The Masterpiece (Les Rougon-Macquart, #14)

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The Masterpiece (Les Rougon-Macquart #14)

3.9 of 5 stars 3.90 · rating details · 903 ratings · 61 reviews

The Masterpiece is the tragic story of Claude Lantier, an ambitious and talented young artist who has come from the provinces to conquer Paris but is conquered instead by the flaws of his own genius. Set in the 1860s and 1870s, it is the most autobiographical of the twenty novels in Zola's Rougon-Macquart series. It provides a unique insight into Zola's career as a writer...more

Paperback, 464 pages

Published July 22nd 1999 by Oxford University Press (first published 1886)

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Jul 18, 2008 kate rated it 4 of 5 stars

First of all, I understand that Zola - and this novel in particular - do not cater to all readers. However, The Masterpiece is helpful for understanding the French art world in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Zola's main character is a synthesis of Cezanne/Manet/Monet - a trained eye will recognize that Lantier's opening painting closely resembles the aesthetic of Manet's Le Dejeuner sur l'Herbe, that his city "sketches" recall Monet's urban series work, and that Lantier's eventual fr...more

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May 06, 2013 Jason rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

One of the weaker R-M novels, but that doesn't carry the resonance it might have for another author since it's still quite superb. This is Zola's account of the rise of Impressionism and the stirrings of the ideas of the "modern" and the "new" in art during the Second Empire. He used his friendship with Cezanne and the lives of Manet, Monet and a few others to populate this book, which apparently pissed them all off! The poor schmuck of the titular obsession is Claude Lantier (Nana's half-brothe...more One of the weaker R-M novels, but that doesn't carry the resonance it might have for another author since it's still quite superb. This is Zola's account of the rise of Impressionism and the stirrings of the ideas of the "modern" and the "new" in art during the Second Empire. He used his friendship with Cezanne and the lives of Manet, Monet and a few others to populate this book, which apparently pissed them all off! The poor schmuck of the titular obsession is Claude Lantier (Nana's half-brother; kid of Gervaise), a struggling painter who has all the visionary ideas but can't quite get his shit together. Consumed by his desire to fashion a monstrous masterpiece that will reshape art as everyone knew it, he pretty much destroys himself and his family, reduced down to obscurity and insanity. There's a lot of good stuff in this book: Claude's obsessive nature and his madness are well-drawn and the characterization is spot on largely because the characters are confined to a small and interactive, if mutually destructive, group of artist friends; the sheer poetry of Zola's account of descent into darkness due to the human inability to depict the world as anything other than what it is; and weird sexualities, namely Claude's desire for the nude in his mammoth canvas that used to be his tortured, ignored wife but that has now turned into some sort of demon goddess. The public is mocked and Zola himself appears as the character Sandoz, one of the few sympathetic to Claude.
But the overwhelming weight of descriptive meanderings around Claude's head tends to get a little stifling here and there and there are long stretches of the book of what feels like repetitive encounters with some of Claude's more shitty friends. Zola has a grace to his minutiae when dealing with Paris and its social world, but in this work it feels a little strained, the language a little forced. I'd say, if you're a R-M completist read it (it even has the very rare cameo of other members of the family from other novels!); otherwise you might could give this one a pass.(less)

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Jan 25, 2012 MJ Nicholls rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: pernod-and-gauloises, tortured-artists, novels, pre-1900s, oxford-classics

