L'Argent

Les Rougon-Macquart #18

by Émile Zola

Dix-huitième volume des Rougon-Macquart, L'Argent est le premier grand western financier des temps modernes : bilans falsifiés, connivences politiques, fièvre spéculative, manipulations médiatiques, rumeurs, scandales, coups de Bourse et coups de Jarnac, lutte à mort entre les loups-cerviers de la finance qui déjà rôdaient chez Balzac.

S'inspirant de quelques faits divers retentissants, Zola décrit le culte nouveau du Veau d'or, la vie secrète de son temple, l'activité fiévreuse de ses desservants ; il dénombre ses élus et ses victimes.

A l'heure des conflits économiques planétaires, il faut revivre cette croisade et cette épopée du Capital.

A l'heure où les audaces de la technologie bancaire nous font frémir, il faut relire cet hymne à la vie.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, France, French Literature, 19th Century, Literature, Novels

542 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1891

About the author

Émile Zola was a prominent French novelist, journalist, and playwright widely regarded as a key figure in the development of literary naturalism. His work profoundly influenced both literature and society through its commitment to depicting reality with scientific objectivity and exploring the impact of environment and heredity on human behavior. Born and raised in France, Zola experienced early personal hardship following the death of his father, which deeply affected his understanding of social and economic struggles—a theme that would later permeate his writings.
Zola began his literary career working as a clerk for a publishing house, where he developed his skills and cultivated a passion for literature. His early novels, such as Thérèse Raquin, gained recognition for their intense psychological insight and frank depiction of human desires and moral conflicts. However, it was his monumental twenty-volume series, Les Rougon-Macquart, that established his lasting reputation. This cycle of novels offered a sweeping examination of life under the Second French Empire, portraying the lives of a family across generations and illustrating how hereditary traits and social conditions shape individuals’ destinies. The series embodies the naturalist commitment to exploring human behavior through a lens informed by emerging scientific thought.
Beyond his literary achievements, Zola was a committed social and political activist. His involvement in the Dreyfus Affair is one of the most notable examples of his dedication to justice. When Captain Alfred Dreyfus was wrongfully accused and convicted of treason, Zola published his famous open letter, J’Accuse…!, which condemned the French military and government for corruption and anti-Semitism. This act of courage led to his prosecution and temporary exile but played a crucial role in eventual justice for Dreyfus and exposed deep divisions in French society.
Zola’s personal life was marked by both stability and complexity. He married Éléonore-Alexandrine Meley, who managed much of his household affairs, and later had a long-term relationship with Jeanne Rozerot, with whom he fathered two children. Throughout his life, Zola remained an incredibly prolific writer, producing not only novels but also essays, plays, and critical works that investigated the intersections between literature, science, and society.
His legacy continues to resonate for its profound impact on literature and for his fearless commitment to social justice. Zola’s work remains essential reading for its rich narrative detail, social critique, and pioneering approach to the realistic portrayal of human life. His role in the Dreyfus Affair stands as a powerful example of the intellectual’s responsibility to speak truth to power.

Reviews

[Luís · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zola's money: further proof that the Rougon Macquart saga is a timeless marker of human societies' evolution!
We are back, after the Curée, in the world of money. Big money, that of the Stock Exchange, made to flow for the sole pleasure of feeling it flow, even if it means devastating all that gave birth and growing it, viable and valuable economic projects, such as the illusions of the little people.
This unalterable thirst thrills Saccard, a magnificent trickster and crooked financier, which pushes him to rely on the development projects in the East of Hamelin and his sister, Madame Caroline, to demonstrate the place of Paris's power through the creation of the Universal Bank. Disregarding the few embezzlements necessary for its development, he never ceases to push it higher, consistently higher, leading with him in a growing movement of collective hysteria about money. That's the entrepreneurs, nobles, corrupt politicians, and most everything, a host of small carriers, first wise and then driven mad by the lure of money, until the final collapse.
Through the story of the birth to death of this bank, based on a vision of healthy prosperity but vitiated from the start by excessive appetites, Zola presents us with money not only from the angle of speculation, greed, corruption, and the exhilaration game, but also from the angle of the money itself. The author compares these dark aspects to a fine analyst and skillful storyteller. Thanks to a fantastic gallery of characters from all backgrounds, we know what positive money brings to people and societies: economic and social progress, fuel for creative energies, and the reduction of poverty. Utopias are swept away in the end, in a paroxysmal scene of the stampede to the basket from which will come out rinsed and finished, except those who, like Madame Caroline, remain rich in their values.
I devoured this hectic and uplifting opus of Rougons, perfect from start to finish. However, I regret the unfinished development of the character of Victor, Saccard's hidden son, who could have shed more light on his father's name and the time.

[Zahra · Rating 3 out of 5]

کتاب پول و زندگی امیل زولا درباره بورس پاریس و جنبه‌های اقتصادی امپراطوری دوم فرانسس و واپسین سال های امپراطوری رو به تصویر می‌کشه. امپراطوری‌ای که به آخر عمر خودش نزدیک میشه و به قول معروف ناقوس های مرگش کم کم دارن به صدا درمیان و اولین نشانه های زوالش در بورس و اقتصاد خودشون رو نشون میدن.
داستان کتاب درست مثل بقیه کتاب های مجموعه محدود به زمان خودش نیست و برای تک تک خواننده ها ملموسه. اقتصادی که ورشکسته شده، بورسی که سقوط کرده، مردمی که تمام هست و نیست و سرمایه عمرشون رو یک شبه از دست دادن و به خاک سیاه نشستن و حکومتی که مردمش رو هم همراه خودش به سمت نابودی و سقوط می‌بره

[Semjon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Der Roman hat mich teilweise aufgeregt, abgestoßen, genervt und gelangweilt. Eine Berg- und Talfahrt in Sachen Lesevergnügen wie bei der volatilsten Aktie an der Börse. Er ist meiner Ansicht nach kein Vergleich mit Germinal. Wahrscheinlich ist es für einen Autor wie Zola einfacher, ein packendes Buch über Menschen zu schreiben, die am Rande des Existenzminimums stehen, als über die Reichen und Gierigen. Während die Personen in Germinal durchaus Ambivalenzen hatten, sind die Börsenmakler, Bankbesitzer, Geldeintreiber und Spekulanten in diesem Roman alle einseitig schlecht und insgesamt blaß. Obwohl Zola ja über die Bestie Mensch seinen Romanzyklus schrieb, ist es in diesem Roman weniger der Mensch, sondern vielmehr der Kapitalismus als solches, der in der Kritik steht. Die Spekulanten schaffen keinen Gegenwert, sondern treiben die Kurse künstlich in die Höhe.

Ich bin wahrscheinlich zu befangen, um das Buch mit der nötigen Distanz zu beurteilen. Mein Beruf ist es, solche Wirtschaftsverbrechen aufzudecken und am besten im Vorfeld zu verhindern. Die Finanzmärkte sind heutzutage so stark reguliert, weil Menschen wie der Protagonist Saccard in der Realität immer wieder auftauchten und durch dolose Handlungen nicht nur den Arbeitgeber, sondern den gesamten Finanzmarkt in einer Krise stürzen konnten. Die Beispiele aus dem realen Leben, wie z.B. die Barings Bank, Herstatt-Bank, Lehman Brothers, Wirecard sind allesamt interessanter und vielschichtiger als Zolas Fiktion. Es war mir einfach zu platt von der Aussage und zu lehrmeisterhaft, wie Zola die Geschichte dieses Börsenbetrugs durch Aktienrückkäufe und Insiderhandel erzählte.

[Sergio · Rating 4 out of 5]

- Libro acquistato ad Aprile 2022 -
Dopo aver tentato invano di arricchirsi con la speculazione edilizia, Aristide Rougon che ha scelto il cognome della prima moglie, Saccard per celare di essere fratello del politico Eugene con il quale non è in idilliaci rapporti, tenta di rifarsi fondando la Banca Universale e benché ormai conosciuto per i suoi trascorsi di imbrogli e misfatti sembra che il successo gli arrida grazie anche alla conoscenza con un ingegnere tanto idealista quanto ingenuo che gli offre il “sogno” di grandiose imprese ingegneristiche in Medio Oriente, con cui illudere tanti sprovveduti che vedono in questo investimento la possibilità di arricchirsi e porre davanti ai piccoli risparmiatori il miraggio di trasformare in ricchezza i risparmi di una vita di sacrifici quotidiani.
Anche in questo romanzo, il quarto secondo la successione di lettura suggerita dallo stesso autore, Emile Zola si rivela scrittore fecondo e immaginifico raccontando e descrivendo il mondo dei borsisti, degli speculatori, dei faccendieri su cui rifulge la luciferina personalità di Saccard, abile come un’anguilla a sgusciare in un mondo, quello della borsa, delle banche, della politica più bieca, privo di ogni morale etica che non sia il proprio interesse e la propria sopravvivenza.

