In Real Time David F. Bell explores the decisive impact the accelerated movement of people and information had on the fictions of four giants of French realism--Balzac, Stendhal, Dumas, and Zola. Nineteenth-century technological advances radically changed the ways French citizens viewed time, space, distance, and speed. The most influential advances included the improvement of the stage-coach, the growth of road and canal networks leading to the advent of the railway, and the increasing use of mail and the optical telegraph. Citing examples from a wide range of novels and stories, Bell demonstrates the ways in which trends of acceleration became not just literary devices but also structuring principles of the novels themselves. Beginning with both the provincial and the Parisian communications networks of Balzac, Bell proceeds to discuss the roles of horses and optical telegraphs in Stendhal and the importance of domination of communication channels to the characters of Dumas, whose count of Monte-Cristo might be seen as the ultimate fictional master of this accelerated culture. Finally, Bell analyzes how speed changes visual perception, taking Zola's La Bete humaine as his point of departure.