You have this friend, a writer. He’s written this terrible bildungsroman about his tedious student exploits, I Want Vagina. You tell him tactfully that a 900-page, unspellchecked homage to sexual frustration doesn’t fly in the marketplace. Your friend scurries off and signs up for a Creative Writing MA at Dorset Polytechnic, taught by Vernon D. Burns. He returns, a few months later, with a new 900-page spellchecked homage to sexual frustration, I Want to Squeeze Bosoms. You arrange for him to lo...more You have this friend, a writer. He’s written this terrible bildungsroman about his tedious student exploits, I Want Vagina. You tell him tactfully that a 900-page, unspellchecked homage to sexual frustration doesn’t fly in the marketplace. Your friend scurries off and signs up for a Creative Writing MA at Dorset Polytechnic, taught by Vernon D. Burns. He returns, a few months later, with a new 900-page spellchecked homage to sexual frustration, I Want to Squeeze Bosoms. You arrange for him to lose his virginity so his art might progress by dialling a friendly helpline for that purpose (Callgirlz2nite). He returns a year later with a new epic, I Love Sleeping With Whores. His prose abounds in loving descriptions of thighs and calves and thighs, but lacks a greater purpose. A novel needs something more than loving exudations of prozzies to be successful (a few classics notwithstanding). Your friend trundles off. He rents a box room and starts his masterpiece, A Novel With Substance, Truth & Power. You tell him to rethink the title, but he tells you to shut up, he knows what he’s doing. So: skip twelve years, past the four breakdowns, nine marriages, one suicide attempt, to the final draft of his masterpiece. You sit down to read this dense marsh of unreadable prose, despairing at each spontaneous MUMMY that looms from the text (often LOVE ME MUMMY), and watch a sitcom instead. The message? All artists are fucked up. Some are—as they say in the US army—fucked up beyond all recognition.

Uplifting passage, spoken by the character based on Zola:

“From the moment I start a new novel, life’s just one endless torture. The first few chapters may go fairly well and I may feel there’s still a chance to prove my worth, but that feeling soon disappears and every day I feel less and less satisfied. I begin to say the book’s no good, far inferior to my earlier ones, until I’ve wrung torture out of every page, every sentence, every word, and the very commas begin to look excruciatingly ugly. Then, when it’s finished, what a relief! Not the blissful delight of the gentleman who goes into ecstasies over his own production, but the resentful relief of a porter dropping a burden that’s nearly broken his back . . . Then it starts all over again, and it’ll go on starting all over again till it grinds the life out of me, and I shall end my days furious with myself for lacking talent, for not leaving behind a more finished work, a bigger pile of books, and lie on my death-bed filled with awful doubts about the task I’ve done, wondering whether it was as it ought to have been, whether I ought not to have done this or that, expressing my last dying breath the wish that I might do it all over again!” (p259-60)
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Jul 31, 2011 Henry added it

Shelves: fiction-novel

(1946 / Katherine Woods transl. / Howell, Soskin pub.)

And, after that, he had been overcome with sorrow and compassion in the face of this bankruptcy of genius; his heart was torn with desperate pity for this agony of impotence. Did one never know, in art, where madness lay? All failures moved him to tears; and the more a book or a picture went astray, in an effort at once ludicrous and pitiable, the more sensitively he longed for peace to come to those poor souls who had been struck by the thun...more

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Aug 20, 2012 Jason rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, novel, classic

This book is a masterpiece, so to speak. It centers around the "open air" (i.e., impressionist) Claude Lantier and his struggles to create a masterpiece. The counterpoint is his depressing and tragic relationship with Christine, who ends up a near-martyr to his art. Claude is surrounded by a La Boheme-like group of artists, writers, journalists, and others--including a character based on Zola who is writing a cycle of novels like the Rougon-Macquart cycle.

Zola sets out to write a naturalistic, s...more

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Mar 03, 2012 Marija rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, favorites

I think this is one of the most depressing stories I have ever read. Like Jude the Obscure, this is the kind of story that leaves you feeling cold...almost like you’ve been punched in the gut...an experience akin to a kind of betrayal. The Masterpiece is truly an awful story, yet Zola somehow manages to infuse a kind of beauty into his prose that counteracts the harsh naturalistic point of view that typically dominates Zola’s work. To reflect the artist Claude’s internal conflicts between romant...more I think this is one of the most depressing stories I have ever read. Like Jude the Obscure, this is the kind of story that leaves you feeling cold...almost like you’ve been punched in the gut...an experience akin to a kind of betrayal. The Masterpiece is truly an awful story, yet Zola somehow manages to infuse a kind of beauty into his prose that counteracts the harsh naturalistic point of view that typically dominates Zola’s work. To reflect the artist Claude’s internal conflicts between romanticism and realism, and realism versus naturalism, the format and progression of Zola’s novel likewise illustrates that same struggle. As you are reading you do get that sense of battle of the old vs. the new in terms of style and description. Even at the end, there is no real sense of a true victor...a kind of defeat that almost mirrors the artist’s. Whether this was intentional or not, I loved how Zola achieved this.

