Balzac understood how difficult it is to give form and substance to the unspeakable

In the story retranslated and republished by Elliot, the relationship between reality and representation is central, in a seventeenth-century Paris where a painter and his master move. “Beauty is something severe and difficult that cannot be conquered without effort”

Invent the wolf. That’s what literature is second Vladimir Nabokovwhich in the Lessons he traced its birth back not so much to the Neanderthal boy who, chased by the tremendous barking, shouts – in fact – “Wolf! Wolf!”, but to the same boy who, despite the fact that there is neither wolf nor pursuit, shouts all the same (he was lucky, today the same would only generate a brawl between pedagogue-stars in the late evening). Of course, the fact is unavoidable: the relationship between reality and representation – central ne The unknown masterpiece by Honoré de Balzac, retranslated and republished in recent days by the publisher Elliot (100 pp., 10 euros) – has been the subject of study and philosophical elaborations since humanity has existed: there has been no wolf without wondering where it came from and where did he go; and whether the invention of the wolf really invents the wolf or not; whether inventing wolves is an act of opposition to reality or mere interposition, or who knows what else; and if you help to see better or, on the contrary, spread more smoke on the roast.