The 6:41 to Paris by Jean-Philippe Blondel (“…thanks to you I am not what I seem.”)

No one ever warned us that life would be long…No one told us, either, that the hardest thing would not be breaking up, but decay. The disintegration of relationships, people, tastes, bodies, desire. Until you reach a sort of morass where you no longer know what it is you love. Or hate. 

Such are the thoughts one might have on a train, reviewing one’s life because you find yourself sitting next to the person you once loved. 

Cécile Duffaut. Philippe Leduc. Twenty seven years ago they were in London together. Now they sit next to each other on the 6:41 train, headed to the Gare L’Est in Paris, not knowing if the other remembers who he, or she, is.

(Photo credit here.)

The reader is thrust between what is going through Claire’s mind to Philippe’s; we want to know what the terrible thing that happened in London involved. And, once we do, we want to know if they can find forgiveness for each other. Or, themselves.

What do other people do to forget?

Ah, now there’s a question. I often have thought that I am the only one with a reel of regret replaying itself on repeat in my memory. Apparently, Philippe asks himself the same question as it will not let him go.

It’s  not a long book. Nor does it have a cover which is in any way, in my opinion, attractive. What it does have is a tension which may occur to many of us, when, given the time and opportunity we ask ourselves, “What could have changed?” 

Today, Claire knows: don’t be impressed by anyone, but treat them as equals; do something about your wardrobe; come to terms with your past.

When we do, we often can turn what wounded us most into an impetus for forgiveness. 

( Thanks to New Vessel Press for sending me this book which I read especially for Paris in July 2026, hosted by Emma at Words and Peace. Find links to other reviews for the event here.)

 

Old Goriot by Honoré de Balzac for Paris in July 2026

“My heart is big enough to hold all your troubles.” 

Thus speaks Old Goriot, un père extraordinaire. No amount of money is too small for his daughters; no sacrifice is too great. This vermicelli maker has worked hard to amass enough money to marry his daughters well. But, surely it is a fool who thinks that money can offer either satisfaction or security.

His two daughters, Delphine and Anastasie, have each married vile men who forbid them to see their father. He’s good enough to provide them money, of course, but not good enough to come to their homes. And so Goriot lives in a lodging-house of the most modest nature, in a room with wallpaper peeling from the damp. 

One of seven lodgers at Maison Vauquer is Eugène Rastignac, who has come to Paris at the great financial sacrifice of his family in the country. Eugène is supposedly a law student in Paris, but he is a much more serious student of Paris’ society in the early 1800s than he is of law. By the end of the novel, his education is almost complete. 

Throughout his novel, Balzac brings us to the awareness of the emptiness of riches, and the pain of love’s deceit. As Old Goriot lies dying, having given everything he has for his daughters’ luxuries, he asks Eugène, “Did you see my girls? They’re coming here directly, they will rush here as soon as they know that I am ill; they always took such good care of me in the Rue de la Jussienne!” He lives a life of hope which is at first admirable, but by the end of the novel has become pitiable.

There are other relationships depicted in this book, dalliances and affairs, but none are as significant to me as that of Father Goriot and his daughters. It is a heart wrenching read, so well summarized by this sentiment from Eugène near its conclusion:

There is a God! Oh! yes, there is a God! and he has made a better world for us, or this earth is blank and meaningless.

He knows that there is no fulfillment to be found in Paris, in a world which he had once wished to gain. Now he faces Society, with the words, “It’s war between us now!” I am comforted that he, at least, has learned this after the death of Old Goriot.

(Find links to other posts for Paris in July, hosted by Emma at Words and Peace, here.)