"Love Under the Roof" - A Short Story From the Parisian Sketches of Emile Zola- Plus my Ideas on the best set in Paris Zola novels

French Literature and History on The Reading Life 

Host Webpage for Paris in July 2016

So far for July in Paris I have read

1.  The Dogs and the Wolves by Iréne Nemirovsky 

2.  Mavis Gallant -  Two Set in Paris works, a short story and a note book entry

3.  Five Nights in Paris by John Baxter.

4.  The Little Paris Book Store by Nina George

5.  "The Problem of Summer Time" by Marcel Ayme

I could not let Paris in July end with posting on Emile Zola, one of the greatest French writers.

This post Includes my suggestions as to the best set in Paris novels in the Les Rougon-Macquart Cycle.

Last year I completed a read of the twenty novels in Emile Zola's Les Rougon-Macquart Cycle.  It follows the lives of two interrelated families in France from 1855 to 1870.  Some of the works in the cycle are among the greatest of all French novels, others take a bit of will to complete.  As I read on, I found a very sentimental attitude toward virginal young women.  Zola's treatment of love before sex and marriage enters the picture is highly romantic.  I highly recommend reading the full cycle in publication order to all serious literary autodidacts.  

I could not participate in Paris in July without including a work set in Paris by Zola but  before I do That I want to list my favorite set in Paris novels in the Les Rougon-Macquart Cycle.

My Suggestions For Set in Paris Novels by Emile Zola

1.  Nana.  Centers on a Parisian prostitute.  A harshly realistic look at the demimonde world.  Considered  by all one of his very best works.

2.  The Dram Shop.  Set in the slums of Paris.  We learn about the upbringing of Nana.  This works focuses on the terrible impact of alcoholism,  in spite of how it sounds, this is a very funny novel. One of my favorites.

3.  The Big Store.  Set in a giant Paris department store.  Recently made into a movie.  Business details are very well done.

4.  The Belly  of Paris.  Centered on the food market.

"Love Upon the Roof" is very typical of Zola's stories that center on young "pure" women.  The central character is twenty and is on her own in Paris.  She works as a seamstress, as Zola tells us very common occupation for single women in Paris.  Everything is beautiful in the young woman's world, she is in love.  "Love Upon the Roof" can be read in under five minutes, great it is not but it illustrates a side of Zola's worldview.  It is part of a series of four stories known as The Parisian Sketches.

Mel u

The Human Beast by Emile Zola (1890)

My Posts on Zola

The Human Beast is the seventeenth of twenty works in Emile Zola's grand Rougon Macquart Cycle.  It centers on the railroads of France and Zola's conception of heriditary mental degeneracy playing it self out  through successive generations of a family.  

There are three central characters in The Human Beast.  Jacques Lantier, the son of Gervaise Lantier from The Dram Shop and the brother of Etienne from Germinal works as a locomotive engine driver.  The other two central characters are a deputy station master and his wife.  The station master thinks years ago his wife had an affair with a director of the rail road and that she used that relationship to get him his good job.  Jacques loves his locomotive, calling it "La Lison".  Zola does a wonderful job describing how it feels to control the train, at that time the most powerful man made thing in the world.  We go along as he races through France.   

Murders play a central part in the story.  Jacques develops a driving passion for killing women while having sex with him.  This is depicted as caused by his depraved  ancestory.  

The best by far scenes  in the book were of a terrible train wreck in which many are killed.  We also are there when the train is stuck in snow in another very good scene.  Zola in a very interesting remark says in situations like this only the American passengers get out and help shovel snow.

I really liked the portions of the book set on the train and learning about the railroad business.  The romantic intrigues did not grab me that much.  

Three to go!  

Mel u

The Earth by Emile Zola (1878, work 15 in The Rougan Macquart Cycle)

The Earth is novel 15 in Emile Zola's grand collection of novels, The Rougon Macquart Cycle.  It focuses on the lives of small farm owners.  There are lots of characters in the novel,at least 100, among them Jean Macquart, son of Antonine Macquart, late of the French Army serving in the  Algerian war and now a farm laborer.   Zola shows us the tremendous love the farmers have for their land.  One of the biggest issues in multi-child families was the division of land upon the death or incapacitation of the parents.  

This being a Zola novel one terrible thing after another happens, from droughts and freezes to crooked financiers.  The Earth gave me a good feel for life on the small French farm.  I cannot really endorse this book as a stand alone work but I do acknowledge it as a central work in the cycle, depicting in Zola's hardcore naturalistic style a very vital part of French society, the farmer.  