I loved the artist’s point of view...how art colors the prose in regards to how Paris and the country are viewed. It forces the reader to focus on little details that would typically be overlooked. It beautifully reflects Claude’s own art...those flecks of paint and color that might initially seem jarring, yet when taken together and reflected upon, it all makes sense. Initially, when I read those descriptions of Claude’s blue trees, I felt exactly like Christine...blue trees? I couldn’t picture it. Yet when I went to the new Van Gogh exhibit at the PMA this week, on top of all of those layers of paint, I couldn’t help but notice those same blue trees in many of Van Gogh’s landscapes. ;) Claude’s visions finally made sense in my mind. They were beautiful.

Zola was relentless in punishing Claude and Christine. It was savage...so horrible. And yet it is described in such a way that the reader shares and experiences everything they feel. While some of the comments Claude makes are truly evil—he is certainly not portrayed as a saintly martyr—I don’t believe he deserved all of the misery that befalls him. Since Claude was partially modeled off of Zola’s childhood friend Cezanne, I can understand why Cezanne would have wanted to part ways with his friend after The Masterpiece was published.

Out of the other Zola novels that I have so far read, this one is markedly different. It doesn’t have that social satire present in his Octave Moret novels or the harsh addiction and vice prevalent in Nana. There is more of a sense of tragedy here, somewhat reminiscent of the Thomas Hardy novels I love—though Zola adds his own characteristically dark naturalistic flare to the drama.
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Apr 18, 2010 Gabe rated it 4 of 5 stars

In 'The Masterpiece,' Zola makes clear what he thinks of the Parisian art scene in the mid 19th century- of the young artists who, in their effort to capture the truth in 'Art' and 'Nature,' lose grasp of what is real, of the museum curators and art dealers who turn art into a commodity for their status and financial gain.

For the first half of the book, I thought that this was Zola's critique of the artist's ego-centrism. However, as I kept reading, I was reminded that with Zola there are no vil...more

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Jun 05, 2012 Boots rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 19th-century-fiction

another book in the Rougon-Macquart series plagued by wildly polarized reviews. is it a masterpiece on the tortured life of the artist or a self-indulgent bore about an inveterate whiner? i'll weigh in somewhere in between. Zola understood the artistic temperament and for most of this book i was thoroughly sold on the story (depressing as it was). but i feel like Zola betrayed (or compromised) his own premise of what constitutes a masterpiece by devolving into total melodrama toward the end. and...more

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Aug 08, 2011 Zzoeeeee rated it 5 of 5 stars

The story of a troubled artist (based upon the author's friendship with Cezanne) living in 19th century Paris during the rise of impressionism battling against the prejudices of the art world is enough to seduce the reader from just the blurb. As I was reading, I realisied this was something spectacular.

There are many forces at play in this book: the inherited derangement of mind of Claude Lantier, the rise and fall of the artists in the "open-air" school, the grounded yet idealistic writer San...more

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Apr 17, 2013 Maan Kawas added it

A great book that sheds lights on important issues: first, it is about complying with the rules of a group (society), and the consequences of being out of the group (non-compliance; rejection); second, it is about the necessity of freedom to be creative; third, it is about knowing one's goals & priorities in life, namely, which are is more important, work or family, and could there be a balance. Zola was great at describing in details the outer and inner world of his characters.. A great boo...more

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Feb 22, 2013 Katia rated it 4 of 5 stars