[E. G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Introduction
Translator's Note
Select Bibliography
A Chronology of Émile Zola

--Money

Explanatory Notes

[P.E. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Prometheus at the Stock Exchange


The story and my opinion about it:

Inspired by the bankruptcy of the Union Générale bank, heralding the krach of 1882, l'Argent (The Money) is a sort of The Ladies' Paradise transposed from the department store to high finance and the stock exchange, with Mme Caroline as a spare Denise Baudu, more or less.

You can find the same unbridled lure for profit, compulsive behaviour, irrational enthusiasms and panics, multiplied tenfold by the part played by word of mouth: this world apart is a sort of elusive court echoing with omens and rumours, where one can become a billionaire overnight, but also plummet in a mere moment. Almost all bankers, stockbrokers and creditors haunting this book all have something unhealthy, vile or downright insane about them, their purpose in life being entirely focused on the operations taking place under the roof and the colonnade of the Bourse, or at the 'Stock Exchange of the Wet Feet', buying devalued equities. The characters of this novel as a whole look and ring and feel pretty hollow and mechanical, truth be told.

The main focus of the novel is the campaign plan designed by Aristide Rougon aka Aristide Saccard, aka Napoléon Bonaparte. Ruined after the events of The Kill, Saccard intends to rule the Stock Exchange. In order to do so, he only need a few millions, to fund the Universal Bank... to get started. He tries and finds associates, and soon enough, with the inebriation of success, he loses all sense of proportion... compromising the whole venture, mostly to spite Gundermann - the king of the game, modelled after baron James de Rothschild.

Although there are epic descriptions to be found, related to the Stock Exchange, and a powerful sense impeding tragedy reigns throughout the story, L'Argent somehow lacks life. Its conventional characters are moved by foreseeable motives and appear mainly to serve as a rough illustration for Zola's documentation. Saccard may well be one of the most elaborate characters of the novel, heis driven by a precious few passions: money, sex, and being vocally antisemitic.

Finally, Much like Octave Mouret's ambitious projects in The Ladies' Paradise, the banking operations and money itself here are shown as both destructive and creative, but one can find it lacking when it comes to the apocalyptical consequences of Saccard's reckless speculation in the Levant. The motivations of the 'players' in the Stock Exchange on the contrary, appear too clear-cut to my taste. The stock exchange is doomed already, with such poor players.

Money, the eponymous character, is depicted as a neutral force, whereas many participants (Caroline, the Mauberges, ) renounce to explain away their life, their motivations being not always defined. You'd believe the mere fact of living is sufficient, consciousness only preoccupied by one grand passion, or by life itself.


Soundtrack
The Sea and Sindbad's Ship - Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov


Quotes :
'Eh bien, sans la spéculation, on ne ferait pas d’affaires, ma chère amie… Pourquoi diable voulez-vous que je sorte mon argent, que je risque ma fortune, si vous ne me promettez pas une jouissance extraordinaire, un brusque bonheur qui m’ouvre le ciel ?… Avec la rémunération légitime et médiocre du travail, le sage équilibre des transactions quotidiennes, c’est un désert d’une platitude extrême que l’existence [...]'

'Le terrain était préparé, le terreau impérial, fait de débris en fermentation, chauffé des appétits exaspérés, extrêmement favorable à une de ces poussées folles de la spéculation, qui, toutes les dix à quinze années, obstruent et empoisonnent la Bourse, ne laissant après elles que des ruines et du sang. Déjà, les sociétés véreuses naissaient comme des champignons, les grandes compagnies poussaient aux aventures financières, une fièvre intense du jeu se déclarait, au milieu de la prospérité bruyante du règne, tout un éclat de plaisir et de luxe, dont la prochaine Exposition promettait d’être la splendeur finale, la menteuse apothéose de féerie. Et, dans le vertige qui frappait la foule, parmi la bousculade des autres belles affaires s’offrant sur le trottoir, l’Universelle enfin se mettait en marche, en puissante machine destinée à tout affoler, à tout broyer, et que des mains violentes chauffaient sans mesure, jusqu’à l’explosion.'

'C’était l’épidémie fatale, périodique, dont les ravages balaient le marché tous les dix à quinze ans, les vendredis noirs, ainsi qu’on les nomme, semant le sol de décombres. Il faut des années pour que la confiance renaisse, pour que les grandes maisons de banque se reconstruisent, jusqu’au jour où, la passion du jeu ravivée peu à peu, flambant et recommençant l’aventure, amène une nouvelle crise, effondre tout'

'Alors, madame Caroline eut la brusque conviction que l’argent était le fumier dans lequel poussait cette humanité de demain. Des phrases de Saccard lui revenaient, des lambeaux de théories sur la spéculation. Elle se rappelait cette idée que, sans la spéculation, il n’y aurait pas de grandes entreprises vivantes et fécondes, pas plus qu’il n’y aurait d’enfants, sans la luxure. Il faut cet excès de la passion, toute cette vie bassement dépensée et perdue, à la continuation même de la vie. Si, là-bas, son frère s’égayait, chantait victoire, au milieu des chantiers qui s’organisaient, des constructions qui sortaient du sol, c’était qu’à Paris l’argent pleuvait, pourrissait tout, dans la rage du jeu. L’argent, empoisonneur et destructeur, devenait le ferment de toute végétation sociale, servait de terreau nécessaire aux grands travaux dont l’exécution rapprocherait les peuples et pacifierait la terre. Elle avait maudit l’argent, elle tombait maintenant devant lui dans une admiration effrayée : lui seul n’était-il pas la force qui peut raser une montagne, combler un bras de mer, rendre la terre enfin habitable aux hommes, soulagés du travail, désormais simples conducteurs de machines ? Tout le bien naissait de lui, qui faisait tout le mal.'

'Un instant, elle resta là, heureuse et surprise. Voilà donc qu’une de ses grandes crises était encore passée, elle espérait de nouveau, quoi ? elle n’en savait toujours rien, l’éternel inconnu qui était au bout de la vie, au bout de l’humanité. Vivre, cela devait suffire, pour que la vie lui apportât sans cesse la guérison des blessures que la vie lui faisait.'


Further reading:

- Addictive, compulsive behaviour:
The Ladies' Paradise
The Gambler
'Dopamine' documentary series:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPFYy...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us6xW...

- Strong-willed, promethean hero:
Moby-Dick or, the Whale
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Keraban the Inflexible: Adventures in the Euxine

- Money, sex, influence and the media:
Cruel Tales
Bel-Ami
The Great Gatsby
Man's Fate

- Socialist utopia:
Crime and Punishment
The Secret Agent

- Mankind, nature and civilization:
Essais, in particular L’été, Noces, L'Exil D'Hélène and Chroniques algériennes
The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New World

- The mingling of science and faith:
Nos ancêtres les Germains : les archéologues au service du nazisme

[Erika · Rating 5 out of 5]

The disappearance of the obscenely ambitious, gloriously grandiose attempt to encapsulate all of society in a series of novels is one of literature’s great tragedies. In France, this peculiarly nineteenth century project was carried out successively by Balzac, Flaubert and Zola. Between them, these men spanned almost the entirety of France’s tempestuous nineteenth century. Whereas Flaubert concentrated on the nuanced intricacies of individual psyches and Balzac the complex choreography of social relations, Zola was above all interested in the nature of what we would call “modernity”-- the throbbing dynamic of his age as it emerged in everything from department stories to prostitution to coal mines. This obsession sometimes gives his novels a somewhat sensational feel, but always makes them fun and memorable reads.

L'Argent 's contribution to the study of modernity lies in its examination of the force of money and speculation. The main narrative focuses on the rise and fall of Aristide Saccard and the Banque Universelle, a story roughly based on the challenge of the Péreire Brothers' Crédit Mobilier to the Rothschild-dominated haute banque in the 1860s (the Rothschild character, the Jewish banker Gundermann, is not central but particularly well-drawn with his forbidden grapes and his constant milk-drinking). More broadly, however, the story weaves together multiple smaller stories about money: the proud but penniless aristocrats who secretly wash their own clothes in order to maintain a public façade of nobility, the devout princess ruining herself through works of charity in penitence for her deceased husband's ill-gotten gains, the sinister debt collector who tracks down old bills and unveils dirty secrets and his beloved sickly brother who preaches the downfall of capitalist society, a kind of Madame Defarge of the stock market who buys up the remnants of bankrupt companies, the aspiring novelist, his disinherited wife and their beloved four pieces of furniture that they refuse to yield the bailiffs. All of these characters’ fates become tied up in the breathtaking rise and fall of Saccard's megalomaniacal project.

