Quite superb! Eugene Rougon is a rascal politician in service to Emperor Napoleon III. Zola focuses the meat of this novel, the second in the 20-volumQuite superb! Eugene Rougon is a rascal politician in service to Emperor Napoleon III. Zola focuses the meat of this novel, the second in the 20-volume Rougon-Macquart series, around the political machinations of the Second Empire and its impact on the French people. Fascinating characters, some historical, some fictional, are developed and described by Zola over the course of the novel, and by the end you have a pretty good sense of it was like to live in France during the Second Empire (1852-1870). I am really looking forward to exploring more of this time period in France through Emile Zola's novels and his perspectives of "naturalism". I have to say too, that this novel was a marked improvement from the first book in the series (The Fortune of the Rougons)....more
Whew! Zola's Madeleine Ferat is the story of an obsessive and jealous love with horrifyingly tragic consequences. One thing I am learning about the fiWhew! Zola's Madeleine Ferat is the story of an obsessive and jealous love with horrifyingly tragic consequences. One thing I am learning about the fiction of Emile Zola is that he is the master of psychological drama and horror. Many authors are quite effective at describing the murder of one character by another, but Zola takes his reader deep into the twisted dark recesses within the human mind of his characters and allows the reader to observe the 'seeds of horror' as they are first planted, nurtured, and then as they burst darkly forth upon the novel's pages.
The relationship of Guillaume and Madeleine starts off well enough. Young man meets young woman, cohabitate for a period of time, inherit money and villa from father, get married, have a child--couldn't get any better, right? Not so fast my friend, not so fast. Madeleine is really, all in all, a pretty nice young woman who is becoming comfortable in her own skin and likes to have a good time. After she marries Guillaume she makes a horrific mistake--she tells her new husband about a sexual relationship she had with a man before she met her husband. Well, it turns out that this man was her husband's very best friend. Awkward!
I'm not at all sure that Zola's Madeleine Ferat could have been published in 1868 in either England or the United States. This is a racy novel that doesn't shy away from human sexuality and an incredibly realistic portrayal of the human emotions that lead the couple to spiral inexorably downward from the happy heights of marital bliss to the depths of outright madness and dark despair. This is a difficult and painful novel to read at times, but one that compels the reader to carry on, if only to see if Madeleine and Guillaume can pull out of the death spiral. But it is Zola after all.
Other authors in this period dealt with this sort of co-dependent and mutually assured self-destruction, including Thomas Hardy (Tess of the d'Urbervilles), or Anthony Trollope (He Knew He was Right), but for Zola it seems to be a prominent theme, at least in his early works of fiction.
This gets a solid 4 of 5 stars from me. Well worth reading....more
This is a helluva good story! This borders on Victor Hugo, it is rollicking, adventurous, and a real stem-winder from start to finish. There are villaThis is a helluva good story! This borders on Victor Hugo, it is rollicking, adventurous, and a real stem-winder from start to finish. There are villains, there are some really good characters, and there is some awesome history about France in the late-1840s. We have an elopement, pregnancy, a fortune up for grabs, espionage, and a revolution on the streets of Marseille. This is an early Zola and very much worthwhile reading. Now it is on to "Therese Raquin."...more
Update 9/11/2015--Just finished a reread of this on my Kindle. Upon a second reading, I find this an even more horrifying and monstrous tale. This is Update 9/11/2015--Just finished a reread of this on my Kindle. Upon a second reading, I find this an even more horrifying and monstrous tale. This is a psychological tour de force that describes, in intimate detail, the moral decay and depravity of both Therese and Laurent. Frankly, by the end of the novel you're really not sure who is 'dead' and who is 'living.' Also, it is probably a really good idea to make sure that you really know and trust those you get into a rowboat with.
***
February 1, 2014--This is a devastatingly powerful little novel. Over the past six months I have been slowly, but surely, winding my way through the macabre world that is the fiction of Emile Zola. I have always kind of viewed Zola as the 'father' of Naturalism, and Therese Raquin is a prime example. It surely is not hard to make the leap from France and Therese Raquin to the 'Wessex' countryside of Thomas Hardy and Tess of the d'Urbervilles.
There's a dirty, seamy, grimy feel to this novel...actually, come to think of it, to all of the Zola novels I've read so far. There is a side of human life and human nature that Zola wants to thrust right in your face and under your nose, and the reader can't help but feel and smell everything. And no matter how squeamish or sensitive we are, we can't help but keep reading...it is human nature, we want to see the murder occur, the trains collide, the adulterous pair get caught out. Zola is the novelist for the voyeur in each of us. Seriously scary shit here, folks!...more
I am slowly making my way through Zola's Rougon-Macquart novels. This was one of the first that I read in 2014. It is dark, a grim, relentlessly grim I am slowly making my way through Zola's Rougon-Macquart novels. This was one of the first that I read in 2014. It is dark, a grim, relentlessly grim novel. The characters are not nice people. But having said that, I get what Zola is doing here. This is the Second Empire under Napoleon III and the Empire needs transportation, it needs the railroad and steam engines and the people that manage and operate the system. This is their story, "La Bete Humaine", the Beast Within. I plan to read this again later this fall. 5/5 stars....more
This is my second Zola novel (the first being Therese Raquin), and the first in the "Rougon-Macquart" series of 20 novels that he wrote. Zola, the fatThis is my second Zola novel (the first being Therese Raquin), and the first in the "Rougon-Macquart" series of 20 novels that he wrote. Zola, the father of "Naturalism", writes about the French people during the Second Empire, and he uses the members of his fictional Rougon and Macquart families to explore the various elements of the social and cultural fabric of the French people during these turbulent times. This first book describes the effects upon the citizens of a small French village as the coup d'état topples the Republic and Napoleon III establishes the new Empire. Evil triumphs and good people die. I'd give this 3.5/5 stars. Now, it's on to His Excellency Eugene Rougon....more
Captain Sir Roddy, R.N. (Ret.)
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author-emile-zola
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