Ce roman a été un coup de coeur, celui par lequel j'ai appris à aimer ce cher Emile. Dans ce livre il y a de l'émotion, de la passion, de la vie.
C'est extrêmement bien écrit, et c'est troublant d'être aux côtés de Claude Lantier, ce peintre de plus en plus perturbé. Son fils est malade, lui aussi mais d'une autre manière, et les émotions se décollent des pages pour vous saisir. Sa toile devient son cancer, sa ruine. Au delà, je dirais que voir le monde à travers les yeux d'un peintre, le tout dé...more

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Jul 13, 2012 Eustachio rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: francesi, romanzi

Nel 1886 Zola pubblica L'opera e perde l'amicizia di Cézanne, offeso e tradito da un libro in cui il protagonista, Claude Lantier, è palesemente ispirato a lui. C'è qualche tratto di Manet, sì, ma i difetti, le abitudini, il carattere sono i suoi – così come Sandoz, il migliore amico e scrittore, è altrettanto palesemente basato sullo stesso Zola.

Vediamo la Parigi degli artisti, divisa tra accademismo e nuove tendenze, con i saloni, i gruppi di artisti e amici, le prostitute-modelle, gli studi,...more

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Dec 05, 2012 Mel rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 19th-century-fiction, french, translation

I first heard of Zola with an extract from this book, and it was one of the most incredible things I'd ever read. It took me awhile to find a copy of this in English. I've read other Zola books before this but this was definitely my favourite. I admire what Zola was trying to do, write reality as it happened, but I feel that in a lot of his books he falls short doing that, making the humans more miserable than they need to be, using plot devices to make things go from worse to worse. Here there...more

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Jan 28, 2013 Robert rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: french

There's a character in this novel who decides to embark on an ambitious project to write a series of novels that "scientifically" demonstrate the effects of heredity and environment on a large family living during the regime of Napoleon III. (Whatever happened to Napoleon II?) The idea is that each book will examine some specific aspect of society and feature one member of the extended family as main protagonist. Which is odd, because Zola wrote a series of 20 books that examine the effects of e...more There's a character in this novel who decides to embark on an ambitious project to write a series of novels that "scientifically" demonstrate the effects of heredity and environment on a large family living during the regime of Napoleon III. (Whatever happened to Napoleon II?) The idea is that each book will examine some specific aspect of society and feature one member of the extended family as main protagonist. Which is odd, because Zola wrote a series of 20 books that examine the effects of environment and heredity on the fictional Rougon-Macquart family who live during Napoleon III's time in power...Yes, having abandoned (in practice if not by admission) his "scientific" plan fairly early in the 20 volume project, by the time Zola gets round to examining the world of artistic endeavor in Paris, he is entirely willing to model aspects of his characters on himself - and on his friends amongst the Impressionists, who, upon reading the book, variously, never spoke to him again, got really angry or found it flattering or funny.

Zola in this series is talking about a world only slightly in his past, that he lived through, and all of its members that I've read feel very believable in terms of the society and atmosphere portrayed, if possibly somewhat exaggerated, but in this one he is talking directly about his own experiences which differentiates this from the others in the series in a way beyond just that of being a separate plot about a seperate character in a different stratum of French society from the others - which is, of course, what they have in common. If you are interested in that kind of game you could spend hours pondering exactly which aspects of which characters are taken from which real-life world-famous Impressionist painters.

Strangely, the world of art portrayed seems entirely familiar; paintings used as investments, people trying to manipulate the market for profit, resultant hyper-inflation of prices. The public ridiculing works that later generations see as genius. Young artists spouting revolutionary theories about art and society, an old-guard establishment who try to keep the new-comers and their radical ideas down.

The main protagonist, Claude (yes, after that Claude) is the leader of just such a group of young, ambitious, would-be (art) world-changers. His battles with the establishment and his own flaws and genius are affectingly set out over the course of the book and leads to an end that many readers of other Rougon-Macquart novels can probably guess early. Other recognisable Zola themes are to be found; for instance promiscuity amongst the poor and attempts to describe the passionate aspects of romance explicitly that outraged many contemporary readers. A challenge as to what was permisable still being fought by D.H. Lawrence many decades later.

