Louis Lambert

Among the most personal of Balzac’s works, this short philosophical novel follows a boy of extraordinary intellect through his years at the college of Vendome, where Balzac himself had been a pupil. Louis Lambert devours books, absorbs the mysticism of Emanuel Swedenborg, and labors over a treatise on the human will that tries to bridge mind and matter. Plot matters less here than the workings of a brilliant mind pushed to its limits, as genius edges toward isolation and breakdown. Balzac placed it among his philosophical studies, using Lambert to explore his own ideas about thought, energy, and the border between insight and madness. This free PDF and EPUB edition makes the work available to read at no cost.