La Terre

Les Rougon-Macquart #15

by Émile Zola

Librarian's note: An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

Ancien soldat, Jean Macquart se fait embaucher comme ouvrier agricole dans un village de la Beauce. Là, il s’éprend de la nièce du père Fouan, Françoise, qu’il souhaite épouser. Mais autour de lui rôde la convoitise, et la vie de paysan est rude. Les enfants du vieil homme se déchirent autour de l’héritage de leur père. Chez ces travailleurs, une seule obsession : la terre. Cette terre féconde et pourtant cruelle, mère nourricière indifférente aux malheurs de ses enfants. Pour la posséder, ils sont prêts à tout. Avilis par le meurtre et l’inceste, ils sombrent peu à peu dans la pire des noirceurs.
Quinzième roman du cycle des Rougon-Macquart, La Terre (1887) en est le plus violent. A sa parution, il déchaîne les critiques : on s’insurge contre cette « obscénité gratuite », cette « suite de visions monstrueuses ». On reproche à Zola de se complaire dans « l’ordure », en noircissant le portrait des tares paysannes. Zola, lui, ne renie rien de ce féroce tableau du monde paysan, et de l’âme humaine.

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

752 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1887

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]

Another uppercut in the total groin: Zola is in great shape. I believe a true masterpiece: The Earth, at least the one that speaks to me the most among Rougon-Macquart!
As always, old Émile is well documented, and one almost feels the land of Beauce under our nose. Here is an excellent tonic and documentary novel, as was the author's intention in writing the cycle of Rougon-Macquart. This tome is one of the four or five best in the sequence, if not a little better, which is saying a lot. Here, Jean Macquart (Gervaise's brother in the Assommoir), hired by the big operator of the area and mayor of the village, Hourdequin, is desperately trying to introduce new farming techniques and faces his refractory workforce.
The Fouan family is the other big pole of the book. It is reminiscent of the original Rougon-Macquart family (see La Fortune des Rougon ) with its flaws and vices. First is the heritage of old Fouan, where we do not know who is the most stingy and the readiest to bleed his family, between the father and the children. His young son, Buteau, is a paragon of avarice, greed, brutality, and harshness (well, it's true; do not look too nuanced here at Zola).
Despite Zola's resolutely polemic turn to his rural fresco, I found all the flaws and the mentality of the peasant world I encountered in my travels on literature in the early twentieth century. Of course, no baseness of this world will be spared, but is it not a vision, undoubtedly disillusioned? Indeed, a slight caricature, magnified or condensed, but primarily suitable, relevant, of the human in the broad sense?
Emile Zola shows us our species stripped of its frail shell of "good manners," this varnish of civilization; it shows us rough, rough, gruff, but without fuss, a little as if you had direct access to what think those who made us smile on the surface. So I leave you to read and dig up rotten bulbs, for which we are a bit prepared.
I award a Special Mention for the character of "the great," old Fouan's sister, a real old wicked woman who enjoys sowing discord. (The role of "the old woman harmful" is a classic Zola and is repeated in many of his novels; would he have accounts to settle on that side?) and discord within his family while being as loving as an extensive drystone.
I give another Special Mention to the "Jesus Christ" character, the eldest son of the old Fouan, a chronic alcoholic who is determined never to work, an exceptional pyromaniac who offers the author the opportunity to sign a hilarious chapter (part four, chapter 3).

[E. G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Introduction
Translators' Note
Select Bibliography
A Chronology of Émile Zola

--Earth

Explanatory Notes

[Chrissie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I simply cannot say I like this. Therefore, I cannot give it three stars.

Am I glad to have read the book? Yes. Zola points a finger at social injustice. He is a staunch defender of the downtrodden. He knows his history and interweave it into his stories. He believed in the betterment of the human condition through individual and collective action, but he depicts human behavior through naturalism. This, in my view, goes too far. Characters behave d-e-p-l-o-r-a-b-l-y! Debauchery is the norm here! Fornication, physical abuse, dishonesty, unscrupulous behavior and even murder become daily fare. An entire chapter, and it is long, is devoted to flatulence! By the books end I was worn out! People are not this bad! The book does present decent characters, but little emphasis is placed on them.

Zola does speak of the endurance and value of land, of soil, of mother earth. This is the book’s saving grace, for me at least.

Leighton Pugh narrates the audiobook very well. He does not overdramatize, and yet you easily hear which character is speaking. This is helpful because there are a huge number of characters in Zola’s stories. Zola is a wizard at helping the reader keep track of who is who! Another plus for Zola!

Zola is a classical author that must be read! Nevertheless, his books are not easy to get through.

