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The Alkahest

The Alkahest

ClassicsLiterary Fiction
Pages
132
Published
1887
Language
English

Synopsis

Balthazar Claës is a brilliant chemist with a loving family and a vast fortune, but he becomes obsessed with a single goal: discovering the Absolute, the primal element of matter. His research turns into a destructive passion that consumes his family's wealth and his own humanity. Told from the perspective of his long-suffering family, the story follows their struggle as they are ruined by one man's impossible scientific dream.

Prose complexity
7/10

Vibe

DarkSadPhilosophicalThought-Provoking
QuestSacrificeMorally Grey

Genres

Classics Literary Fiction

About the author

H
Honoré de Balzac

Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of almost 100 novels and plays collectively entitled La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the fall of Napoléon Bonaparte in 1815. ([Source][1].) [1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor%C3%A9_de_Balzac

Characters

All characters in The Alkahest