As in La Bête Humaine , the book which immediately precedes it in the Rougon-Macquart series, there is a sense of some grand, inevitable, unstoppable force sweeping along the characters in its path. Yet whereas the unforgettable last pages of La Bête Humaine present us with the ferocious engine crowded with doomed soldiers speeding over the French countryside without a driver, the drunken rollercoaster ride of speculative activity that has ruined so many ends with attempts at rebuilding some of the visions that had inspired the Banque Universelle. Speculation is perhaps the wild and dark side of this unbridled faith in the future, potentially realizing nightmares as well as dreams, but at heart Zola seems to embrace the visions of a better future that wealth (prudently managed) could provide.

Zola is often (and rightly) faulted for his occasionally clumsy handling of his characters' psychological lives. L'Argent largely plays to Zola's strengths in this regard. Concentrating on the giddy superficiality of money, the lack of psychological depth and stability seems completely in line with a Simmelian reading of the topsy-turvey but empty emotional world of speculation creates. The treatment of the female characters is quite compelling, with almost all coming off far more sympathetically and heroically than their male counterparts. Modern readers might be shocked to see the extent of female participation in the stock markets: Zola’s story takes place from 1864 to 1867, years immediately preceding the active suppression of women’s role in financial life (a theme well covered by Victoria Thompson’s book The Virtuous Marketplace). Of all the female character, Madame Caroline in particular comes across as a remarkably modern woman, and the novel’s true heroine.

Zola's story of Second Empire speculation, spot-on accurate in its own day, sparkles with a lurid and disturbing contemporaneity in our own age of speculation. It is written in a clear, lucid and compelling French even when discussing the fine points of stock market transactions. Like Saccard, Zola’s vision may have verged on the grandiose, but, like Saccard, his passion and vision somehow make up for his weaknesses. A masterful feat.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do you remember Gordon Gekko played by Michael Douglas in the 1987 movie, Wall Street? He stated this often quoted line,

“The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right.”

At the heart that drives capitalism is greed. Well, one can easily apply this to L’Argent or Money by Émile Zola, number 18 in the series Rougon-Macquart, written in 1889.

During this time, France was at building an empire (known as the Second Empire, 1851-1870). It was expanding into the Middle East: Beirut, Damascus, Istanbul, and Cairo. The French were developing the Suez Canal to expand trade to Asia. It seemed everywhere France touched was golden, although there were some cracks in Mexico.

Aristide Saccard, who made a fortune after the death of his wife in La Curée, was on to bigger projects. He was not content with a silver mine, a railway, and helping a very rich widow to help poor orphans. Nope he had a bigger scheme for “la haute banque Universelle.” So big that it will “guillotine the other banks.” So come along for the ride (and please invest).

All of this action centers around La Bourse, or the French stock market. Fortunes were made and lost here. In his own words, “C’est un pays de cocagne” - a cloud cuckoo land, the land of idleness and luxury, leisure, milk and honey, the good life, abundance. It was good while it lasted.

It was the heady days of 1867. L’Exposition du monde or the World Exhibition was under way, Napoleon III couldn’t be happier and Paris was in its glory. The Universal Bank was rolling in money, as was Saccard, his lover Caroline, her brother Hamelin and all those who made investments in the bank. Life was grande!

Remember that crack in Mexico. The French backed the Habsburg emperor Maximilian to take over Mexico. Well, things went badly for him when he was executed in front of a firing squad. Perhaps a warning sign? Of course not. Invest, invest, it’s off to invest we must.

The Prussians showed off a really cool canon at the Expo, so good that they would use it in the up-and-coming Franco-Prussian war. A war? When war bells sound, investing is on wobbly ground. Perhaps the biggest problem was this new bank treads dangerously close on an existing bank, owned by a very rich Jewish man, Gundermann. Best to know when to pick your battles. Or die fighting!

Zola does add in the warning about the evils of capitalism via the Marxist German Sigusmund but all to avail. Once the ball starts rolling, it rolls until it...

Of course, being Zola we get some moralizing. When things go sideways, a lot of people get hurt along the way. It’s very sad to know that this book, written 125 years ago and we are still going through the same things.

Ah money, money is king, money is god,

“L'argent, l'argent roi, l'argent Dieu, au-dessus du sang, au-dessus des larmes, adoré plus haut que les vains scrupules humains, dans l'infini de sa puissance”

Or perhaps you have heard this little number?

Money
Get away
You get a good job with more pay and you're okay
Money
It's a gas
Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash
New car, caviar, four star, daydream
Think I'll buy me a football team
Money
Get back
I'm alright, Jack, keep your hands off of my stack
Money
It's a hit
Don't give me that do goody good bullshit
I'm in the high-fidelity first-class traveling set
And I think I need a Lear jet
Money
It's a crime
Share it fairly, but don't take a slice of my pie
Money
So they say
Is the root of all evil today
But if you ask for a rise
It's no surprise that they're giving none away
Away, away, away

[Gary Inbinder · Rating 5 out of 5]

1 Timothy 6:10
King James Version
For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

I don't care too much for money
Money can't buy me love
The Beatles

Money makes the world go around
It makes the world go 'round.
Cabaret

They can beg and they can plead
But they can't see the light (that's right)
'Cause the boy with the cold hard cash
Is always mister right

'Cause we are living in a material world
And I am a material girl
Madonna-Material Girl

Money plays the largest part in determining the course of history.
Karl Marx

Money never sleeps
Gordon Gekko in Wall Street

It doesn't matter whether you are rich or poor - as long as you've got money.
Joe E. Lewis

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
John Lennon

The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Gold is not necessary. I have no interest in gold. We will build a solid state, without an ounce of gold behind it. Anyone who sells above the set prices, let him be marched off to a concentration camp. That's the bastion of money.
Adolph Hitler

‘Couldn’t succeed!...I didn’t have enough money, that’s all. If Napoleon at Waterloo had had another hundred thousand men to send out to get killed, he would have won, and the face of the world would have been changed. And I, if I had had the few hundreds of millions I needed...I would be the master of the world.
Aristide Saccard the grand speculator, in Zola’s Money

...the collectivist state will only have to do what you do, take you over in one go after you’ve taken over the smaller companies one by one, and thus fulfil the ambition of your extravagant dream, which is to absorb all the capital of the world, to be the sole bank—isn’t that so?—to be the one general depository of public wealth…
Sigismund Busch, the Marxist, in Zola’s Money

...out of all that abominable suffering that humanity has to pay for every step forward, is there not an obscure and distant goal, something superior, something good, just and definitive, toward which we move without knowing it, but which fills our hearts with the obstinate need to live, and hope?
Madame Caroline, the voice of conscience and reason, in Zola’s Money

Why then blame money for the dirt and crimes it causes? Is love any less sullied, love, the creator of life?
The concluding lines of Zola’s Money.

Money is neither good nor evil. It’s a medium of exchange. People are a mixture of both good and evil, and we put money to uses that are good and bad.
Gary I. 😉

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the later entries in Zola’s epic saga of Second Empire life, this sweeping shambles of a novel chronicles the rise and fall of the amoral stockbroker Saccard and the cast of amoral numbskulls and unfortunate losers caught up in the swirl of the Fowl Franc. The plot is straightforward riches to riches to riches to riches to rags matter, and the writing leans on some of Zola’s less appealing traits: colossal info-dumping, long explanatory passages, and awkward transitions between scenes (that the translator kindly calls ‘cinematic’), however, Zola’s histrionic melodramas always deliver hard zaps to the system, and remind us that the world is in a perpetual state of shambles that can only be remedied by nice people.

[Dagio_maya · Rating 3 out of 5]

” Ah! Se avessi denaro!”

Diciottesimo romanzo- del ciclo Rougon- Maquart- in ordine di stampa.
Quarto nell'ordine di lettura indicato da Zola stesso.
Mentre tra l’anno di pubblicazione del terzo volume “La curée “(La preda/ La cuccagna) e questo romanzo sono trascorsi ben vent’anni, dal punto di vista narrativo, invece, il piano temporale ha solo un breve stacco.
Abbiamo lasciato il protagonista, Aristide Rougon, nell'ottobre 1863 e l’azione de “Il denaro” riprende poco dopo e, precisamente, dal maggio 1864 arrivando, poi, all’aprile 1869.