The style is also instantly recognisable, even across at least three different translators of his novels in the 6-10 Zola books I've read. The narrative voice, dramatic mood-swings and slow build-up (that can leave one bogged-down in the middle third) to a moving climax are all typically Zola. Despite the description of a man tortured by his obsessions and self-doubt, this member of the series was not for me as powerful as some of its more famous brethren, such as Germinal, The Earth or La Débâcle. Worth reading, then, but not the one to pick as one's first or even perhaps fifth work by Zola.(less)

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Nov 12, 2008 Namrirru rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: les-grenouilles

The beginning was excellent. It has all the intensity and humor you'd expect from Zola. But then something happened to the writer. I've never seen anything like it in any of his other books. After an amazing first chapter, his protagonist turns into a 2-dimensional stick figure. His wife fares a little better as a cartoon. And what's worse, everyone else seems rather realistic.

FYI: the inspiration for the main character is Zola's childhood friend, Paul Cezanne.

I don't think Zola was in his rig...more The beginning was excellent. It has all the intensity and humor you'd expect from Zola. But then something happened to the writer. I've never seen anything like it in any of his other books. After an amazing first chapter, his protagonist turns into a 2-dimensional stick figure. His wife fares a little better as a cartoon. And what's worse, everyone else seems rather realistic.

FYI: the inspiration for the main character is Zola's childhood friend, Paul Cezanne.

I don't think Zola was in his right mind when he wrote this. How else could he have written so abstractly? It smelled of bitter vehemence. They must have had a falling out before he wrote the book, because no writer would stick a real friend in a book without making them immensely likeable. You should be able to feel the affection. Zola previously wrote this character in The Belly of Paris. There, the Cezanne character was cute, loveable, and quirky. But in this work, the feeling is... antipathy.

The whole book leads up to this conversation with Zola and Cezanne:

Zola: "... Have you ever reflected that posterity may not be the faultless dispenser of justice that we dream of? One consoles oneself for being insulted and denied, by reyling on the equity of the centuries to come; just as the faithful endure all the abominations of this earth in the firm belief of another life, in which each will be rewarded according to his deserts. But suppose Paradise exists no more for the artist than it does for the Catholic, suppose that future generations prolong the misunderstanding and prefer amiable little trifles to vigorous works! Ah! What a sell it would be, eh? To have led a convict's life - to have screwed oneself down to one's work - all for a mere delusion!...

Cezanne: "Bah! What does it matter? Well, there's nothing hereafter. We are even madder than the fools who kill themselves for a woman. When the earth splits to pieces in space like a dry walnut, our works won't add one atom to its dust."

And it ends with the painter killing himself for a woman, his painting. He becomes obsessed with it and can't work on anything else. "He was hanging there in his shirt, with his feet bare, looking horrible, with his black tongue protruding, and his bloodshot eyes starting from their orbits..." So not only does his "friend" fail in life, love, and success, but he commits suicide because life isn't worth living for.

Is that how Zola treats his friends?? Or someone he's angry with? Hmm.... There were clues in the text: the painter was antagonistic, he didn't talk to people for years before running into them again, completely disregarded the feelings of others, he had a horrible temper, ego, etc etc. Either way, Zola lost his "friend" after the publication of the book.

I think "mission accomplished." (less)

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Jun 07, 2011 Jessica rated it 3 of 5 stars

This was a tough book. I had loved Germinal, by Zola, and had felt very connected to those characters. This book was harder to get into and the characters were harder to relate to. That being said, Zola really captured what it feels like to be young and artistic and feel like you can just take over the world and then to experience reality setting in. Not a fun book, but well written and worth reading for anyone who has ever thought they would be the world's next great artist.

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Feb 04, 2013 Wilde Sky rated it 3 of 5 stars

An artist becomes obsessed with producing the perfect piece of art and sacrifices his wife and child in the process.

Certain sections of this book are beautifully written and very honest in its depiction of a man who will sacrifice everything in pursuit of an impossible goal. The sense of thwarted ambition and the child-like / self-centred waste of a life comes across very strongly.

Some parts of the book are a bit tedious – not a book for the fainted hearted.

