Status Updates From La Fortune des Rougon (Les ...

Halfway there

I think Zola lacks the warm humanity of Hugo, and with characters considered more marginal, I find he's not very kind.

All these village arseholes can go kick rocks, I like Adélaïde.

I love Zola, but I never thought he was very good a portraying love/relationships/the fully human aspect of society. He tends to portray people as sterile social experiments. However, I think this is the first portrayal of a couple that I could actually call tender in his work.

It's so rare to see Zola showing any sense of the romantic, but when Miette wraps her cloak around Silvère, it's so lofty and tender. I really didn't think Zola had it in him, to be honest.

Since undergrad, I've wanted to read Zola's twenty volume Rougon-Macquart series in order. I ordered the first five and am buckling down.
For all the prestige Zola has, it's interesting to see how his writing is reminiscent of scandalous 'trashy' novels of the time. That being said, starting his novel with how children play with skulls in this doomed town is pretty hardcore.

Miette... 💔