Là era la speculazione edilizia che muoveva i passi del protagonista, qui la cieca fame del denaro si trasferisce nell’edificio della Borsa.

”Aveva assaggiato di tutto ma non si era saziato”

Fin dalle prime pagine il romanzo colpisce per la miriade di personaggi che si muovono come insetti brulicanti: diversi ma uguali nel voler soddisfare il sogno di ricchezza e senza scrupoli anche se i rischi sono molti.
Il gioco in borsa nei comportamenti e negli effetti non è molto diverso da un qualsiasi gioco d’azzardo: cecità e febbre. sono i sintomi palesi di questa patologia.

Saccard (così si fa chiamare Aristide Rougon) fa propri i sogni orientali dei fratelli Hamelin e Caroline.
Tra Africa settentrionale e Medioriente ecco affacciarsi un’iperbole di progetti che partendo da una compagnia di piroscafi in Libano spazia tra miniere d’argento, rete ferroviarie fino a diventare un piano di conquista a favore del cattolicesimo.
Si mette, dunque, in azione e fonda una Banca che rispecchiando i sogni di grandiosità, chiamerà “Universale”.

In questo romanzo, Zola mette in scena un clima profondamente antisemita che a fine secolo imperversava in tutta Europa.
Non a caso sono gli anni in cui si prepara la tremenda bufala de “I Protocolli dei Savi di Sion” e di quel famoso "Affaire Dreyfus" che vide lo stesso Zola protagonista nelle aule di tribunale.

Un romanzo che sicuramente condanna definitivamente questo Rougon incapace di soddisfare l'eterna sete di denaro; biasima l’ambiante della Borsa che corre sul filo dell’aggiotaggio ma in fondo non disapprova il denaro in sé ma l’uso che se ne fa.

Testa o croce?
Da che parte far girare la moneta?
Alla luce del sole e usandola per compensare le mancanze di chi ha meno oppure nelle tenebre dell’inganno speculativo per realizzare il sogno dell’accumulo?

La parola “Fine” qui ha tutta la tragicità di una scommessa mancata dove sul tavolo ci si era giocato tutto, compresi se stessi.

Un romanzo sicuramente potente nelle sue tematiche che ricalcano avvenimenti reali ma che risulta ripetitivo se letto successivamente a “La preda”.


” C’è, nella passione del gioco, un fermento disgregatore che ho osservato spesso, capace di minare e corrompere tutto, che trasforma la creatura della stirpe meglio educata e più fiera in un relitto umano, in un rifiuto che si spazza giù in strada... “

[AiK · Rating 5 out of 5]

Многие жалуются, что финансово-экономические аспекты, изложенные в романе скучны и непонятны. Но они становятся понятны, если узнать, что события в романе основаны на реальных событиях – открытии Суэцкого канала и крахе банка Societe de Union Generale. Даже приводимые в романе котировки были такими. Золя - великий реалист, и его романы зло и беспристрастно вскрывают всю грязь общества. Мы снова встречаемся с Аристидом Саккаром, который снова проворачивает свои махинации. В романе появляется еще один отпрыск, происходящий из Ругонов – внебрачный сын Саккара, Виктор, зачатый в момент изнасилования его матери. Он наследует черты Аристида в еще более гнусной форме и становится почти звероподобен– он также одержим наслаждениями и страстью к деньгам и также патологически не склонен к труду. Происходящее с банком - классический пузырь на рынке, которые как очень верно заметил Золя, возникают каждые 10-15 лет из-за охватываемой обуздываемых жадностью людьми страсти к игре, к мгновенной наживе без приложения усилий. Он великолепно описал то стадное чувство, которое захватывает даже самых осторожных. Автор прекрасно разобрался в определении справедливой стоимости акций и прекрасно объяснил механизм возникновения «черных пятниц» и это удивительно читать в художественном произведении. Роман очень живой, современный, это роман о людях, их природе, а не только о семействе Ругонов. Читайте и получайте удовольствие!

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not the best of his I have read, but still excellent. His exploration of the money markets and of anti-semitism are both expertly done, and thoroughly engaging. Zola continues to rise in the ranks of my favourites authors.

[Armin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Zu jedem großen, mehr oder minder zyklischen Börsenkrach gehört der Verweis auf Zolas analytischen Roman des Spekulationsfiebers gegen Ende des zweiten Kaiserreichs, der auf wirtschaftlicher Ebene den Zusammenbruch dieser vermeintlichen Weltmacht voraus nahm.
Die Universalbank Saccards, des Finanznapoleons unter den Rougon-Macquarts, fungiert dabei gewissermaßen als Symbol für das von vorn herein auf Korruption und Spekulation und ganz viel Kulisse aufgebaute zweite Kaiserreich. Zu den gelungenen Ironien gehört Zolas Spiel mit Anspruch und Wirklichkeit bei Saccard, der das Schicksal des großen Napoleon erst als Rollenmodell, dann als
Deutungsmuster für seine Niederlage nutzt. Der steinreiche Jude Gundermann fungiert dabei gewissermaßen als sein England, zusätzlicher Antrieb ist bei diesem Feldzug ein Antisemitismus, der sich aus Minderwertigkeitskomplexen speist, den Saccard aber jederzeit als Motivations- und Mobilisierungshilfe einsetzen kann. Auch bei den Frauen hat Saccard den Schlag des ersten Kaisers, scheut aber auch nicht vor Lächerlichkeiten zurück, die ihn zum Nachäffer des schlaffen Neffen Bonaparte machen, der als Napoleon III. regiert oder regieren lässt. So gönnt sich der wieder auf die Überholspur eingebogene Spekulant eine Schönheit, für deren Gunst der Kaiser einst 100.000 Francs bot, muss als vergleichsweiser Nobody aber das Doppelte für seine Nacht samt Triumphzug mit seiner Eroberung durch die haute Vollée bezahlen. Unter den Zeugen der kostspieligen Show: Bismarck, der auch seinen Spaß am Spektakel hat. Ein Wink mit dem Zaunpfahl für die Zeitgenossen, für welchen Napoleon Saccard steht. Nicht für das echte Kaiserreich, sondern den Operettenstaat, die militärische Niederlage beim mexikanischen Abenteuer spielt nicht umsonst als Hintergrundmusik.

Die Charakteristik Saccards, so pamphletistisch Zola auch zu Werke geht, ist psychologisch so weit schlüssig bis hinein in die Lebenslügen, die Paarung Caroline und Méchiant zählt ebenfalls zu den Aktivposten. Zwei gegensätzliche Frauengestalten, die sich vom Elend anderer nähren, die gute Seele und Helferin zieht aus ihrem karitiativen Engagement Bestätigung, die dicke Resteverwerterin, handelt nicht nur den Aktien gescheiterter Unternehmen, sondern vermietet auch die übelsten Bruchbuden zum Höchstpreis. In Viktor, dem Endergebnis einer Vergewaltigung durch Saccard, findet sich eine Schnittstelle, die zu einer geradezu gesetzmäßigen Katastrophe in großen Untergangstableau des Finales führt, in der sich das Ergebnis einer brutalen Notzüchtigung als wahrer Sohn seines Vaters erweist.

Ob man diese übergroße Deutlichkeit nun schätzt oder schon für ein künstlerisches Armutszeugnis hält, sei dahin gestellt, 130 Jahre später kann ich den Aufklärungsanspruch nur noch historisch würdigen, im Licht von gleichzeitig gelesenen Romanen wie Michael Connellys Fair Warning, der im Krimi den Wildwuchs im durch nichts geregelten Gen-Analyse-Geschäft beschreibt, wird mir aber schon deutlich, dass es sich in jeder Hinsicht um einen Zeitroman mit hohem Warnfaktor und keinen Klassiker handelt. Keine Ahnung, wie schnell Connelly zur Lachnummer für spätere Generationen wird, zumal der Autor mit seiner Schwäche in Sachen Auflösung oft die besten Absichten ruiniert. Zola schmälert die Verdienste seines Romans, durch eine falsche und auf krasse Effekte angelegte Anwendung der Vererbungslehre bei den Sozialthemen. Diesen Vorwurf machten ihm schon zahlreiche naturwissenschaftlich gebildetere Zeitgenossen, zumal Zola beim Wettern gegen und Warnen vor dem Spekulatentum der künstlerischen Todsünde der Tendenz verfiel.
Je weiter die Handlung fortschreitet, desto mehr missrät er vom Sittenspiegel zur Bußpredigt gegen die Spekulation. Das Geld ist eine Art Romanpamphlet, das Spielsucht und die Gier als Todsünde dargestellt, die alle, die davon befallen werden, unweigerlich in Ruin, Wahnsinn oder den Tod treibt. Insofern ist dieses Buch in seinem Tugendwahn oder Aufklärungsanspruch ein schlimmerer Porno als bei den krassen Sex-Szenen oder der dilettantischen Handhabung der Vererbungslehre. Deshalb wirkt Zola in diesem Roman wie ein alter Pfarrer, der gegen sämtliche Sünden dieser Welt wettert und den Oberteufel Saccard als eine Art Finanzwiedergänger von Napoleon Bonaparte zeichnet, der bei der Verwirklichung seiner Visionen bedenkenlos die Leben aller anderen opfert.