Mel u

His Masterpiece by Emile Zola (1888)

His Masterpiece (sometimes translated as The Masterpiece) is the 14th novel Emile Zola's grand Rougon Macquart Cycle of twenty novels. I have begun to also read Honore de Balzac and it does not take a degree from the Sorbonne to see his tremendous influence on Zola.

 My post read research indicates it is based loosely on Zola's friendship with the artist Paul Cezzanne. Some say the book badly hurt Zola's relationship to Cezzanne.  There is also an author included as one of the characters who is clearly attended as a satirical self portrait.  This book is Zola's look, his expose, of the business side of the art world in Paris.  I found it a very enjoyable read.  It was great to see how the art market works, how dealers manipulate prices.  The artistic life of the central character in this work is very dominated by his drive to create a large overwhelming masterpiece.  We also follow his marriage and see his marriage have serious up and downs but his true love, his mistress, as his wife accuses him, is his ever in process masterpiece.

The denoumont  is crushingly sad, very real.  I think this is overall a fine novel that could be read as a standalone work.  

The next work in the cycle, The Earth, focuses on small farmers.

Mel u

 

The Joy of Life by Emile Zola (1888 )

The Joy of Life is the 12 of 20 novels in Emile Zola's grand Rougon Macquart Cycle.  The pivotal character is Pauline Quenu, daughter of Lisa Macquart.  It is set in coastal Normandy.  Pauline's mother has just died so at age ten she goes to live with her aunt and uncle.  Pauline is well off financially through inheritance.  There is no joy of life in The Joy of Life, one miserable thing after another happens.  Pauline is still living at her uncle's house thirty years later when the novel ends.  Zola appears to see virginal girls as somehow pure and uncorrupted.  It appears Pauline is still a virgin at forty, still pure and kind when everyone else is anything but.  There is a lot of death in the story and the central male character, Pauline's cousin, and love interest is obsessed with a morbid fear of death.

This is an interesting novel and might be readable as a standalone work.  The characters are well but not flawlessly developed.  For sure Zola lets us see the struggles to survive in rural Normandy.  We are made to feel the power of the sea.   

I am really enjoying reading the cycle.

Please share your favorite Zola with us.

Mel u

Piping Hot by Emile Zola (1882)

Piping Hot (the title comes from French period slang for a boiling stew pot) is the 10th novel in Emile Zola's cycle of twenty novels, The Rougon Macquart Cycle.  It is proceeded by Nana on which I posted in 2012.  Nana is one of the great classics of 19th century European literature and is, in my opinion, the best of any of the other twelve novels in the cycle I have read so far.  Nana is a very interesting look at prostitution.  

Piping Hot should by those into reading the full cycle, a project I highly endorse.  It centers partially on Octave Mouret who we will meet again in The Department Store.  The novel is set in a large apartment building in Second Empire Paris.  The residents are solid middle or upper middle class citizens.  The point of the story is to expose their coruptions, addictions to sex, and the basic venality of French society.  It is not a strong novel and I do not really suggest it be read other than by those into the cycle.  It is not bad at all but there are at least four, that I have so far read, 13, better Zola novels than this.  I have begun The Joy of Love and I already like it a lot more than Piping Hot.

Mel 

His Excellency Eugene Rougon by Emile Zola (1876)

His Excellancy Eugene Rougon is novel six of twenty novels in Emile Zola's Rougon Macquart Cycle. The novel centers on Eugene Rougon, son of Pierre and Felicite Rougon who we met in the opening novel, The Fortunes of the Rougon's.  Eugene helped elevate Napolean III to the Emperor and in this laid the foundations for the family wealth.  Much of the novel is devoted to an expose of the gross corruption at the heart of the imperial government.   Everything depended on favoritism and patronage.  It started with the Emperor and went down to the very basic levels of society.  The plot action of the novel turns on Eugene's relationship with a Machavelian Italian seductress, Clorinde.  We follow Eugene as he rises, falls, and rises again in the halls of power.  There are lots of descriptions of the excesses of the royals and their self servicing followers.  

Mel u

Abbe Mourtet's Transgressions by Emile Zola (1875)

Abbé Mouret's Transgression by Emile Zola is the fifth novel in the cycle of twenty in The Rougon Macquart Cycle.  It focuses on Serge Mouret, son of Francois and Martha Mouret.  Serge is the priest for a small French village, few of the people really care about the Catholic Church.   He lives with his mentally challenged sister Desiree.  

This is by far the most lyrical work by Zola I have yet read.   There are very long poetical  descriptions of the lush beauty of the French countryside.  There are lots of village characters described and we get a feel for the economy of the area.