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*Thérèse Raquin 4 stars

Les Rougon-Macquart Books:
*(#13)Germinal 4 stars
*(#14)The Masterpiece (L’Oeuvre) 4 stars
*(#12)The Bright Side of Life (La Joie de vivre) 3 stars
*(#17)The Beast in Man (La Bête Humaine) 3 stars
*(#7)The Drinking Den (L'Assommoir) 3 stars
*(#15)The Earth (La Terre) 2 stars
*(#9)Nana 1 star
*(#2)The Kill (La Curée) 1 star

*(#11)The Ladies' Paradise (Au Bonheur des Dames) TBR
*(#18)Money (L’Argent) TBR
*(#3)The Belly of Paris (Le Ventre de Paris) TBR
*(#1)The Fortune of the Rougons (La Fortune des Rougon) TBR

[Nataša Bjelogrlić · Rating 5 out of 5]

Iako me od Zole ne iznenadjuje ništa ipak me našao nespremnu na više mjesta. Tako da pripremite se za jedan od najeksplicitnijih prikaza njegovog naturalizma. Odličan roman.

[Zahra · Rating 4 out of 5]

زمین، پانزدهمین کتاب از مجموعه بیست جلدی روگن ماکاره و داستان انحطاط و نابودی یک خانواده روستایی در سال های منتهی به جنگ‌ فرانسه و پروس و فروپاشی امپراطوری دوم رو روایت می‌کنه. زولا تو این کتاب زندگی سخت و بی رحم و مشقت بار روستایی رو به صادقانه ترین شکل ممکن به تصویر می‌کشه، قانون مدنی فرانسه رو به باد انتقاد میگیره و با الهام گرفتن از نمایشنامه شاه لیر، زوال توانایی جسمی و ذهنی انسان در دوران پیری رو نشون میده.
زمین از طریق شخصیت ژان ماکار با باقی کتاب های مجموعه ارتباط پیدا می‌کنه و کتاب شکست دنباله مستقیم همین کتابه.
توصیفاتی که زولا از زندگی رعایای فرانسوی می‌کنه برای دوران خودش شدیداً زشت و شرم‌آور بودن و در اون زمان بازخوردهای خیلی منفی‌ای میگیره با این حال زمین یکی از مهمترین آثار در مکتب ناتورالیسمه و همینطور یکی از بهترین کتاب های زولا هم محسوب میشه.
And only the earth is immortal, the Great Mother from whom we spring and to whom we return, love of whom can drive us to crime and through whom life is perpetually preserved for her own inscrutable ends, in which even our wretched degraded nature has its part to play.

[Peter-john · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Zola. Despite his reputation as a deterministic naturalist, I find his books filled with a great zest for life in all its wonderful grubbiness. He's like Hardy with all the good parts put back in. His peasants fight, fuck and fart with great abandon (nearly an entire chapter is given over to one character's flatulence in its many permutations), and if many of them come to bad ends, or endure great hardships, well, who among us comes to a good end?

It's all part of the human comedy for him, and in this novel (which was Zola's personal favorite), the people are both rich in their connections, but also mere specks on the landscape. The earth, the dirt, endures, and we are all just ants on the hill. No gods having their sport with Tess here; the earth has no more agency or malice than the tornado or the clouds.

But it's Zola's gift that he can both take that wide-angle view and also spend as much time showing the intricate and interdependent relationships in the small town ecosystem, and create memorable and finely drawn characters. Just because in the geologic time frame all is vanity, it doesn't mean that the pain the people feel is no less keen, or any less important to them. It's a great feat of negative capability, and a great book.