Fazit: Zola hat mich zwar, je länger desto mehr, mit seinem Plakatismus genervt, auch die zahlreichen Einseitigkeiten beim samt und sonders der Verdammnis preisgegeben Umfeld Saccards.
An Geld stört mich auch sehr, dass seine Portraits oder Szenen nie das Potenzial zu groteskem Humor ausschöpfen, sondern immer im Bußpredigermodus stecken bleiben. In Sachen Schlachten auf dem Börsenparkett haben spätere Generationen in jeder Hinsicht Mitreißenderes geliefert, von daher juckt es mich gerade Noble House Hong Kong in meinen Lesekalender zu schmuggeln.
In Sachen Lesevergnügen würde ich eher zwei Sterne geben, aber immerhin erzählt er seinen Roman, so weit so schlüssig zu Ende, von daher drei Sterne, also einen mehr als der am Finishermodus gescheiterte Finalroman Doktor Pascal, dessen erste Hälfte mich trotzdem deutlich mehr bezaubert hat als jedes Kapitel von Geld, das eher die analytische als die sinnliche Seite anspricht. Aber auch erst beim Blick auf den Roman mit etwas Abstand, während der Lektüre war ich die meiste Zeit angeekelt.

Das Glück der Familie Rougon
Seine Exzellenz Eugene Rougon
Die Beute
Das Geld
Der Traum
Die Eroberung von Plassans
Ein Hintertreppenroman
Das Paradies der Damen
Die Sünde des Abbe Mouret
Ein Blatt Liebe
Der Bauch von Paris
Lebensfreude
Der Totschläger
Das Werk
Die Bestie
Germinal
Nana
Mutter Erde
Der Untergang
Doktor Pascal

[Janelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

The main character in Money is Saccard , featured in the earlier novel The Kill. At the start he is still ambitious and in love with money, determined to recover from his previous fall. This time he starts up the Universal bank focussed on building projects in the Middle East, using the plans of idealistic engineer Hamelin. From the start there’s illegalities, setting up a syndicate with proxies holding shares that really belong to the bank and it’s obvious from the start the trajectory of the story. The bank will fall, very much a foreshadowing of the fall of the empire in the war to come (in the next novel The Debacle). But all levels of society are pulled into the frenzy around the bank, all types of people love the excitement of the Bourse. Saccard is a horrible man, his antisemitism is on full display and he is no way influenced by the counterbalancing character of Madame Caroline, Hamelin’s sister. She is cautious and along with her brother reluctant to go along with the share buybacks(they are among the first to sell off their shares). Greed, ambition and love of money are the main themes.

The practice of the bank buying its own shares, gambling on them and thus devouring itself, was getting under way.

Ah! Money! Money the corrupter, the poisoner, shrivelling souls, driving out all goodness, affection and love for others. Money alone was the great culprit, the promoter of all human cruelty and filth. At this moment, she cursed it and loathed it, with all the indignant revulsion of her nobility of soul and her womanly probity. If only she had the power, she would have destroyed all the money in the world, as one would crush disease underfoot to save the world’s health.

And the Bourse stood out, grey and bleak in the gloom of the crash, which for the last month had left it deserted, open to the four winds, like a marketplace cleared by famine. It was the fatal, periodic epidemic* that ravages the markets, sweeping through, every ten to fifteen years, the ‘black Fridays’ as they are called, that strew the ground with wreckage. It takes years for confidence to be restored, and for the great banking houses to be rebuilt, rebuilt until the day when the passion for gambling gradually reawakens, blazes up, and sets the whole process in motion again, bringing a new crisis, and sending everything crashing into a new disaster. But this time, behind that reddish smoke on the horizon, in the blurred and far-off parts of the city, could be heard a sort of muffled creaking, as of the imminent end of a world.

[Sotiris Karaiskos · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book that puts us at the heart of the financial system of the second empire. In this, the successful swindler of the previous book (in the order of reading suggested by the author) has been financially ruined and is betting everything on one last big and very risky plan. This risk, however, does not prevent many from participating in this plan, expecting a quick profit. People from all walks of life are involved, from millionaires who are always asking for more to poor people who risk their economies by seeing in this plan an opportunity for wealth and social prestige, with some seeing even more opportunities.

Through this story, the author describes a society that loves money and considers easy riches perfectly acceptable, despising any honest endeavour, that enjoys gambling, that goes astray after promises of financial tricks that few actually understand, that believes easily that this immorality can, in the end, be the source of many good things. The reality, however, quickly comes to overturn all these delusions, shortly before the collapse of the second empire. The author is not limited to denouncing this irrational system but goes into great depth and describes the mentality behind these people's actions. So, in the end, the author offers a complete picture of this issue, while bending over the lives of people affected by it, giving the emotional side.

Ένα βιβλίο που μας βάζει στην καρδιά του χρηματοπιστωτικού συστήματος της δεύτερης αυτοκρατορίας. Σε αυτό ο επιτυχημένος απατεώνας του προηγούμενου βιβλίου (στην σειρά ανάγνωσης που προτείνει ο συγγραφέας) έχει καταστραφεί οικονομικά και ποντάρει τα πάντα σε ένα τελευταίο μεγάλο και ιδιαίτερα ριψοκίνδυνο σχέδιο. Αυτό το ρίσκο, όμως, δεν αποτρέπει πολλούς να συμμετάσχουν σε αυτό το σχέδιο, προσδοκώντας στο γρήγορο κέρδος. Άνθρωποι από κάθε τάξη εμπλέκονται, από εκατομμυριούχους που πάντα ζητάνε περισσότερα μέχρι φτωχούς ανθρώπους που ρισκάρουν τις οικονομίες τους βλέποντας σε αυτό το σχέδιο μία ευκαιρία πλουτισμού και κοινωνικής καταξίωσης, με μερικούς να βλέπουν ακόμα περισσότερες πιθανότητες.

Μέσα από αυτήν την ιστορία ο συγγραφέας περιγράφει μία κοινωνία που λατρεύει το χρήμα και θεωρεί τον εύκολο πλουτισμό απολύτως αποδεκτό, περιφρονώντας οποιαδήποτε τίμια προσπάθεια, που αρέσκεται στο τζογάρισμα, που παρασέρνεται αφού υποσχέσεις για χρηματοπιστωτικά κόλπα που στην πραγματικότητα λίγοι είναι αυτοί που καταλαβαίνουν, που πείθεται εύκολα ότι αυτή η ανηθικότητα μπορεί στο τέλος να είναι η πηγή για πολλά καλά πράγματα. Η πραγματικότητα, όμως, γρήγορα έρχεται να ανατρέψει όλες αυτές τις πλάνες, λίγο πριν από την κατάρρευση της δεύτερης αυτοκρατορίας. Ο συγγραφέας δεν περιορίζεται μόνο στην καταγγελία αυτού του παράλογου συστήματος αλλά φτάνει σε μεγάλο βάθος και να περιγράψει την νοοτροπία που κρύβεται πίσω από τις ενέργειες αυτών των ανθρώπων. Έτσι, στο τέλος, ο συγγραφέας προσφέρει μία ολοκληρωμένη εικόνα αυτού του θέματος, σκύβοντας παράλληλα πάνω από τις ζωές των ανθρώπων που επηρεάζονται από αυτό, δίνοντας και την συναισθηματική πλευρά.

