Why do good people suffer?

This is the question Honoré de Balzac poses in 'The Hated Son', set in Normandy during the eighth war of religion between Catholics and Protestant Huguenots.

The kind and gentle Jeanne de Saint-Savin loves her Huguenot cousin but has to marry the old and cruel Royalist count d'Herouville in order to save her lover's life.

The couple has a son, who promises to be a ray of light in Jeanne's unhappy life. But darkness descends when the count accuses her of infidelity and banishes Etienne from his castle, to be brought up by fishermen.

When the count's older son and sole heir dies, the rejected son is the only one alive to continue the family line and inherit the title.

Etienne is back in the game. But will he play by the rules set by his father who rejected him?

Other great reads that feature the theme of rejection are Jane Austen's 'Persuasion' and 'Much Ado About Nothing' by William Shakespeare.

Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) was a French novelist and playwright, most famous for a sequence of novels, collectively called 'The Human Comedy'. His signature style was a warts-and-all representation of post-Napoleonic French life, rich in detail and featuring complex, unfiltered characters.

The style means Balzac is regarded as one of the pioneers of European literary realism. He is named as an influence on writers including Emile Zola, Henry James, Charles Dickens, and Gustave Flaubert.

The first novel he published under his own name was 'Les Chouans' in 1829. In 1834 he hit upon the idea of grouping his novels together to record all of society. The result, over a period of years, was 'The Human Comedy', which comprised three categories: 'Analytic Studies'; 'Philosophical Studies'; and 'Studies of Manners'.

The Hated Son - e-kirja, Englanti, 2022