[Armin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zola soll Mutter Erde für sein bestes Buch gehalten haben, ich hätte es beinahe verpasst. So lächerlich war Marc Bernards Darstellung der Recherchen wie der Autor mit Notizbuch und Zwicker auf der Nase über die Felder ging und den Bauern mit seiner Penetranz auf die Nerven. Für den Biographen, der Germinal als den Gipfelpunkt sieht, ist Mutter Erde ein Zeichen des sich abzeichnenden künstlerischen Niedergangs. Für mich setzt dieser, wenn man so will, mit Das Geld ein, jenem Roman, in dem Zola allerlei frühe Versäumnisse aus Die Beute wieder gut machen will, aber in einen schlechten Recycling-Kreislauf seiner Themen gerät. Auch wenn ihm natürlich ein Lehrstück in Sachen Finanzindustrie in der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts gelingt.
In Sachen Totalität des Kaiserreiches und seiner Profiteure bieten Politromane wie Die Beute, Seine Exzellenz Eugene Rougon, die am Beginn des Zyklus stehen, sicherlich mehr Analyse der Machtmechanismen im Politbetrieb der Hauptstadt. Allerdings fällt die Durchführung der Romanhandlung dagegen stark gegenüber den Einblicken hinter die politischen Kulissen des Kaiserreichs ab.
Als Dokument der Industrialisierung und der miserablen Arbeitsbedingungen bleibt Germinal sicherlich der Gipfel des Zyklus, zumal das Grubenunglück das grandiose Finale schlechthin darstellt.
Die Defizite des Hauptwerks vor dem Showdown werden erst so richtig deutlich, wenn man Mutter Erde gelesen hat. Denn gerade in Sachen Charakterzeichnung und Strukturierung der Handlung ist der spätere Roman das gelungenste Buch, denn Mutter Erde besteht nicht aus ein paar beeindruckenden Einzelmomenten, sondern ist komplett durchkomponiert. Den Ruf des Pornographen verdankt Zola in erster Linie diesem Roman, im Vergleich ohne jedes Feigenblatt geschilderten sexuellen Mit- und Gegeneinander unter irgendwie miteinander Verwandten auf dem Lande, ist Nana tatsächlich ein ziemlich keusches Buch. Auch wenn die Titelheldin eine Kokotte ist, die allerlei Mitglieder der guten Gesellschaft dazu verführt, sich von ihrer schlechtesten Seite zu zeigen.
Meiner Ansicht nach, ist Mutter Erde das ländliche Gegenstück zu Germinal, als Roman sogar besser komponiert, aber halt frei von der Sozialen Frage im gewerkschaftlich-politischen Sinne. Daher hat es sich der Verwertung im Arbeitskampf entzogen, zumal es keine guten Armen gibt. Vielmehr geht es um Habgier und Mord auf der untersten Ebene, jedes Opfer ist in einem anderen Zusammenhang Täter, sobald die eigenen finanziellen Interessen ins Spiel kommen. Hauptheld Hans ist nicht mehr als ein guter Mensch, auf entscheidenden Ebenen bleibt der Vorarbeiter, der ein Stück Land geheiratet hat, aber ein Außenseiter ohne Rechte.
Inhaltlich will ich weiter nichts spoilern, andere Rezensenten haben die mehr oder weniger ekligen Aspekte dieser König-Lear-Tragödie auf dem Lande ja schon ausführlich gewürdigt. Aber eine klare Leseempfehlung an alle, die Germinal nicht nur wegen des Grubenunglücks gemocht haben, in Sachen persönliche Beziehungen und dem Einfluss der Lebenswelt darauf, ist Mutter Erde die reifere Leistung. Bin Zola dankbar, dass Macquart-Hauptheld Hans auch eine Rolle im Untergang des Kaiserreiches und der Wirren der Commune spielt. Sonst hätte mich Bernards Darstellung von der Lektüre abgehalten.

Meine Zola-Bilanz (In der vom Autor empfohlenen Reihenfolge):

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
Die Lebensfreude
Der Totschläger
Das Werk
Die Bestie
Germinal
Nana
Mutter Erde
Der Untergang
Doktor Pascal

gelesen
mehrfach gelesen
aktuelle Lektüre

[P.E. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Appétits ataviques

'Depuis le déjeuner, le nombre de semeurs semblait y avoir grandi. Maintenant, chaque parcelle de la petite culture avait le sien, ils se multipliaient, pullulaient comme de noires fourmis laborieuses [...]; et l’on distinguait pourtant, même chez les plus lointains, le geste obstiné, toujours le même, cet entêtement d’insectes en lutte avec l’immensité du sol, victorieux à la fin de l’étendue et de la vie.'

La Terre narre l'histoire de Jean Macquart, revenu de son service militaire et cherchant à s'installer dans un village de la Beauce, Rognes (inspiré de Romilly-sur-Aigre). Alors qu'il y prend ses marques, le vieux paysan Louis Fouan procède au partage de ses terres entre ses enfants, de son vivant. C'est là que je place le véritable début de l'intrigue : assez vite, le héros se trouve confronté aux personnalités butées - quand elles ne sont pas ouvertement féroces - des paysans Beaucerons, dont la vie, pour l'essentiel, est entièrement articulée autour du gain foncier, de l'accaparement de terres auxquelles ils se donnent corps et âme. Les héritiers Fouan vont chacun à leur façon chercher, ou bien à esquiver les redevances sur les terres héritées, ou bien chercher à en accaparer d'autres, voire les deux ensemble. C'est le début d'une sorte de King Lear mesquin, enfoncé dans les rancunes immémoriales, sur lequel plane le personnage de la sœur de Louis Fouan : la Grande, quatre-vingt hivers passés, entièrement consommée par la passion de la possession, dont elle porte les termes logiques plus loin que personne. Chaque personnage à sa manière vivra et mourra par la terre, à défaut pour l'héritage familial, et pour certains mourront de mort violente.


Ce roman du cycle des Rougon-Macquart me paraît réussi et imparfait pour différentes raisons :

Quelques éléments me paraissent tout à fait réussis :

-> Le tableau d'éternel recommencement des destins humains parmi l'immense nature indifférente : les hommes et les femmes esclaves de la nature dans leurs attachements mêmes, insectes sur la terre.

-> L'exploration de toutes les promiscuités et appétits : Buteau enragé de cupidité, possédé par la pensée de la propriété ; Jésus-Christ dilapidant tout son bien dans la boisson et vivant de braconnage ; la guerre mesquine de Lengaigne et de Macqueron, les épiciers du bourg ; Hilarion un peu plus consommé tous les jours par la passion incestueuse pour sa sœur Palmyre, tous deux petit-fils de la Grande qu'elle renie absolument. Le dévoilement de rancœurs éternelles, par-delà la tombe. Ce vrai catalogue des travers humains donne lieu à de petits morceaux d'anthologie : Jésus-Christ le vétéran devenu braconnier, soûlard, et venteux comme pas deux, la Mère Caca et son engrais maison, N'en-a-pas et les légendes qui courent sur sa puberté tardive...