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Jul 24, 2010 Faith Bradham rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: french-literature

The Masterpiece is the first Zola I've read, and it is wonderful (albeit very depressing). It is a semi-autobiographical (very very semi) novel of Zola and his friend Cezanne and the other Impressionists. From the bit of reading I did about this book before beginning it, I thought that it would be a rather dull and hard to read. But this was all lies - it is fascinating and I zoomed through it. It is not a happy picture of the Impressionists, but it is lovely. I plan to read some of Zola's Les R...more

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Mar 13, 2013 Daisy rated it 3 of 5 stars

I thought I would like this book much more, although I guess I shouldn't be surprised that I disliked it, because I knew going into it that Zola's dismal portrayal of the state of art in the late 19th century is frequently blamed for ending his friendship with Cezanne.

I enjoyed reading about Paris and the Impressionist gatherings in the first half, but then the book turns awfully bleak, and I began to dread picking it up. I can see why Cezanne might interpret Zola's treatment of the Impressioni...more

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Oct 24, 2009 Eric_W is currently reading it · review of another edition

Watched a terrific BBC series on the Impressionists and there was mention of this work and the rift it caused between Cezanne, a childhood friend, and Zola. Cezanne apparently took a lot personally. The intro. suggests the main character is an amalgamation of Cezanne, Manet, and Zola himself. Writing is really good so far. Very lucid and descriptive. Must be an excellent translation.

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May 21, 2011 Betty Wilde rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: studies, classiques

(L'Oeuvre) Seems like lots of people enjoyed this book. I didn't AT ALL. I only read 200 pages, and it was hard enough. There's too much description, but it's Zola's style of writing. I was reading the sentences but in my mind I couldn't focus on what he was saying...
Maybe it's because I'm too young to get his writing... Anyway. Didn't liked it at all.

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Aug 17, 2012 Audrey Mcclune rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: classics

I've never read Zola, so I wanted to give him a try. I am always fascinated by artist's stories because that kind of all-consuming passion is so foreign to me. His story is sad, sad, sad. I liked being transported into the Bohemian movement in Paris, but the steadfast revolutionists's fate is not pretty.

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Apr 01, 2010 Laurianne rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics

I had to read this book for school... well let's say I wasn't so thrilled about it.

However, I must say it wasn't as bad as I first thought. Zola's kind of "heavy" writing style used to frighten me, but it didn't bother the reading that much.

Recommended if you're interested in art history - The Masterpiece is all about the early days of Impressionism.

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Aug 30, 2011 Karen rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: classic-literature, french-fiction

J'adore Zola. I am working my way through the whole cycle. I adore Paris, so when I cannot be there, Zola takes me there. When I am there, I pass Zola's characters on the street, stand where they stood.

Exquisitely evocative reading.

Claude Lantier is a painter and the son of Gervaise from L'Assommoir.

Brilliant.

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May 25, 2009 Abigail rated it 4 of 5 stars

A lovely rendering of the beginnings of Impressionism. The novel, which airs compelling discussions of art and the Artist, is also a story about friendship, loyalty and aging. While at times seeming nostalgic, it is never suffocated by regret.

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Sep 20, 2012 Amanda Vincent added it

I actually read this one in French but couldn't find a match ... purely for my personal interests I enjoyed the description of the studio on Rue Tourlaque as well as the mention of "le grand paysagiste Courajod"

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Mar 31, 2010 Erma Odrach rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Masterpiece is about the Bohemian art scene in 1860's-70's Paris. Loved the descriptive parts, especially the street scenes, the crowds, the Champs-Elysees. (This is a classics re-read.)

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Oct 22, 2011 Esteban Gordon rated it 5 of 5 stars

Too good. Too depressing...maybe. "Every painting oozed unfailing mediocrity; every one showed the same dingy, muddy quality typical of anaemic degenerate art..." "The past was but the cemetery of our illusions..." Art or death!

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Dec 03, 2012 Mederic L. rated it 5 of 5 stars

A fictional and dramatic insight in the lives of these painters who drove art out of the academy.

