de Balzac, Honoré. Père Goriot (1834). Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999.

The adjective form of Balzac is Balzacian. It rhymes with Haitian.

At one point toward the end of this novel the title character is called "the Christ of Fatherhood," which is supposedly famous, or at least key to the novel, and but I find it confusing, seeing as how Christ is, like, the ultimate son.

I'd heard comparisons between Dickens and Balzac, viz. "Dickens : London :: Balzac : Paris", but this is probably where the comparison also ends. Reading Dickens (all one book of his that I've read) is so full of joy and play and there's very little of that here. Maybe I shouldn't have read it in translation. Maybe these characters' names mean things like "Jaundice" and "Crook" and "Deadlock" and other such punny stuff in the original French.

No spontaneous human combustion, though. And, somehow, no real pathos either, I don't think.