely for sellin' lifestyles, and not the products... Another delicatessen, Bluetooth 3.0 arrives as well; and they say “that it will enable the transfer of much larger files”; “...speed improvement will certainly be helpful for transferring things like large music and video collections...” ; and “...it likely won't be long before we see devices with Bluetooth 3.0 built-in” - However, don't sell the game before it's catched; a passionate search of mobile phones only gave us (at MSW) a number of v.2.1 equipped devices... but at least the more expensive ones to arrive markets soon (late/autumn this year) are also promised to support HD-graphics with Opengl ES 2.0 (full-hd, they say)...but as well there's the news that new home-entertainment (like Blu-Ray players, fx JVC, LG), brought on market all in the quiet, are now having full support for HD-codecs too (like H.264/AVC) with Matroska ...And , few more details(that we were finally mercifully allowed and can't hold our excitement here at MSW...) from the Samsung Blue Earth solar-charging phone; it mentions “A full solar charge of around 10 to 14 hours will provide enough power for around four hours of talk time.”; it also has 'Eco-Mode' to minimize energy waste. And from LG as well, there was a prototype of solar-device promised on markets at autumn - other prospective main important techniques advertised were High-def recording taking markets in phones(...is it going to be 12 megapixels or more, I just wonder...) and as well the ultra-sharp touch-screens to be seen.... when will they invent blink-responding order-principle to command them (phones)?

So, it seems that our Technoid-zypnoid-wrap-up this time was (slightly!) focused on mobile fields. But there's of course plenty of other things, unnoticed here, that we've not able to have kept our (dizzy) eyes on in the meantime; not meant to think those as secondary matter, fx. the latest bit-torrentements; neither that important browser-upgrade which was still persistently on RC-candice level after some half/three quarter a year(in MSW, if not elsewhere...); but since these selections are only a tip of the ice-berg(shiver...), it also gives us a feeling that these other stuffs may have evolved as well, but actually an absent-minded glance perhaps doesn't miss much in this sort of markets - like in the case of that evolutionary sustainable phone, Evolve, that also still wasn't available (here, just?) in any alternative models/different version (phones)... And I guess we can then end our surveys this time with words from a classic song: “There's a season for everything under the sun – Turn, Turn, Turn” (etc.) - So now closing this most advanced progressive report.

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