The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee (1830)(blissbat.net)
blissbat.net
The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee (1830)
http://blissbat.net/balzac.html
21 comments
Not just extremes in what he swallowed: he’s notorious for “La Comédie Humaine” [0] his dozens of novels are actually set in the same fictional world, with consistent characters across decades. You can take excerpts from several books to tell a completely original story. It’s the most detailed world ever described —from individual thoughts to gruesome details about poverty, up to overarching consequences of the industrial revolution on the remaining aristocracy.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Com%C3%A9die_humaine
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Com%C3%A9die_humaine
That sounds a lot like the basic idea behind Terry Pratchett's Discworld.
It is, although more XIXth-Century realism, so darker: someone who was drinking at a bar reappears as a ruined alcoholic later. Someone who got rich suddenly turned mean.
A lot of the speculation on the forty-something unfinished books are based on those trajectories.
A lot of the speculation on the forty-something unfinished books are based on those trajectories.
While writing La Comédie Humaine - 92 books and many more unfinished, from 1829 to 1850 - Balzac is said to have started his days around midnight. He would write till 8am, with some breaks for walks, rest for an hour, then write again till 4p. At that time he would bathe, receive friends for dinner, and go to bed at 6p or 7p. He drank a lot of coffee.
He had the dream job back in the 1800's
He's a fascinating figure - I recommend his biography by Zweig.
Regarding the "dream job", he was thoroughly jealous of aristocracy and their prestige and wealth and saw writing mostly as a way to accumulate similar wealth and join their ranks - which was impossible because writers didn't make that much and even if they did, the aristocracy would shun the nouveau-riche anyway. Interestingly, aristocracy was fascinated by his writing and wanted to rub elbows with him, which he completely missed (which is hilarious, given that he was a master of social observation) and so he spent all his earning on expensive furniture and such (which of course couldn't make any impression of the rich - they had the same trinkets, only better).
He also once hired a team of writers to write him book on a tight deadline. IIRC, the deadline was 48 hours and each writer was supposed to deliver a chapter of the novel, with little coordination of plot and characters. You can imagine the results...
Another interesting tidbit was that he spend multiple years wooing a bored Polish aristocrat, convincing her to abandon her husband and marry him instead. Of course, it was just another plot to get to the riches. There was also investing into silver mines in Corsica. He would make a great character in his novels...
Regarding the "dream job", he was thoroughly jealous of aristocracy and their prestige and wealth and saw writing mostly as a way to accumulate similar wealth and join their ranks - which was impossible because writers didn't make that much and even if they did, the aristocracy would shun the nouveau-riche anyway. Interestingly, aristocracy was fascinated by his writing and wanted to rub elbows with him, which he completely missed (which is hilarious, given that he was a master of social observation) and so he spent all his earning on expensive furniture and such (which of course couldn't make any impression of the rich - they had the same trinkets, only better).
He also once hired a team of writers to write him book on a tight deadline. IIRC, the deadline was 48 hours and each writer was supposed to deliver a chapter of the novel, with little coordination of plot and characters. You can imagine the results...
Another interesting tidbit was that he spend multiple years wooing a bored Polish aristocrat, convincing her to abandon her husband and marry him instead. Of course, it was just another plot to get to the riches. There was also investing into silver mines in Corsica. He would make a great character in his novels...
Some really interesting comments in the previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13647098
That one's from 2017.
There's also 2014: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7921691
and 2011: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2880196
There's also 2014: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7921691
and 2011: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2880196
Beware the first sip of ol' demon coffee.
https://www.nytimes.com/1995/04/20/books/books-of-the-times-...
https://www.nytimes.com/1995/04/20/books/books-of-the-times-...
Imagine posting this today: cite your sources, anecdotes are meaningless, n of 1, etc. It's interesting that "Many people claim coffee inspires them, but, as everybody knows, coffee only makes boring people even more boring." aligns with the recent post about caffeine boosting work capacity but no effect on creativity.
https://erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_Caffeine.shtml These are some modern takes on the same idea. Now that we know the “barely perceptible radations” from stomach to brain have a formula.
If you post on HN people assume it must be science not creative writing. I enjoyed reading this a lot more than the regular content.
Somebody posted it there as a comment. That's why we have the article here now I presume.
And with good reason! This piece, while beautifully written, claims that having black hair and liver spots means you have better tolerance for caffeine. I find that dubious, to say the least. When it comes to understanding the effects of drugs, we have learned through untold human suffering that the scientific approach is the best one we know of.
bonne page
sublime
Heads-up if you're thinking about clicking the credit/original source link at the bottom of the post...it's very NSFW and likely doesn't contain the original content.
According to research he came out as a man of extremes - "Overweight, workaholic, and a caffeine abuser, Honoré de Balzac lived a life of excess. He prematurely died at the age of 51 owing to gangrene associated with congestive heart failure."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27638234