[Frau Becker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Vieles, was ich an Zola liebe, finde ich hier: Das geradezu ausufernde Figurenensemble mit ihren eigenen interessanten Geschichten, die plastischen, lebhaften, stimmungsvollen Beschreibungen von Orten, die geradzu naturwissenschaftlich orientierte Sezierung eines Phänomens der Moderne, hier der Finanzwelt. Dieses Buch hat insofern seine Qualitäten, hat mich aber weit weniger begeistert als "Germinal" oder "Das Paradies der Damen". Das mag zum einen in der Natur des Sujets liegen: Die bürokratischen Schritte im Zuge der Gründung einer Bank, Aufsichtsrats- und Vorstandssitzungen, ellenlange Darstellungen von Kursschwankungen (das Buch wäre wohl nur halb so lang, wenn nicht alle Zahlen ausgeschrieben würden) sind dramaturgisch nicht unbedingt der Hammer. Der Rausch allerdings, der den die Hausse mit sich bringt, die fiebrige Gewinnerwartung und die Nervosität des Immer-Mehr, das ist schon gut und mitreißend beschrieben (erinnerte mich in den besten Momenten an die Konsumexzesse im "Paradies"). Sprachlich bedient sich Zola bei der Metaphorik des Krieges, an der Börse werden Schlachten geschlagen, Gegner vernichtet, und am Ende erscheinen die "Krähen" in Gestalt der Ramschpapierhändler. Die menschliche Schwäche, die dem zugrunde liegt, ist die Gier, nicht nur die der Großinvestoren, sondern auch der kleinen Leute, die Haus und Hof verpfänden, um eine Investitionsblase aufzupumpen, die zwangsläufig irgendwann platzen muss. (Infolge dieser Vorhersagbarkeit das Buch als "Finanzthriller" zu bewerben, ist mal wieder eine Glanzleistung fehlleitenden Büchermarketings.) Für die "großen" Spieler hingegen, den Protagonisten Saccard, aber auch seinen Gegenspieler, den jüdischen Großbankier Gundermann, ist nicht der Wohlstand, die materielle Absicherung das Ziel - Gundermann etwa führt gesundheitsbedingt ein karges Leben, Saccard lebt nur für die Bank. Ziel ist es, zu gewinnen, den Wert der Aktie immer weiter zu mehren, ein Genug gibt es nicht, weder für Saccard noch für die kleinen Sparer, die ihm ihr unter Entbehrungen Zusammengespartes anvertreuen und am Ende allesammt mit in den Ruin gerissen werden.
Was die Figurencharakterisierung angeht, ist Zola in seinen anderen Büchern differenzierter: Hier geht es ihm sehr deutlich um ein Täter (skrupellose Bänker)-Opfer (kleine Sparer)-Verhältnis, oder eher um Verführer und Verführte. Dies spiegelt sich auch in Saccards Sexualität wieder, Frauen werden zum Statussymbol, das man dem Gegner ausspannt, zu taktischen Figuren, denen man Insider-Informationen abhorcht oder die man einfach vergewaltigt (und dabei einen Sohn zeugt, der in seiner rohen Gewalttätigkeit zum unzivilisierten Gegenpart des Vaters wird). Dabei wird Saccard zur Personifikation des Systems selbst, rücksichtslos und amoralisch, zum Gewinnen verdammt, ist er am Ende doch nicht totzukriegen, kommt mit einem blauen Auge davon und kann anderswo weitermachen. Hier geht es nicht um Psychologie, weil das System selbst keine Seele hat und dementsprechend alle die ihre verlieren, die sich ihm ausliefern.

[J.M. Hushour · Rating 4 out of 5]

For those new to my ever-swelling fanbase, I am reading the "Rougons-Macquart" series in its entirety, using Zola's own suggested reading order. "Money", the fourth novel, is about Aristide Saccard, the same Rougon from "The Kill". This time, the wily financier constructs an investment scheme in the Near East, creates a fortune, and then destroys through his greed and iniquity every single person around him. Well, almost all. Hardly redeeming and quite grim, a world distant from the creepy incest of "The Kill", "Money" should be required reading these days as it eerily mirrors the rampant avarice which is even now destroying the world economy through speculation in abstracts. Strangely, this hasn't been re-translated in almost 120 years and the Vizetelly ones are sort of weak. Update! It has been freshly translated! Yay!

[Mary Durrant · Rating 5 out of 5]

The irresistible power of money and love.

Aristide Rougon know as Saccard, is a failed property speculator determined to make his mark once more in Paris.
Unscrupulous seductive and with unbounded ambition.
He schemes and manipulates his way back .
Establishes a new bank and speculates on the stock market.
He also conducts his love life like he does his business.
What happens when one goes too far?
His empire seems unstoppable.
There is a chequered past which comes back to haunt him.
Money isn't everything and it can bring ruin.

Why then blame money for the dirt and crimes it causes? Is love any less sullied, love, the creator of life?

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Money is a very different novel to The Kill, despite Saccard being prominent in both. While The Kill concentrated upon sensuality and the luxuries that money can buy, Money unsurprisingly focuses on the titular concept itself. The reader gets detailed insight into financial speculation in Third Empire France via Saccard's adventures in fiduciary misconduct. While Money isn't my favourite Rougon-Macquart novel and doesn't carry the visceral thrills of The Kill, it is nonetheless a fascinating historical portrait written to Zola's usual exceptionally high standard. It brilliantly dissects the underpinnings of speculative boom and bust, forensically depicting how seemingly unstoppable momentum gives way to abrupt brittle collapse.

Saccard the charismatic capitalist crook is a compelling protagonist, an avatar of finance intoxicated by money and his own ideas of how to multiply it. His antisemitism is distasteful but cleverly deployed to demonstrate his hypocrisies. While he dominates events, the most striking moments involve him talking to others with different perspectives. His conversations with a dying socialist and the sensible Madame Caroline introduce a good dose of ambivalence about capitalism. He loves to monologue:

What you have to understand is that speculation, playing the market, is the central motor, the very heart of a vast affair such as ours. Yes! It brings new blood into the system, it takes small streams of it from all over the place then collects it together and sends it out in rivers, in all directions, creating an enormous circulation of money which is the very lifeblood of great enterprise. Without it major movements of capital, and the great civilising works that result, are fundamentally impossible. [...]
Risk, that's the essential, that and the grandeur of the aim too. There has to be a vast project, a project big enough to capture the imagination; there has to be hope of substantial gain, of winning a jackpot that will give ten times the initial outlay, unless of course it gets swept away instead; that's what provokes passions, so life floods in, everyone brings his money, and the world can be reshaped. What evil do you see in that?

The evil there is a world reshaped by profit, which crushes anybody who gets in the way. As well as excellent dialogue, Zola has particular skill at painting a vivid picture of crowds gripped by some materialistic fervour. This stock crash scene reminded me of the equally memorable sale day scene in The Ladies' Paradise:

It was like one of those fits of madness that can seize a crowd, and was intelligible only to the initiated. Up above, women were leaning their heads over the telegraph gallery, stupified and horrified at this extraordinary spectacle. In the government-stocks market, it was almost like a brawl, with a furious central group resorting to fisticuffs, while the public, crossing this side of the room in both directions, pushed into the groups that were constantly breaking up and forming again in continual turmoil. Between the cash market and the main trading-floor, above the tempest-tossed sea of heads, there were now only the three quoters sitting on their high chairs, floating above the waves like wreckage, with the big white patch of registers, while they were tugged hither and thither by the rapid fluctuation of the prices being thrown at them. In the cash section especially, the jostling was at its worst, it was a solid mass heads of hair, without faces, like a dark swarm, lightened only by the little white pages of notebooks waving about in the air.

While the material details are highly specific to the Third Empire era, inflated stock prices and insider trading are very much still with us. A 21st century Saccard would be making exaggerated claims about disrupting some market with a new app, but I doubt that the underlying psychology has changed much since Zola observed it so acutely.

[Karine Mon coin lecture · Rating 2 out of 5]

1,5
Vous savez, quand vous savez qu'un livre est bien écrit et qu'il dénonce des trucs importants pour l'époque... mais que vous vous emmerdez à mort à la lecture? Ben c'est ça. Entendre parler d'argent pendant toutes ces pages, j'ai failli mourir. Il faut dire que c'était prévisible mais j'avais en tête de lire TOUS les Rougon-Macquart dans l'ordre... et c'était rendu son tour!

Bref, pause Zola.

[Christine Liu]

Of the twenty Rougon-Macquart novels, this was the 18th to be written, published in 1891, but chronologically it's set just after the events of La Curée / The Kill, making it the fourth in Zola's recommended reading order. In this book we catch up with Aristide Rougon, who goes by Saccard, as he refuses to let his financial failures in property speculation keep him down and embarks on a new, not quite legal, definitely unethical scheme to create a new bank.

All the Rougon-Macquart novels I've read so far have real historical events from the French Second Empire that form a major crux of the plot, but I felt that this was one that made me have to look up the history and politics of this era the most. The characters are constantly making references to many of the events happening around the world to cause fluctuations in currencies and stock prices, and it's a lot to keep up with.

