Tag Archives: Rougon-Macquart
Zola Translations
Due to questions about the merits of one translation over another, and just how much the Vizetellys chopped from the original Zola novels in the Rougon-Macquart cycle, I decided to write a post comparing passages from Zola’s L’Assommoir. I’d say L’Assommoir is one of the … Continue reading
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Doctor Pascal by Zola
Doctor Pascal is Zola’s final novel in the twenty-volume Rougon-Macquart cycle. Zola wrote the Rougon-Macquart series as a social history of France’s Second Empire of Napoleon III (1852 to 1870), and so history is told through the stories of various family members. The novels extend from the … Continue reading
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Debacle by Zola
Debacle is the 19th novel in Zola’s 20 volume Rougon-Macquart series. The novels are a history of France’s Second Empire told through two branches of a family and set against the backdrop of historical events. The Rougons are the wealthier, legitimate and supposedly the more respectable branch of the family. … Continue reading
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Money by Zola
Money is the eighteenth volume in Zola’s spectacular Rougon-Macquart cycle–a “natural and social history of a family during the Second Empire.” The series is winding down, and as it turns out, so is the Second Empire. Under examination in these … Continue reading
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The Dream by Zola
The Dream (La Reve) is the 16th novel in Zola’s twenty-volume Rougon-Marquart cycle. For those who’ve read my Rougon-Macquart posts, you already know that I am reading the novels in the order in which they were written. This is not the way everyone … Continue reading
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The Earth by Zola
The soil and nothing else…. The Earth (La Terre) is novel number 15 in Zola’s Rougon-Macquart series. My Penguin version, translated by Douglas Parmee runs to 500 pages, so it’s a substantial book, and in it Zola creates the unique world of the peasants … Continue reading
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The Masterpiece by Emile Zola
The Masterpiece (L’Oeuvre) is the fourteenth novel in Zola’s twenty-volume Rougon- Macquart series, and it is the most autobiographical. The Rougon-Macquart series was planned in 1868 and written over the course of the next twenty-five years, the series was intended … Continue reading
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The Belly Of Paris by Emile Zola
I am not normally someone who rushes out to buy the latest translation of a classic. In fact, I tend to be a bit suspicious of new translations: case in point–a few years ago I bought Remembrance of Things Past … Continue reading
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Pot Luck by Emile Zola
“Then, going off on a tangent, he began violently to abuse the Empire; under a republic , things would surely be better. And amid all this rambling talk, the vague generalizations of a man of mediocre intelligence, there came a … Continue reading
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L’Assommoir by Emile Zola
“Coupeau was very foul-mouthed and called her revolting names. Lantier, on the other hand, chose his insults with care, thinking up expressions that people just don’t use and which hurt her even more. Fortunately you get used to anything; in … Continue reading
Filed under Rougon-Macquart, Zola