-> L'introduction de diverses méthodes de culture, qui anticipent la mécanisation de l'agriculture et l'emploi toujours plus poussé des nouveaux intrants.

-> Enfin, la déchéance toujours plus profonde du père Fouan qui erre parmi ses enfants, sans terre et sans maison. Avec une réserve que j'aborde bientôt...


A présent, ce qui m'a paru nettement moins probant dans La Terre :
-> La lutte de Françoise contre Buteau qui cherche à la prendre sans qu'elle pousse le moindre cri par fierté, invraisemblable à force d'être prolongée... de même que son refus, toujours par fierté, et non par manque d'envie comme la suite du roman le montre... Sa psychologie bancale plus généralement.

-> Le Père Fouan qui se laisse manger bien vite pour un père autoritaire par le passé. Il me semble qu'il fait des concessions beaucoup trop tôt à ses enfants (à la seule fin de donner du ressort à l'intrigue), en particulier envers Buteau, qui ne fait pas mystère de son refus de payer, et de sa convoitise pour les derniers biens de son père.

-> Cette fois, j'ai trouvé l'optique de Zola un brin affectée dans la noirceur à outrance. Le féroce appétit de terre qui oriente l'existence entière des personnages, tels des boules sur un billard. Bref, à mon avis, c'est à défaut d'un roman majeur, un tableau saisissant de la fresque des Rougon-Macquart, avec ses tragédies rendues plus terribles encore par leur cadre quotidien, l'efficacité narrative de ses conflits familiaux et sa peinture de convoitises sans limites, aussi bien pour les biens fonciers que pour les personnes.

Buddy read with Rémy Macca


Also see:

Contes de la Bécasse, notamment La Maison Tellier
La Mare au diable
Madame Bovary
King Lear
Tango de Satan
Jude the Obscure
Le Brave Soldat Chvéïk
L'Arrache-Cœur
Histoires désobligeantes
Les origines de la France contemporaine, Tome 1

[پیمان عَلُو · Rating 4 out of 5]

همینقدر بگم:
پدر جهنمیه سلین،نقاش زندگی کارگران و دهقانان و طبقات محروم عصر خودش بود.
زولا از مردمی حرف میزد که به راستی کثیف بودن و تو کثافت خودشون دست و پا میزدن.

[Amirreza Esfehani · Rating 5 out of 5]

برشی از کتاب :
تنها زمین است که جاودانی است. مادر است. مردم او را تا سر حد جنایت دوست میدارند.
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کتاب زمین یکی از اولین کتابایی بود که همیشه دوست داشتم بخونمش ولی وقت نمیشد. اولین تجربه ی خوندن ادبیات کارگری و سبک ناتورالیسم با پایان تلخ کتاب زمین همراه بود.
عنوان زمین اثر امیل زولا یکی از ۵ شاهکار از ۲۰ کتاب دوره ادبیات امیل زولا به اسم روگن ماکار هست که واقعا توصیه به خوندنش میشه گرچه به نظر من همه ی این ۲۰ عنوان زیبان فقط بدشانسی اینه که همشون ترجمه نشدن.
داستان کتاب درباره ژان ماکار یکی از اعضای خانواده روگن هست که ترجیح داده روزهای بعد از خدمت و جنگ خودش رو درون یک روستا سپری کنه.
در این کتاب شخصیت اصلی خیلی به چشم نمیاد و اصل داستان درباره خانواده فوان میچرچه و در اخر خیلی تلخ به پایان میرسه.
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به نظر من این کتاب یه تجربه جدیدی میتونه براتون باشه چون با ممنوع شدن بعضی از اثار مهم مثل این و کم علاقه شدن دوستان کتابخوان به ژانر ادبیات کارگری این ادبیات ها زیاد خونده نشدن.
این کتاب یکم زمینه ی اروتیک داره و چاپ ممنوع هست و کلا یک بار چاپ شده.
ترجمه دکتر غیاثی بسیارعالی و روان هست با این که کلا ترجمه ی دیگه ای هم در دسترس نیست
همیشه بخوانین تا سبز بمانید.

[lyell bark · Rating 5 out of 5]

cool book if you want to learn the secret to being a french peasant like don't touch yourself "down there" if you're a girl because it makes your hair fall off and boys don't like a smooth pelvis. and the way to cure flatulence is to leave a glass of water out over night so it absorbs moon power, which will get rid of your flatulence. haha, oh yeah, you also struggle against social and economic forces you have no control over and you die alone and hated, alienated from your family and the earth you tilled for 50 years.thanks zola.

[Dagio_maya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un uomo che semina.
Con questa scena si apre il 15° romanzo del ciclo dei Rougon.Maquart.