It's a great look at the inner workings of the banking world in, and although Zola stated in an interview that it's hard to write about money it's "cold, icy, lacking in interest", it's money that makes Saccard such a deeply complicated and compelling character. He muses, upon watching the ultra-wealthy banker Gundermann painstakingly consume a breakfast of milk, "why get up at five in the morning, do this abominable job, be crushed by this immense fatigue, and lead the life of a galley-slave, a life that no beggarman would accept, his memories stuffed with numbers and his skull bursting with a multitude of worries? Why add more useless gold to so much gold, when you can't even buy a pound of cherries to eat in the street or take some passing girl to a dance-hall by the river, or enjoy any of the things that can be bought, like idleness and freedom?"

But Saccard later also expounds at length on the boundless power of money and profit and speculation: "That's how the world will be renewed, for without money, liquid money, flowing and infiltrating everywhere, nothing was possible, not scientific invention nor ultimate, universal peace." His son Maxime also astutely remarks that, "it's not that he loves money like a miser, wanting to have a whole heap of it and hide it in a cellar. No! If he wants to make it gush out from everywhere, and if he doesn't care what sources he taps, it's just to see it flowing around him in torrents, it's for all the enjoyment he can get out of it, in luxury, pleasure, and power."

Zola's characters are always the best part of his brilliant novels, and I find that it's his female characters in particular that always emerge as the most memorable. In Fortune it was the wily Felicité and courageous Miette, His Excellency Èugene Rougon had the unforgettably resourceful Clorinde, and The Kill had the hapless Renée. In Money, Madame Caroline is both the heart and moral compass of the story.

Overall this was a perfectly enjoyable read. Although it can stand alone without knowledge of any of the other novels, I wouldn't recommend it as a starting point.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Show me the money. Talk about greed and avarice. This novel as it all. Aristide Siccard still the conman is a financier who comes up with an audacious scam and is like a latter day banker or stock broker today. Selling people dreams which ultimately turn into nightmares. This novel reminds me of the 2008 banking crisis and the Great Depression and stock market crash.

The Universal Bank was another Northern Rock. What was clear was aside from a few of the major investors as it is today there is no punishment for fraud on a large scale except for the small investors caught up in the greed and not able to sell their worthless shares when it all comes crashing down. Unlike those in the know who escape disaster.

The book as well as describing the rich backers also brings in the little people carried away with their dreams of wealth. The brokers, investors, directors and hanger ons paint a wonderful picture of Paris in the 1860s. Opulence versus poverty and dreams built on sand.

[Naele]

پول و زندگی که به سرمایه داران، فریب ها و محافظه کاری های آنان با رقبا و دوستان در بورس می پردازد همچنین فسادهای جنسی در زندگی شخصی شان که معتقدند هیچ قدرتی جز پول نمی تواند بی عدالتی های آنها را بپوشاند. نثر رمان طاقت فرسا است و در بیشتر جاها شکل گزارش نویسی و خبری بازار بورس و سهام به خود گرفته است. پرحرفی راوی طوری نیست که ذهن رو به سمت خودش بکشه و مدام در حال قضاوت ذهن هاست. تنها نقطه خوب و بسیار کوتاه آنجاست که نشان می دهد دلالان سهام دار چگونه از انسانیت فاصله گرفته و پول را در جایگاه انسانیت قرار می دهند و با آن حیله های سرمایه داری خود را عملی می سازند.

[Saturn · Rating 4 out of 5]

In questo corposo romanzo Zola, con la sua peculiare capacità di leggere i cambiamenti epocali che interessano la società, mette in scena il boom speculativo che ha interessato la Parigi di metà Ottocento. La peculiarità di questo volume del ciclo dei Rougon-Macquart è che per quanto il protagonista sia, dopo La Curée, ancora una volta Aristide Saccard, qui il vero perno del romanzo non è tanto la famiglia Rougon con i suoi lasciti; il fulcro del romanzo è, come da titolo, il denaro con tutta la bramosia, l'avidità e la sete di potere che da sempre si porta dietro.

Le formiche umane si erano moltiplicate, stavano cambiando la faccia della Terra.

Siamo dunque nella metà dell'Ottocento, nei primi decenni dell'età contemporanea. L'umanità cominciava a realizzare opere non solo faraoniche, come furono le Piramidi, ma capaci di impattare gli ecosistemi terrestri. Francesi e italiani costruiscono il canale di Suez, gli scambi economici e commerciali diventano sempre più veloci e globali. Si sogna il progresso che elevi l'umanità nei suoi bisogni materiali e spirituali. Ma il carburante per realizzare ogni progetto è il denaro che come un fiume scorre da una mano all'altra, invisibile sotto forma di azioni, nei grandi meandri e misteri della Borsa.

Nel mondo della Borsa parigina che, per legge, era tutto al maschile, Zola riesce a intagliare molti ruoli femminili. Su tutte spicca Caroline, una controparte o coprotagonista di Saccard. Lei, che sogna il progresso, idealista, che vuole giocare secondo le regole. Lui, che è perso nei sogni di potenza e di gloria, dove lo scopo non è il denaro in sé ma la sua aura di potere. Come in un moderno film su Wall Street, denaro, sesso e potere sono inestricabilmente intrecciati e avvitano chi li brama in una spirale senza uscita. Quasi tutti subiscono il fascino del denaro; Caroline, una personaggia interessante nella sua ambivalenza, ne è spaventata e attratta allo stesso tempo. E' la sua voce che riflette sull'impatto del denaro nella società, soprattutto nel confronto fra ricchi e poveri si domanda:

Il denaro equivarrebbe dunque all'educazione, alla salute, all'intelligenza? E, se al fondo di tutto vi era lo stesso fango umano, tutta la civiltà non consisteva, allora, nella superiorità di avere un buon profumo, di vivere bene?

Zola sembra quasi tirare le conclusioni del suo esperimento letterario naturalista in cui indaga sulla natura umana. In questo libro più che negli altri indaga la natura umana senza moralismi, mostrando quanto male e quanto bene possano scaturire dalla stessa persona. Mostrando quanto è difficile dividere le persone in buone e cattive. Si astiene dal giudizio, lasciando che sia il lettore a giudicare. Non disegna personaggi malvagi, ma espone i malesseri della società come l'antisemitismo diffuso che si sarebbe incancrenito purtroppo sempre di più.

Fra i tanti personaggi, memorabile è il marxista Sigismond che dedica la sua vita allo studio di una società ideale e perfetta, dove lo spaventoso denaro è superato da un sistema di benessere diffuso.

[Dafne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Diciottesimo volume in ordine di pubblicazione ma quarto nell'ordine di lettura consigliato da Zola, (ordine che ho deciso di seguire per conoscere questa grande e complicata famiglia francese del Secondo Impero) Il denaro fu pubblicato nel 1891 ma è ambientato tra il maggio 1864 e l'aprile del 1869, nel pieno del regno di Napoleone III.
Anche in questo romanzo il protagonista assoluto è Aristide Saccard, che alla fine del libro precedente, “La preda”, aveva perso quasi tutto a causa di una speculazione edilizia che ha causato un crollo del mercato. In seguito a questa speculazione è stato costretto a vendere tutto, compreso il suo lussuoso palazzo. Ora si trova nella stessa situazione di 12 anni prima, quando appena arrivato a Parigi si trovava in mezzo alla strada, affamato e senza un soldo; oggi come allora era insoddisfatto della sua situazione ma era posseduto da una febbre, una brama di possesso di piaceri e di conquiste di denaro. Quando prende in affitto un piccolo appartamento in un grande palazzo conosce i due fratelli, Caroline e Georges Hamelin, con cui stringe amicizia e che gli raccontano i progetti che hanno in mente. Saccard colpito da queste idee riesce a farle sue e decide di fondare una banca che finanzierà i numerosi progetti dei fratelli Hamelin. La banca si chiamerà Banca Universale, e nel grande progetto che Saccard ha in mente diverrà una banca cattolica capace di contrastare e abbattere lo strapotere della finanza ebraica e, grazie a nuove rotte commerciali con l'Oriente favorite dall'apertura del canale di Suez, conquistare la Terra Santa per insediarvi il papato.