As I read them I did think these descriptions are going on a bit too long but they are powerful and make you feel you are there.  There is a lot of material related to the role of Mary in the lived faith of the peasants.  You can ask her to speak to God for you.  Mary also is a kind of descendent of older Goddesses like Isis.  Serge has taken an oath of celibacy and has disturbing dreams.  His sister Desiree matured in body but not mind tends the animals.  A local Brother (similar to a monk or Christian brother) frequently gives diatribes in which he speaks of all women, including young girls, as sources of sin and talks of wanting to kill young women.  

In reading fiction of other eras, you have to accept a sexual or romantic relationship between twenty six year old men, as Serge was, and a sixteen year old girl is not intrinsically wrong and will not just by the ages be seen as unacceptable.    Serge and a sixteen year old girl fall deeply and passionately in love.  We see the lush vegetative descriptions are setting up lots of Adam and Eve in the Garden connections.  

As I mentioned in a prior post, sex means trouble in the world of The Rougan Marquart Cycle and it is no surprise to see a tragic ending for this novel.  

I am so glad I have undertaken this project.  

Mel u

The Conquest of the Plassans by Emile Zola (1874- translated by Ernest Vizetelly)

The Conquest of the Plassans is book four in Emile Zola's Rougon Marquart Cycle.  (Book three is The Belly of Paris, sometimes translated as The Fat and the Thin, upon which I have previously posted.). It is set in the imaginary French town of Plassans, where the cycle begins.  One of the grand themes of Zola seems to be the long term impact of what he seeks as cogenital mental deficiencies on descendants.  Marriages between cousins were quite common in this period.  Anyone descended from the Marquart side of the family seems doomed to a bad end and to have criminal tendencies and mental health issues.   Some of the descendants, like the daughter in this novel, are developmentally challenged. At the time to have a retarded child was a disgrace and such people were figures of fun.

The lead characters in The Conquest of Plassans are Francois Mouret and Martha Rougan, descended from the Marquart side of the Rougans.  She has a vaguely specified mental illness and is prone to extreme devotion to Catholic priests and what Zola depicts as religious hysteria.  Zola is anti-clerical and few priests, Abbes, come off well.  The Mourets are prosperous enough but still could use more money so the husband decides to lease a room to a priest.  From this terrible mistake the sort of sinister seeming  priest sets in motion a series of events in which he slowly takes control over the people of Plasssns and ends up bringing terrible tragedy down on the family of Francois.

This was an exciting novel. It was quite politically controversial in its time for its extreme negative portrayal of the Catholic Church and it's cleric, depicted as power craving and devoted to their own welfare rather than their flock.  Religious devotion is seen as a form of mental illness almost.

        Ernest Vizetelly

The next novel, Abbé Mouret's Transgressions, also centers on a priest so it will be interesting to see how Zola's attitude toward the church  plays out.  The priest is a son of the couple in today's novel, Serge Mouret.  I know he will manifest the defects of the Marquart line and am looking forward to reading on in the great cycle. 

The Kill by Emile Zola (1871)

The Kill is the second novel in Emile Zola's Rougon Marquart Cycle.  There are three persons of import in The Kill, Aristide Rougon, son of Pierre and Felicite Rougon, his second wife Renne, and the son of his late first wife, Maxime.  The story is now set in Paris.  Pierre has become quite rich through speculating in property and financial instruments.  He always seems,or acts like he is, on the edge of financial ruin.  

In France when an unmarried woman from the gentry got pregnant, there were two alternatives, send her away and figure out what to do with the baby or marry her fast to an acceptable man.   Pierre agrees to marry such a girl, being a widower.  She brings a handsome dowry and has her own property.   Renee is seven years older than her stepson Maxime. To the great relief of Pierre, Renee miscarried so he does not have the burden of a baby.  Much of The Kill, "the kill" is French slang of the time for the part of a hunted animal thrown to the dogs, is taken up in descriptions of conspicuous consumption and elaborate social events.  Maybe everybody in the cycle ends up as the kill.  

Maxime and his stepmother Renee start an affair.  This is very interesting.  Maxime is portrayed as a foppish dandy, nearly adrogenous. Maxime is continually in financial trouble, indulged by Pierre who has his own affairs.   There are lots of complex financial transactions and double deals in The Kill.  It is quite erotic and pretty explicit for a novel of 1871.  Prostituion plays a big part in The Rougon Marquart Cycle.  The very few "good" people in this world seem to be sexual innocents.  Somehow sex equates to corruption, to the fall from Eden.

