Gold & With Morocco Boots or A Wolf in the Vineyard

First and foremost I must rain fury down upon the head of M.A. Crawford, not for his translation, but for the infuriating introduction.  I cannot understand these types of egotistical introductions that try to reveal the entirety of the story while simultaneously critiquing and commenting on the true intent of the author before the reader has cracked the 1st page.  These all to common of introductions only make sense, and do not anger the reader, after the story has already been digested.  These sordid types of introductions should not be called introductions and should not be read before the reading of the book, as they will most certainly contain spoilers.  I skimmed Crawford's horrid intro over as quickly as possible (which was not in a short while, due to it's maniacal length) while silently fuming.

I found myself at first disgusted my Monsieur Grandet.  I then came to realize that he was absolutely correct in everything he did (aside from not enjoying his wealth in any other way but to clandestinely stroke it).  I came to despise Eugenie Grandet.  Why would I do that?

What was it that Eugenie first saw in her cousin Charles that sparked her love for him?  It was the flash of materialism personified. 

Had her love been sparked for Charles upon his fall, and been borne out of pity, I might not despise her so, and yet...  She is her father's daughter.  His fall only gave her justification to feel what she already felt for Charles.

Her sense of her own awakened independence, her goodness, her uniqueness, her saintliness—all false.  She was and is an ignorant and sheltered girl who was twisted not by the love of money but by the love of something infinitely more silly—the woman's concept of gilded romance.  Eugenie was a youthful Don Quixote in panties, Charles her Dulcinea, except in this case Dulcinea was no ragged plump farm girl but a realized and not idealized Dulcinea, all the more tempting.

Her fall was due to her worshiping the image of a fancy-pants'; as her father so often pointed out, "a vagabond with morocco boots."  Not only is Eugenie ignorant, she is shallow.  Love at first sight!  Ta ta ta ta!  Though Eugenie is "in the world though not of the world", as Balzac tells us, her reasoning and her actual actions show us that she is indeed "of the world".  She is false tenderness, I say—cracked.

Monsieur Grandet, though cruel and immoral, is true to himself and his own set of economic laws.  I fancy him as London's Wolf Larsen landed ashore.  I like him, though he is evil.  He is in the world, of the world, and he conquers the world.

If anyone is worthy of God's heaven, who is "in the world, not of the world", truly it is Mrs. Grandet, Eugenie's dear mother.  She is blameless but for the single lie she told to protect her daughter.

Nanon is an interesting character.  I don't trust her.  Certainly she is not bourgeois, though she ends up an elite, which certainly must have been an odd thing to behold.  Nanon was the wolf's right arm.  When the wolf was not looking, Nanon was up to all sorts of innocent mischievousness.  Though loyal, she is not trustworthy.  She is both wolf and lamb and more ignorant of the world than Eugenie, though she is full of worldly wisdom.  I find her somewhat of a paradox, and quite disturbing, as paradoxes are not suppose to exist in reality.  Goofy lovable zombie is a term that comes to mind...  I'm weird I guess.  Most people would say that Nanon, if not Eugenie, is the most lovable character in the book.  She creeps me out.  Eugenie pisses me off with her shallowness.

Poor Charles.  Charles is a typical example of man.  I look at his life as more of a tragedy than Eugenie's; not because of money, love, and opportunity lost, but because of the depth of the cataclysmic chasm into which he fell, and what monster crawled forth into the world from it.