Il denaro è ispirato ad un fatto realmente accaduto di euforia e panico nel 1882, quando l'Union générale, una banca d'ispirazione cattolica, fallì provocando uno dei più grandi scandali finanziari del Secondo Impero; di questo fallimento furono accusati, ingiustamente e senza alcun fondamento, dei banchieri ebrei fomentando così l'odio antisemita che a fine secolo imperversava già in tutta Europa e si aggraverà alcuni decenni più tardi.
Il denaro, fra i meno noti di Zola, è un libro che ancora una volta ci dimostra l'immensa bravura dell'autore francese, che è capace di coinvolgere il lettore in ogni suo romanzo anche se l'argomento di fondo, come in questo caso, può sembrare ostico e molto tecnico. Meno male che ho qualche infarinatura di economia e molto cose non mi sono sembrate difficili da capire perché anche stavolta, come sua abitudine e stile, l'autore francese si è documentato dettagliatamente sull'argomento. Zola è riuscito a delineare profeticamente un affresco dell'attuale economia globalizzata; illustra benissimo fin nei minimi particolari i meccanismi del mondo finanziario, della Borsa, delle banche, della speculazione, mostrando così gli effetti nefasti del denaro o la sua mancanza, come l'autore si prefiggeva.
Il romanzo all'apparenza può sembrare molto tecnico, a causa dell'ambiente dove è concentrata l'azione, ma riesce a trattare anche tematiche sociali, storiche, politiche e filosofiche, divenendo un affresco sulla Francia dell'epoca molto più ampio di quel che può sembrare all'inizio.
Fa da sfondo alla vicenda una Parigi corrotta, avida e fastosa nel periodo dell'Esposizione Universale del 1867, preda di affaristi senza scrupoli, che Zola ci mostra con il suo stile impareggiabile. Gli anni sessanta dell'ottocento sono anni di grandi cambiamenti nel mondo ma soprattutto in Europa, cambiamenti di cui Zola accenna nel libro: la questione romana in seguito all'unificazione dell'Italia, l'unificazione della Germania, la pubblicazione de “Il capitale” di Karl Marx, la spedizione in Messico.
Il romanzo è lungo, pieno di avvenimenti, di ragionamenti e di personaggi, il tutto descritto in maniera maniacale dall'autore francese. I personaggi sono una miriade tutti importanti per la struttura del romanzo. Zola riesce a tratteggiarli tutti in maniera straordinaria rendendoli umani nei loro difetti e nelle loro contraddizioni, descrivendone le speranze e i progetti di vita, dimostrando ancora una volta la sua profonda conoscenza dell'animo umano. Nessuno è totalmente buono o totalmente cattivo, tutti hanno però una caratteristica in comune: il denaro.
Protagonista assoluto ancora una volta è Aristide Saccard, uno dei personaggi più abietti creati da Zola e già protagonista del romanzo precedente. Saccard è un uomo corroso dalla sua bramosia per il denaro ed è incapace di soddisfarla; inaridito e indurito dai suoi affari speculativi è uno spregiudicato truffatore che scialacqua grandi quantità di denaro in progetti folli e distruttivi. È emotivo, passionale, arrogante e incapace di arrendersi anche di fronte all'evidenza; un vero deus ex machina della vicenda con i suoi modi spietati e i suoi pregiudizi; un visionario guidato da un delirio di onnipotenza, la cui unica ambizione nella vita è “far sgorgare il denaro da ogni dove e vederlo scorrere a fiumi”, fregandosene di tutto e tutti. Sempre pronto a rialzarsi dopo ogni caduta si butta a capofitto in questo nuovo progetto mettendoci tutto se stesso e riesce a coinvolgere in questo progetto ogni tipo di persona, sia figure che gravitano attorno al mondo della finanza e della Borsa, quali procacciatori, agenti di cambio, giocatori in Borsa, mediatori, giornalisti venduti, politici corrotti, donne disposte a vendere il loro corpo pur di fare un buon affare; oppure piccoli risparmiatori, persone povere, buone e pure di spirito ma anche sognatori che si lasciano accecare e abbindolare dal facile guadagno che possa trasformare e migliorare finalmente la loro vita, spingendoli in questo modo ad investire tutto quello che hanno – denaro, case, gioielli, terreni – pur di riuscire ad acquistare le azioni della Banca Universale.
Il sistema ideato da Saccard riuscirà a portarlo ai vertici della finanza e ad avere il mondo ai suoi piedi ma alla fine gli si ritorcerà contro e nella sua caduta travolgerà e trascinerà tutti coloro, dal più ricco al più povero, che si sono fidati di lui e del suo progetto con conseguenze nefaste per alcuni.

Il denaro è un romanzo attualissimo, appassionante, spesso crudo e realistico, con una prosa viva, dal ritmo scorrevole e incalzante; anche se alcune parti le ho trovate un po' noiose e lente il romanzo è scritto con la solita incantevole e peculiare scrittura di Zola (autore che amo sempre di più) che mostra al lettore gli effetti devastanti che può avere la speculazione finanziaria sulla vita delle persone; essa è, infatti, in grado di trasformare persone morigerate e prudenti in giocatori irrefrenabili, portandoli alla rovina morale e materiale, paragonando quindi i suoi effetti agli stessi risultati del mero gioco d'azzardo.

‹‹C'è nella passione del gioco, un fenomeno disgregatore che ho osservato spesso, capace di minare e corrompere tutto, che trasforma la creatura della stirpe meglio educata e fiera in un relitto umano, in un rifiuto che si spazza giù in strada...››

[Catherine]

#4

[Elizabeth (Alaska) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another Zola winner! As I was reading, I thought, "Zola's characters live with such passion." And then, late in the novel, much to my surprise, was this: . . . if my passion kills me, it is also my passion that gives me life.

Not surprisingly, given the title, this novel is about money. A character in Dickens' Dombey and Son asks "what can money do?" This is one answer. It's almost as if money itself is a character, but only almost. It is it's necessity, it's acquisition, it's representation of power that is the driving force. There are more lines I could quote, but these are enough to let you see the passion (!) and the thrust of the novel:

Ah! Money, she would have liked to bring it to him by the bucketful, and he would be very stupid to be over particular about it, since she loved him and owed him everything. It was her fairy story, her “Cinderella,” the treasures of her royal family, which with her little hands she deposited at the feet of her ruined prince, to keep him on in his march to glory and the conquest of the world.

. . . he doesn’t love money like a miser, for the sake of having a huge pile of it and hiding it in his cellar. No; if he wished to make it gush forth on every side, if he draws it from no matter what sources, it is to see it flow around him in torrents; it is for the sake of all the enjoyments he derives from it – luxury, pleasure, power.

Ah! Money, that all-corrupting poisonous money, which withered souls and drove from them all kindness, tenderness, and love for others! Money alone was the great culprit, the agent of all human cruelties and abominations.

I love Zola's characterizations, but it's pretty hard to love most of the characters themselves, and especially in this one. A fair warning: this is 19th Century Catholic France, and some of the characters openly display strong anti-semitism. Zola simply writes of the people and society of the Second Empire.

This is the sequel to La Curée/The Kill. Although the novels are really stand alone, you should really read that one before this one.

[Jim · Rating 2 out of 5]

24-8-2019

I'm 60% through this novel and I'm thinking about bailing... Zola wanted to explore all the "types" of Napoleon III's era, but greedy speculators of the French Bourse does not, an interesting read make. This is especially boring in light of the trump effort to fuck up every element of the global economy for no apparent reason... sad.

********************

31-8-2019

Alors, I'm finished with another Saccard novel (aka Aristide Rougon), and beyond greed and poor judgement, I can't say I know much about him. Zola claimed to be following a socio-biological approach to literature that he called "Naturalism", 'though I think pseudo-scientific might be more accurate. He presents his characters within fairly narrow behavioral ranges to illustrate whatever theme he's chosen for a particular novel in this Rougon Macquart series.

There are plenty of sorta-details about stock market speculation and shady bank deals, and the swamp creatures that prey on the weak and each other. A more than ample amount of anti-Semitic slurs are aimed against the Jewish bankers, especially "Gundermann" who is a caricature of Baron James Mayer de Rothschild - this part is hard to read in our 21st-century "woke" culture, but c'est comme ça...

I'm hesitant to continue on with this series after reading this one... Zola is good, but necessarily every time out... maybe one or two more...

[Nasrin · Rating 5 out of 5]

این رمان قدرتمند که شرارت ها و پلیدی هایی را برملا می سازد. که پرستش بت پول در جهان مدرن می تواند در پی داشته باشد ،به طرزی درخشان زندگی پر جلال و جبروت پاریس را در اواخر سده ی نوزدهم وصف می کند و شخصیت هایی را به صحنه می آورد که در رنگارنگی و غنا کم نظیرند.
پ.ن (شاید مسئولان ما این کتاب رو خوندن و گفتن همه می تونن وارد بازار سود وسهام و بورس بشن،رویای بانک انیور سال.🤭)