Il nome di quest'uomo è Jean.
Dovrebbe essere almeno uno dei personaggi principali data la sua appartenenza all’albero genealogico che Zola ha creato per sostenere le sue tesi sul realismo positivista.
In realtà, presenze ingombranti gli ruberanno la scena e Jean Maquart, ex falegname ed ex soldato approdato nel villaggio di Beauce, rimarrà sempre un estraneo anche agli occhi di chi legge.

Le sue mani si muovono sulla scena inziale spargendo a manciate semi che la terra avida richiede assieme alla grande fatica fisica per dare i suoi frutti che non sono mai regalati ma venduti a caro prezzo.
La terra, la bramosia del possesso animano questi personaggi che Zola carica di una forza passionale diretta soprattutto verso se stessi.

La storia vede principalmente lo sgretolarsi di una famiglia che fa della brutalità la sua arma per colpire chiunque ne intralci il cammino.

Uomini e donne senza distinzione sono tormentati da istinti che li rendono più simili ad animali che ad altri esseri umani.
Zola rimarca questa bestialità umana in una scena memorabile dove una vacca ed una contadina partoriscono contemporaneamente (!).

La felicità non è certo tra queste pagine.
Zola ha la capacità di diventare indigesto ed illeggibile quando la spinta fedele verso il crudo realismo diventa una fotografia così nauseante.

Ma io lo amo per questo e ribadisco che per me la Letteratura deve essere disturbante.
Questo mondo di vittime e carnefici travalica il filo teso della famiglia Rougon- Maquart.

E’ un’umanità che va oltre anche alle frontiere e ai limiti temporali.
E' il male che c’è nell’essere umano.
Esiste anche se non vogliamo vederlo.

La penna di Zola fa questo: ti toglie le mani dagli occhi e ti costringe a guardare.


"Quello che non diceva ma saltava fuori dalla commozione repressa che lo agitava era l'immensa tristezza, il rancore sordo, lo strazio di tutto il suo essere al separarsi di quei possedimenti così intensamente desiderati prima che suo padre morisse, poi coltivati con un accanimento brutale (...). Aveva amato la terra come una donna che spinge al delitto.
Non sposa, non figli nessun essere umano, nulla: la terra!"

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jean Macquart thought a move to the country would be a good idea. He was wrong. Zola at his most brilliant, especially the final 100 pages.

[Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zola part en live... et c'est folklorique ! J'étais habituée à sa plume lyrique et digne, qui donne de la hauteur au moindre tableau prosaïque dépeignant les petits gens. Dans La Terre, Emile se salit les mains et décide de se payer une tranche de gaudriole, déclinant de longs paragraphes sur les prouts (oui oui), les culbutes dans les bottes de foin, les curés désespérant de ramener leurs ouailles dans le droit chemin et les scènes d'ivrognerie paysanne. On oscille avec enthousiasme entre satire sordide du monde paysan, et roman feuilleton qui flirte avec le pulp.
La Terre évoque la paysannerie et toutes ses mesquineries : j'étais assez étonnée du regard sans complaisance de Zola sur ces petits gens. Ici les habitants de la Beauce sont pleutres, avides, minables, méchants voir sauvages. Le saisons passent, les travaux de champs suivent leur cour, la gradation des infamies aussi.

Peu de souffle épique, les réflexions grandiloquentes sur les choses semblent absentes mais en filigrane transparaît quand même une certaine vision provocatrice du monde paysan (et de la race humaine) : soif de la possession (de la Terre comme de la femme), propos sur la modernisation de l'agriculture, émergence d'une classe paysanne, haine du propriétaire et avarice des petits agriculteurs, mort de la religiosité, cellule familiale "tricotée serrée" infusant dans la rancœur et la convoitise...

C'est très drôle (les scènes d'ivresse de Jésus Christ, la déchéance sans fin du père Fouan, la mauvaiseté impitoyable de la Grande, les pinailleries pour se goinfrer au buffet de mariage, économiser un bout de chandelle en squattant chez le voisin ou espérer récupérer quelques écus ou bouts de terre aride, la saison des vendanges et l'âne bourré, les bourgeois de Chartes et leur hypocrisie de tenanciers de bordel...) et féroce, bienvenue dans un épisode de Strip-Tease à la sauce Zola. Le rire (et la stupeur) sert toujours le propos de l'auteur et sont autant de coups de pinceaux outrancier mais efficaces pour comprendre la mentalité paysanne.


Alors La Terre est peut-être un des romans les plus anecdotiques dans la grande fresque des Rougon-Macquart, mais il est profondément divertissant. Décrire le prosaïsme sans prosaïsme, dire le sordide et le laid de la plus belle des façons, pari réussi.
A part dans quelques descriptions remarquables des saisons qui passent et des travaux paysans, je me suis aussi demandée si Zola n'avait pas fait un pas de côté loin du naturalisme cher à son cœur, tant son propos semble souvent parodique, comme tiré vers des extrêmes qui rendent difformes et enlaidis les habitants de Rognes : les chapitres aux accents rabelaisiens en côtoient d'autres qui frisent avec le roman noir. Et quelques chapitres profondément pathétiques (l'errance misérable du vieux Fouan) relèvent le niveau si on trouve tout ceci trop burlesque.


