Introducing myself to the world of Balzac and La Comedie Humaine with this short story, one of his earliest successes and a suitably small-scale tale that doesn't feel like ploughing headfirst into the thick of the universe. Une passion dans le désert is an interesting narrative about a French soldier in the Napoleonic wars, lost in the deserts of Egypt after escaping capture by Maghrebs and who soon finds his only companionship to be an unusual panther that soon becomes attached to him. For such a simple plot, Balzac manages to get a lot out of it and tease several interesting ideas and themes throughout that made this a really great appetizer for my future readings - the way the soldier projects feminine qualities onto the panther as well as the chasm of communication between humans and other animals and the strange idyll of such complete solitude are all among the things I noticed touched upon. Really excited to dig further into La Comedie Humaine and in knowing I have enough to keep me occupied for years.

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Balzac is probably the most difficult writer I've read in French yet (the more tricky parts of Gautier + Rodenbach probably being my previous comparisons) and there's a real density to his prose and worldview that made this a little longer than I'd have expected as a read given it's so short. These will definitely be my "hard" practice for the foreseeable. ( )