Alice Poon's Blog - Posts Tagged "emile-zola"

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I read The Kill (La Curee) about three years ago and liked it so much as to have written a long review of it in my Asia Sentinel (an online magazine) blog. I’ve dug out that review and have shortened it a bit for sharing here.

The Kill (La Curee) is the second in Emile Zola’s twenty-volume Rougon-Macquart saga, which is a fictional historical account of a family under France’s Second Empire, a semi-despotic, semi-parliamentary kleptocracy of Louis Bonaparte Napoleon III. This novel aroused my interest in the author Emile Zola, whom, after deeper research into his life and works, I’ve come to like and respect.

As suggested by the title of the novel, the hunting spoils (the French term is “la curee”) are rewards for the hounds for killing the quarry. In allegorical interpretation, spoils of economic development are rewards for those callous enough to prey on the weak and vulnerable. This is the main theme of the novel.

The story of The Kill is set in Paris during the reign of the Second Empire, a city that was undergoing dramatic transformations highlighted by greed, graft and conspicuous consumption. The background setting features massive public works which include demolition of broad swaths of old Paris for the construction of spacious boulevards and widespread expansion of railroads. The social backdrop tells of how the middle-class rushes to embrace new-found gold-digging opportunities and how the government wades knee-deep in corruption and cronyism.

“From the very first days Aristide Saccard sensed the approach of this rising tide of speculation, whose spume would one day cover all of Paris. He followed its progress closely. He found himself smack in the middle of the torrential downpour of gold raining down on the city’s roofs. In his incessant turns around city hall, he had caught wind of the vast project to transform Paris, of the plans for demolition, of the new streets and hastily planned neighborhoods, and of the massive wheeling and dealing in land and buildings that had ignited a clash of interests across the capital and set off an unbridled pursuit of luxury…..”

Against this background, the main story line centers on Aristide Saccard’s rapacious graft at the government office and his coldhearted exploitation of his beautiful but soulless wife Renee, and simultaneously threads through a materially decadent and morally depraved period of her life, which culminates in her engagement in incest with her step-son Maxime. The story ends with an abrupt and cruel shattering of Renee’s self-indulgent delusions, her heartbreak caused by her discovery of her husband’s and Maxime’s heartless betrayal of her. Her tragic end has a dark symbolic ring to it.

This book is probably not for everyone, especially not for the faint-hearted.

My Review:-

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by Robert Harris

This is one of the best novels I've read this year.

My 5-star review:-

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The Belly of Paris by Émile Zola

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I’m not going to lie: I was on the verge of giving up when I reached Chapter Three. The revolting description of the putrid smells of the Central Markets (present-day Les Halles), while evincing Zola’s extraordinary keen observation of details and his skills with words, was a major turn-off. I think I will avoid eating cheese for a long time to come.

Notwithstanding, I did slog along to reach Chapter Five, whence the action started to pick up steam, and by the time I finished the novel, tears filled my eyes. In the final analysis, I have to admit that I still liked Zola’s use of symbolism that is heavily laced with satire, especially in his tongue-in-cheek depiction of the hypocrisy of the haves (“the fat”) towards the have-nots (“the thin”) (like Beautiful Lisa’s initial superficial warmth towards Scraggy Florent, which then turns to bitter alienation when her self interest is threatened), of the envious tendencies of the wannabe haves (like the jealous malice of the gossipy and greedy Mademoiselle Saget, Madame Lecoeur, La Sarriet and Madame Mehudin), and of the invincible driving force of materialism in a bourgeois society in general (like the markets being symbolized as the “glutted, digesting beast of Paris, wallowing in its fat and silently upholding the Empire”).

It seems to me that somewhere beneath all the stomach-turning descriptive lexicon, Zola wants to express just one thought in this novel, which is what the painter Claude says in exclamation at the very end: “What blackguards respectable people are!”

In a less serious note, the novel does offer some interesting tidbits about Paris in the early days of the Second Empire. One of these was a practice where bijoutiers peddled leftover food scraps from the large restaurants, the royal households and state ministries to the underprivileged class for a few sous per portion. Another was that the fattening of pigeons was done by specially trained laborers called gaveurs, whose job was to force-feed the pigeons.




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The Masterpiece by Émile Zola

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Including L’Oeuvre (The Masterpiece), I’ve so far read five of the twenty-volume Rougon-Macquart series by Emile Zola (the other four being: La Curee (The Kill), L’Assommoir (The Dram Shop), Nana (Nana) and Le Ventre (The Belly of Paris)). All five are set in kaleidoscopic Paris. The period is some time during the semi-aristocratic and semi-bourgeois Second Empire epoch. I love that each of the five portrays a different and unique social and cultural aspect of the times.

In the Preface, Ernest Alfred Vizetelly tells us that Zola draws from the real life experiences of the famous French painters Paul Cezanne (Zola’s childhood friend) and Edouard Manet (whose art Zola tirelessly championed) to develop the characterization of the protagonist Claude Lantier. Sadly, this would subsequently cause Cezanne to break up his friendship with Zola.

Claude Lantier is a descendant by blood from the Macquart line and presumably suffers from hereditary mental illness.

The story follows Lantier through his initial ambitions as a young rebellious painter and his subsequent self-perceived failures, which lead to a gradual tragic descent into abject poverty and ultimate despair about life.

Cheered on by a circle of fellow artists, including his best friend and budding writer Pierre Sandoz (Zola himself), Lantier at first nurtures a megalomaniac dream of conquering the art scene of Paris one day with his new concept of “open air” painting. He even balks with audacity at the jeers of the public on his first creative piece “In the Open Air” which he submits to the newly opened and supposedly more liberal Salon of the Rejected.

He then falls in love with a modest young woman from Clermont who adores him. The couple lives happily in the countryside for a few years before returning to Paris. As time wears on, each of his once loyal supporters has found success in varying degrees, some by unscrupulous means, and he feels left behind in face of consecutive rejections of his works by the conservative but still authoritative Old Salon. In the end, neither his beloved wife nor his most loyal friend Sandoz is able to lift him from the psychological dumps.

Zola paints the Paris art scene with equal doses of realism and romanticism, of derision and compassion, of insight and scorn. But all in all, I can feel his consuming love of the city of Paris, which is also my favorite city. In this novel as well as in L’Assommoir (The Dram Shop), he takes us on a leisurely stroll through all the boulevards and avenues in the center of Paris. In this novel, he dwells amorously on the scenery surrounding L’Ile de la Cite and makes it the subject of the protagonist’s last masterpiece.

People see it every day, pass before it without stopping; but it takes hold of one all the same; one’s admiration accumulates, and one fine afternoon it bursts forth. Nothing in the world can be grander; it is Paris herself, glorious in the sunlight.




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