Est-ce que le monde paysan est si méprisable et vulgaire que ce que nous en montre Zola ? Probablement pas, et on lui en a fait la critique à l'époque. C'est là où le bas peut blesser pour certains lecteurs, car on a plus l'habitude de le voir se poser en défenseur des classes populaires. Pourquoi autant de mauvaise foi Emile ?


En conclusion, si je m'arrête strictement à son écriture et le plaisir que j'ai eu à lire La Terre, alors c'est un très bon roman, au sens le plus premier degré du terme (attiser la curiosité du lecteur pour les personnages et pour les péripéties, et un art d'écrire toujours aussi fabuleux). Vite un autre RM !

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! Written in 1887 this is pretty powerful stuff for its time. Even now it seems quite extreme. Of the Rougoun-Macquart books that I've read so far, I would say that only Ladies in Paradise has a 'happy ending'. Now, I quite like grim books but The Earth is really quite brutal - a truly 'warts and all' description of the French peasantry in the later half of the nineteenth century and can in no way be considered a 'feel good' book. It does however have some light-hearted moments but these don't come along often. This will no doubt put some people off but it shouldn't as it's a compelling read and well worth it.

I don't want to describe the plot in detail, however in essence it is this: Old man Fouan splits his land up amongst his three adult offspring. They argue, fight, scheme and eventually kill over the distribution of this land.

Along the way the book describes feuding families, inheritance squabbles, scheming peasants, wanton women, abusive husbands, rape, rolls in the hayloft, cuckolded husbands, unwanted pregnancies, farting, vomiting, shitting, drunken donkeys, more farting, drunken vomiting donkeys, foul language, scheming local politicians, angry vicars, fainting vicars, incest, simultaneous births, incestuous rape, markets, fairs, brothels, piss-ups, weddings, funerals, wakes, baptisms, prudish brothel-keepers, feuding tavern owners, disgusting tramps, land-greed, land-lust, avarice, industry v agriculture, discussions on manure, revolutionary fever, death, poaching, war, patricide, etc, etc.

Believe me the list could go on. How Zola packs so much into the novel is a mystery to me. Also there must be nearly a hundred characters in the book, in fact the whole village of Rognes seem to make an appearance at some point.

This book well deserves five stars, maybe more.

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

I have a number of rambling thoughts on this. Zola seemingly threw himself into this and left few stones unturned! As the title suggests, all revolves on La Terre, the Earth. The soil will remain beyond the bounds of time; as individuals, we are but temporary husbands of it. These peasants, these husbands of the soil, are a passionate people.

From the beginning we know their passion for the soil runs deep and has lasted for generations. Zola does not restrict their passions to the soil. While never graphic, the reader is never in doubt that a peasant's lust is often satisfied. Lust is occasionally the means to climbing the economic ladder. Zola uses this passion effectively to provide both tension and comic relief. Zola also brings the passion of hatred and jealousy. In the beginning this runs deep, but as the story builds, it rises to the surface.

I'm glad I don't have to like the characters in a novel to like the novel, but if you do, you will probably want to avoid this one. The few sympathetic characters appear infrequently. True evil lurks in this one, and, in addition to the lust, there is violence. This violence is especially cruel, and more graphic than the lust.

In 1888, Zola's translator, Vizatelly, was prosecuted for obscene libel for his translation of Zola's La Terre (The Earth), and was fined £100; and when he reissued Zola's works in 1889 he was again prosecuted, fined £200, and imprisoned for three months. To my mind, this is one of Zola's better novels, but I understand why it might not get as much attention as some of his others.

[Hiba · Rating 5 out of 5]

Une fin heureuse? Bofff, c'est pour les cœurs faibles ça. Ici il n'y a que la misère, et tout va de mal en pis. Mais pourquoi? Parce que la joie fait lasser notre Emile, il s'amuse plutôt à nous acharner avec un récit qui nous laissera bouche béante tellement c'est horrible.

C'est effectivement un récit où la terre est la principale occupation, tout tourne autours de la terre, de ce qu'elle prend et ce qu'elle donne. Elle prend les hommes et ne les redonnent plus, elle les rend foux d'amour pour elle pour les enterrer à la fin au fond d'elle, jalouse de partager ce qui lui appartient.

Ce récit était terrible, extravagent, extrème, mais tout de même fascinant, comme la terre, ça te prend dedans et t'offre le tour de la Beauce, des champs et des maisons qui puent la sueur d'un jour plein de besogne, des maisons qui dégagent une odeur d'un désir très fort que rien ne peut arrêter, que nulle raison ne peut refréner. Ces maisons où des choses horribles ont arrivé, des choses enterrés entre famille parce que les étrangers n'ont rien à foutre là-dedans.

Je ne sais vraiment pas si la vie paysanne était comme l'a décrit Zola, mais je sais pour sûr qu'il a fait un joli travail, comme toujours.
Il nous décrit la Beauce, ses maisons, ses habitants, leurs habitudes et leurs vies au jour le jour aussi minutieusement qu'on a l'air d'être là à travailler dans les champs, à goûter les pluies qui tombent et réjouissent les paysans, à s'allonger au milieu du blé d'une après-midi de moisson si chaude qu'on cherche un abri du soleil qui semble peser sur le dos courbé des travailleurs.

[Janelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Earth is the rural novel in the Rougon-Macquart series, the peasantry take centre stage and in particular one family, the Fouans. Old Fouan decides to split his land between his children(before his death and retire); His eldest son Hyacinthe, known to everyone as Jesus Christ, daughter Fanny and her husband Delhomme and his youngest son Buteau. Then the worst of human nature is on display; greed, jealousy, neglect, lust, violence, and ultimately murder. It’s savage and hard to read in some spots, Part 5 in particular has quite devastating moments. But the language is often quite beautiful in places, there’s hilarious moments (Gideon the drunken donkey or Jesus Christ and his flatulence, and of course Old Mother Poo) and Zola never misses a chance to describe the farming of the land with sexual imagery. The earth is a character, it’s richness, the changes of the crops from season to season, sowing, harvesting and so on. The connection to series is made by Jean Macquart, who no matter how hard he works on the land always remains an outsider. There’s class differences, modern farming techniques appearing and early days of globalisation (fears that cheap American wheat will lower prices) amongst the family issues.

“The Fouans had been born and bred here for centuries, like tough, hardy vegetation.”

“Never, in all his time as a hired labourer, had he ploughed so deeply: this was his land and he wanted to force his way into it and fertilize it deep inside”

“Both of them, the farmer and the manufacturer, the protectionist and the free trader, stared at each other, the one sneering in his sly camaraderie, the other with the frank bluntness of his hostility. This was the modern state of war, the actual economic battle, on the battlefield of the struggle for existence.
“We’ll force the peasant to feed the worker,’ said Monsieur Rochefontaine.
‘Try and see to it,’ Hourdequin reiterated, ‘that the peasant has enough to eat first.’”

“Months went by, winter came and went, then spring, and life in Rognes went on in its usual way, it took years for it to look as if anything had been achieved, in this mournful life of never-ending toil.”

“leaving the rich earth piled up in its wake, still quivering, like some live thing with its very entrails exposed.”

“Soon he became almost drunk with the strong smell of the earth he was stirring up, of the damp, dark places where the seeds germinate.”

“The stench of the manure Jean was turning over had cheered him up somewhat. He loved its promise of fertility, and was sniffing it with relish, like a man smelling a randy woman.”

“But Jean too had become infected by the peasants’ lust for the land”

“In every direction, all over the rich clods of soil, men could be seen moving along with a steady sweep of their arms as they sowed. Jean could clearly see the golden seed, like a living cloud slipping from the hands of the nearest sowers. Then, as they became smaller and were lost in the infinite expanse, the seed swirled around them until, in the far distance, it seemed like the shimmering of the light itself. For miles around, at every point of the boundless plain, the life of the coming summer was raining down in the sunshine.”

[Eve Kay · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Everything was yellow, but a yellow that was fearfully sad, with baked earth, shorn-off wheat stalks, cart tracks rutted and worn bare by the wheels. At the slightest gust of wind, vast clouds of dust flew up, covering the banks and hedges with powder. And the blue sky and blazing sun were but one more element of sadness gazing down on this scene of desolation."

A few words about Zola's writing in The Earth:
Zola's my favourite author of all time but even he, great as he was, doesn't always deliver his top most.
The Earth as a novel, in essence, is repetitive. We get many repetitions of the family violences that occur (several horrendous scenes with multiple persons attacking one), we get repetitions of differing sexual harrasment incidents (always the same), the same political discussion keeps going (whenever we're set a scene down at the pub, which I figure, sure, that's the discussion that went on back then, but having to read about it again and again) and the same family grudges throughout the novel (these were pretty good coz the characters were strong of mind and body in this novel).

Sure, it's his way of showing us the way of life back then and specially this in rural, very small, farming town. But as a novel it gets repetitive and I kept thinking I'd read this already, isn't there anything else you wanna tell me?
To me, this wasn't his best work although it still stands among the greatest literature ever. I'd still recommend it to many. I think in comparison to rest of the series it's not the best.
What I liked though were many of the characters and all that description of "the earth". The "hero of the story" is a weak man whom I ended up hating but there's several worse than him so it only made for good reading instead of frustration.
The ending is sombre in a way, but makes me look forward to the next installment and I think Zola did a great job prefacing The Debacle in the end. I really feel that this is a great way to end this book and start the next one!

[Елвира · Rating 5 out of 5]

Каквото и да се каже за способностите, езика и сюжетите на Зола, ще бъде нищожно в сравнение с действителността.

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Families are the worst. That's the nicest way I can sum up this novel. Nothing — murder, alcoholic despair, clerical abuse, political intrigue, rape, you name it — can measure up to the cruelty, hate and obligation the way families can. In this case, Jean Macquart, one of the very few sympathetic characters Zola created, a humble, simple, honest man, a veteran of distant wars, one with small but authentic dreams. Jean becomes involved with a family torn apart by the undefined jealousy inheritance sometimes breeds. The argument against primogeniture is unfairness, leading to the old joke about the smartest son getting the inheritance and the dumbest becoming a priest. But the anticipated splitting of the estate that old man Fouan wants to give his children sets off a chain of events that change from love to hate, from charity to envy, and from sharing to hoarding.

