The Centenarian, or, The Two Beringhelds (review)

Balzac's Le Centenaire: ou, les deux Beringhelds, published in 1822 under the pseudonym of Horace de Saint-Aubin, tells the story of the spirit-like colossus of an old man who haunts one of his descendants, the General Beringheld, during the Napoleonic era. This being (the Centenarian) appears to be one of the ancestors of the aristocratic Beringheld family whose sole purpose seems to be to preserve both his own ever-aging body and the Beringheld family line. In order to extend his life, he finds victims whose vital life forces he acquires at the moment of their deaths. His efforts to preserve the family line involve the destruction of anyone or anything that comes in the way of its continuance. The main struggle for prolonged life occurs in the climax of the tale when the long-suffering Marianine, General Beringheld's beloved who waits patiently and faithfully for years while he fights in the Napoleonic Wars, is targeted by the Centenarian as his next victim in his quest for continued life. Ironically, she is the necessary force for the continuance of the Beringheld line should she be able to marry the General, yet she is needed for the Centenarian if he is to continue to live.

This first English translation by Chatelain and Slusser of one of Balzac's early novels is significant for several reasons. First, the faithful translation itself highlights the genesis of Balzac's efforts at novel writing. Significant flaws exist in Balzac's novel, including repetitions, tense switching, and complications and broken threads in the plot. The translators describe the speed at which Balzac was required by his contract with his publisher, Charles-Alexandre Pollet, to complete not only this novel, but Le Vicaire des Ardennes in a mere nine months, a fact which might account for the flaws. Chatelain and Slusser, for example, translate verbatim the crowd exhortations when the Centenarian is accused early on of having killed a young girl, Fanny, presumably to extract her vital life energy. Shouts from the crowd take up several pages of the original, which are faithfully reproduced in the translation: "Justice . . . Justice . . . Arrest Fanny's murderer . . . Justice . . . lay hands on the murderer . . . Put him to death . . . In prison, put the murderer in prison . . . He murdered Fanny – Fanny . . . Let him be punished . . . Justice . . ." (38). The translators do not spare the reader these redundancies. In addition, they rarely correct the switches from the past to the present tense, which can be awkward and jarring. In general, this tense switching disrupts the coherency of the text; however, in one note (Note 34) Chatelain and Slusser analyze one passage which does seem to have been more willfully created by the author, and which does create an immediacy during a particularly tense moment in the plot.

The Notes section itself is one of the strengths of this translation, together with the extensive Introduction, Translators' Notes, an introductory essay titled "Balzac's Centenarian and French Science Fiction," and Afterword. The Notes section offers descriptions of places mentioned in the novel, or historical events, which most readers of Balzac and French literature should already know. Some Notes digress a bit from the tale, such as the fact that Grammont hillside "which was open countryside at the time of the novel, is today the site of a park, lycée, and apartment complexes . . ." (Note 2). However, many of the Notes offer greater analysis of the text, providing helpful information about the state of metaphysics in Balzac's time, including hypnosis and magnetism (see Notes 59 an 60), an effort which will aid Anglophone readers of the translation to situate Balzac within the realm of science fiction (SF) studies. Particularly interesting for Anglophone readers interested in SF are the Introduction and introductory essay. Chatelain and Slusser note that Balzac's Centenarian is contemporary to Frankenstein, and present a masterful comparison/contrast of the Anglo...