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How does Lubbock (1921) say Balzac makes years pass in Eugenie Grandet with a bare summary line, and does he give a general claim about foreshortening time in a long book?

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[1921 criticism] Lubbock poses Eugenie Grandet as a case where years pass with little to show, so that the story fails unless time is felt. He says the usual instinct would be to fill the years with the heroine's inner experience, but Balzac spends about two thirds of the book on Charles's first visit and then covers the years in plain summary ('Five years went by'). Lubbock's explanation is that the earlier picture of the Grandet household had already given the sameness and the lapse of time. His one stated condition is that the image of lagging time must have been fashioned and preserved. 'Foreshortened' appears once in the range and 'pacing' not at all, so there is no general theory of time compression here, only this worked case.

[1921 criticism] Lubbock poses Eugenie Grandet as a case where years pass with little to show, so that the story fails unless time is felt. He says the usual instinct would be to fill the years with the heroine's inner experience, but Balzac spends about two thirds of the book on Charles's first visit and then covers the years in plain summary ('Five years went by'). Lubbock's explanation is that the earlier picture of the Grandet household had already given the sameness and the lapse of time. His one stated condition is that the image of lagging time must have been fashioned and preserved. 'Foreshortened' appears once in the range and 'pacing' not at all, so there is no general theory of time compression here, only this worked case. Curator qualifications: 'Five years went by' summary bridge; the scoped negative on a pacing rule is kept. Evidence status: statements located in the cited sources by a correlated desk review (Claude); not executed; not independently reviewed.
Structured fields
{
  "citations": [
    {
      "url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/18961/pg18961.txt",
      "note": "candidate evidence excerpts"
    }
  ]
}

Evidence claims

  • [sourced_fact] [1921 criticism] Lubbock poses Eugenie Grandet as a case where years pass with little to show, so that the story fails unless time is felt. He says the usual instinct would be to fill the years with the heroine's inner experience, but Balzac spends about two thirds of the book on Charles's first visit and then covers the years in plain summary ('Five years went by'). Lubbock's explanation is that the earlier picture of the Grandet household had already given the sameness and the lapse of time. His one stated condition is that the image of lagging time must have been fashioned and preserved. 'Foreshortened' appears once in the range and 'pacing' not at all, so there is no general theory of time compression here, only this worked case. · locator: candidate evidence excerpts source

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Applies to this original summary only, not to the cited sources.

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