Jean thinks he finds love and marries into Fouan's family, a young girl whose brother in law one day hopes to rejoin the land split in the will of his father. But the bonds of family, even when marked by hate, are stronger than love or what passes for it. And as the children hope for the death of Fouan to bring resolution to their inheritance, Fouan eventually gives into their charity; a family patriarch who descended to become the inconvenient family problem who lives too long. Meanwhile the sister of Fouan, who married well and consolidated her property, lives only to sow more family intrigue. The anticipated outcome for the reader never arrives. Instead, we see there is nothing crueler, more murderous, and patently hypocritical than the individual who cynically hides behind the cloak of illegitimate legitimacy. Zola's descriptions of the horrors of what some do to others may well be the most horrific I've ever encountered in fiction.

And the tragic hero who never seems to lose his blunt, unadorned luster, Jean, bears the worst of it all as he tries to cope with the violence, hypocrisy, and betrayal that somehow stays in the family.

[Jcb · Rating 5 out of 5]

A masterpiece. Brief, straight-forward, detailed and devastating. Zola starts the reader off with a nice pastoral setting; then gives us a little sex; then a little sexual assault...and things keep going downhill from there.

Buteau and Lise must go down as two of the most evil characters ever created. They could make a good man prefer to go off and join the army. And, the stingy but smart La Grande stands with her stick and watches it all unfold...with disdain.

**HIGHLY RECOMMENDED**

[Marilyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, that is all I can say. Zola is an amazing author. I know this was a work of fiction, I wonder if the French peasants all lived their life without love of mankind or was it just this fictional family that had me reading non-stop despite their strange lifestyles, so different from the poor folk in England in that era of the late 1800's. I will read more Zola for sure, but not next.

[Nihan D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fransız İhtilalinden sonra toprak sahibi olan burjuvaların ve onların gölgesinde yaşayan köylülerin hikayesi. Beni kitapta en çok etkileyen şey toprak meseleleri değil Palmyre denen kadın ve sakat kardeşinin öyküsü oldu. Korkunç ve bir o kadar da insana özgü. Kâbus gibi bir hayat beni çok sarstı

[Negar Mahjoub · Rating 5 out of 5]

یعنی هربار بیشتر شگفت زده میشم از قلم زولا

[Moka Aumilieudeslivres · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Il est possible qu'il faille du sang et des larmes pour que le monde marche."

GRANDIOSE.
King Émile

[klay · Rating 5 out of 5]

MAIS ?????

[J.M. Hushour · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of the weaker volumes in Les Rougon-Macquart and, oddly, Zola's personal favorite. I'd place it somewhere in the middle tier of these novels, for while the narrative can become pretty tedious and the story bone-thin, it's the striking nature of the characters and their often grim and psychotic machinations that keep the novel worth reading. Forget any assocation with the other novels, they're tenuous at best. Zola had soured on the ideas of inheritance of psychological traits by this point and the Macquart here, Jean, brother of Gervaise, is one of the shallower characters. The real story is of the collapse of the Fouan family's land holdings as the elder Fouan divvies up his farmlands between his three kids, all shitty people to varying degress. The main focus is on Buteau, the youngest, who is quite the shitass, who covets the land to a psychotic degree and is constantly trying to rape the crap out of his youthful sister-in-law. The latter, Francoise, is one of the more memorable characters, through her ambiguity and her uniqueness. The story of her and Jean is the most tumultuous and dark parts of the story. Buteau's brother Jesus Christ (as he's nicknamed because of his appearance) is another great character for his violent, eruptive, at-will farting (no shit, half his time in the book concerns his talented anus) and carousing. With some characters, Zola really went to the wall to flesh them out, others suffer grandly and are mostly superfluous, but the novel, especially the last quarter, has some great, dastardly moments that defy the reader. Probably best for the completist only.

[Czarny Pies · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a nasty and sexually crude description of life amongst the peasantry of rural France during the second half of the nineteenth century. Simone de Beauvoir remarked on just how revolting it is in places. In other words, in La Terre, the foul minded Zola is at the top of his game. La Terre is one of the great masterpieces of the naturalist school that every reader should be familiar with but not obliged to overly familiar with. Reading this book is one of the painful duties that anyone willing to study the history of literature should be prepared to go through.

[Laura Leilani · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing. Considered by some as one of the most powerful novels of the 19th century(- M. Crossland) and is the type of book that stays with you long after you read it. The story takes place among peasant farmers, and you feel immersed in the lifestyle. Although the story takes place in the 1800's, the people could be living in any ghetto or trailer park today. The characters are very real and the story is unforgettable. This is a timeless story of human nature, and for all the times it was banned or burnt, you would think it would be better known.