Bureaucracy

A strange creation. Part study, part Platonic dialogue, part novel, it all adds up to a fascinating literary artifact. Bureaucracy is Balzac's study of the French bureaucracy under the reign of Charles X in the 1920s. It is a kaleidoscope of characters, bureaucratic positions, and machinations. The division director dies and needs to be replaced. Two bureau chiefs are jockeying for the position. The Minister has to make the decision, but mostly delegates it to his fixer, the Secretary-General, who himself is mostly focused on sleeping with one of the bureau chief's wives, getting out of debt, and becoming a Deputy. A large cast of bureaucratic underlings play an important role in the adroit and impressive machinations of the two camps. Ultimately, the good bureau chief loses out and the one who it would be overly generous to describe as a mediocrity ascends one rung up the ladder to become Division Director.