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May 02, 2010 Rob Manwaring rated it 4 of 5 stars

Just started. More French bleakness. Lovely!

Oops, I inadvertently sent this to my 'read' books before I had actually finished this on a beach in Fiji. I liked this immensely, although perhaps not as much as either Germinal or L'assommoir. Zola captures the process of artistic creation very well, and the attendant suffocating and debilitating feelings of self-doubt. I liked too the idea of the Parisien public animated by the annual artistic shows, and Zola's withering contempt for their philistin...more

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About Émile Zola

Émile Zola was an influential French novelist, the most important example of the literary school of naturalism, and a major figure in the political liberalization of France.

More than half of Zola's novels were part of a set of 20 books collectively known as Les Rougon-Macquart. Unlike Balzac who in the midst of his literary career resynthesized his work into La Comédie Humaine, Zola from the start...more Émile Zola was an influential French novelist, the most important example of the literary school of naturalism, and a major figure in the political liberalization of France.

More than half of Zola's novels were part of a set of 20 books collectively known as Les Rougon-Macquart. Unlike Balzac who in the midst of his literary career resynthesized his work into La Comédie Humaine, Zola from the start at the age of 28 had thought of the complete layout of the series. Set in France's Second Empire, the series traces the "environmental" influences of violence, alcohol and prostitution which became more prevalent during the second wave of the Industrial Revolution. The series examines two branches of a family: the respectable (that is, legitimate) Rougons and the disreputable (illegitimate) Macquarts for five generations.

As he described his plans for the series, "I want to portray, at the outset of a century of liberty and truth, a family that cannot restrain itself in its rush to possess all the good things that progress is making available and is derailed by its own momentum, the fatal convulsions that accompany the birth of a new world."

Although Zola and Cézanne were friends from childhood, they broke in later life over Zola's fictionalized depiction of Cézanne and the Bohemian life of painters in his novel L'Œuvre (The Masterpiece, 1886).

From 1877 with the publication of l'Assommoir, Émile Zola became wealthy, he was better paid than Victor Hugo, for example. He became a figurehead among the literary bourgeoisie and organized cultural dinners with Guy de Maupassant, Joris-Karl Huysmans and other writers at his luxurious villa in Medan near Paris after 1880. Germinal in 1885, then the three 'cities', Lourdes in 1894, Rome in 1896 and Paris in 1897, established Zola as a successful author.

The self-proclaimed leader of French naturalism, Zola's works inspired operas such as those of Gustave Charpentier, notably Louise in the 1890s. His works, inspired by the concepts of heredity (Claude Bernard), social manichaeism and idealistic socialism, resonate with those of Nadar, Manet and subsequently Flaubert.

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Books by Émile Zola

L'Assommoir (The Dram Shop) (Les Rougon-Macquart, #7)

La Bête humaine (Les Rougon-Macquart, #17)

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Quotes from His Masterpiece

“From the moment I start a new novel, life’s just one endless torture. The first few chapters may go fairly well and I may feel there’s still a chance to prove my worth, but that feeling soon disappears and every day I feel less and less satisfied. I begin to say the book’s no good, far inferior to my earlier ones, until I’ve wrung torture out of every page, every sentence, every word, and the very commas begin to look excruciatingly ugly. Then, when it’s finished, what a relief! Not the blissful delight of the gentleman who goes into ecstasies over his own production, but the resentful relief of a porter dropping a burden that’s nearly broken his back . . . Then it starts all over again, and it’ll go on starting all over again till it grinds the life out of me, and I shall end my days furious with myself for lacking talent, for not leaving behind a more finished work, a bigger pile of books, and lie on my death-bed filled with awful doubts about the task I’ve done, wondering whether it was as it ought to have been, whether I ought not to have done this or that, expressing my last dying breath the wish that I might do it all over again!” — 17 people liked it

“The past was but the cemetery of our illusions: one simply stubbed one's toes on the gravestones.” — 12 people liked it

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The Masterpiece (Les Rougon-Macquart #14)

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