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These two short stories serve as my introduction into the literary legacy of Honoré de Balzac, and frankly, it's probably going to stay at that. While both stories were crafted okay, and had a messages of loyalty, I found them rather dull to be honest. It may very well be the translation, I can't be sure, but I was left feeling slightly disappointed.

Little Black Classics #41 ( )

As usual in this series, I knew absolutely nothing about the two short stories in this tiny book, but was only seduced by the title. I mean, come on! I'm starting to think I should start a section of my shelves devoted to heresy, which is, I suppose, what I was hoping for.

Instead, the first, titular story starts off slow with a lot of context I probably didn't need. The story doesn't really take off for me until Bianchon finally confronts the atheist Desplein over seeing him attend mass, and Desplein tells his story -- which is, in the end, a story about bootstraps, and the impossibility of pulling oneself up by one's own, and the debt owed to those who help us rise.

The second story, "The Conscript," is a sad tale on the costs of revolution and suspicion and demands of idealogical purity.

Both stories I enjoyed to some extent but neither wowed me. ( )

Balzac' two short stories are subject pictures of an atheist visiting a mass for some mystic reason and of a mother waiting for her son arriving home from war. ( )

When I first started reading the Atheist's Mass I got about half-way through and was thinking "Oh great, another book written to tell us how all atheists secretly want / revert to religion" and then I finished it, and was pleasantly surprised to discover that it was in fact about an atheist who, in spite of their own personal beliefs, gave the only thing the could to honor the memory of someone who helped them.
It was in fact a story about an atheist being a normal, rational and honorable human being. Yay! To be represented in literature as we actually are is a wonderful thing.
the second story in this little book was a little insight into living during the Terror of the french revolution.
( )

Penguin Little Black Classic 41