13 to go.

Mel u

The Fortunes of The Rougons by Emile Zola (1871)

The Fortunes of the Rougons is the lead novel in Emile Zola's twenty novel Rougon Macquart Cycle.  With this novel I have now read six of the twenty.  I will, I hope, be reading the remaining fourteen in publication order.  None of the remaining novels are terribly long so I actually hope to complete this project fairly soon.  (You can find background information on Zola and the cycle in my prior posts on his work.).  The extended family can sort of be divided into three classes, the very poor as seen by the characters in The Dram Shop, the rich such as in novel two The Kill, and the bourgeois who appear in many of the novels.  Most of the lead characters spring from people we meet in The Fortunes of the Rougons.  For example Nana who we first met in The Dram Shop is the granddaughter of Macquart, a very disreputable man possibly involved in banditry. His behavior is way below the standards of decent folk.  From him descend many of the poor people in the cycle.  He was not married to the mother of the child, Madame Rougon.  From her legitimate children come the richer people in the cycle.  In a nature versus nurture breakdown, Zola puts a lot of weight on heredity.   

You can see Zola is working hard to lay the ground work for the whole cycle in this novel.  The action of the novel centers on the impact of an insurrection in December 1851 that helped create the second Empire under Napolean III.  We see how the insurrection changed the fortunes of the members of the Rougon and Macquart families and Zola does a wonderful job of letting us see the terrible violence and atmosphere of fear the insurrection creates in a place where the memories of the Terror are very strong.  If you picked the right side and played your cards right, sucked up to those who will come out on top, your fortunes were made.  Be perceived to pick the wrong side, and you could end up shot.  The struggling middle class Rougons owe their rise (by novel two their children and grandchildren are hyper wealthy) to backing the right side.  The start of the family fortune comes when Mr. Rougon becomes tax receiver.  

There is a lot of romance in the novel.  In 2014 we are not comfortable with great romances between preadolescent girls and considerable older men but I think this was not a source of great outrage in France in 1852.  Zola, like Balzac, is a novelist strongly  focused on money, and it is interesting to see how this impacts relationships in novel.   Zola worked hard laying the foundations of the cycle in this novel.   I think the more one reads on in the cycle, the more Zola's mastery will be evident.  

Standing alone, The Fortunes of the Rougons is a good bit below Zola's most famous works but it is quite exciting and very much worth reading.

I have already begun novel two, The Kill, set among very rich Parisian descendants of the Rougons. 

Please share your experience with Zola with us.

Mel u

The Dram Shop by Emile Zola (1877, L'Assommoir, novel seven in The Rougon Macquart Cycle)

I want  to read all  twenty of the novels in Emile Zola's magnificent Rougon Macquart Cycle.  Inspired by Honore de Balzac's La Comedie Humaine, it is the grand flowering of European Naturalism.  Zola focuses on one extended family in the Second Empire, from 1852 to 1870.  Zola deeply researched everything he wrote about with an objective of showing life as it really was.   I have, including this work, read five of the novels in the cycle, The Belly of Paris (sometimes translated as The Fat and the Thin, set in the giant food market of Paris- food a very big element in Zola- he can make you feel stuffed and starving, Nana, a really great novel centering on a prostitute, in fact we see her childhood in The Dram Shop, The Ladies Paradise, set in a giant Paris department store, and his novel about the lives of coal miners, Germinal, considered by many his best work. This leaves 15 novels to go.  They are not overall as long as a Dickens or Tropllope novel so I hope to complete this project by July 2015, maybe much sooner.

The Dram Shop is a very powerful, almost brutal at times,depiction of the terrible impact of alcoholism on a family and the poor of Paris.  The story focuses on a woman we first meet when she is in her teens, with two illegitimate children.  She had the first child at 14.   She works in a huge laundry.  Zola does a wonderful job of letting us see, feel, and smell just what it was like to work there.  It was terribly hot and noisy, the washerwomen were all in each other's  business.  In a just a totally brilliant section the woman gets into a terrible fight! inside the laundry with another woman she thinks  is having an affair with her man.  The fight is incredibly vicious and lasts a long time. It was totally cinematic.  

The woman is deserted by  the father of her children but soon ends up marrying another man.  His family looks down on her and does not want her in the family.  The wedding dinner was a lot of fun and a big group visit to the Louvre is hilarious.   All of the thirteen chapters have exciting incidents. At first things go well, in a few years the woman opens her own laundry shop and starts out doing well. The great feast in the laundry is just a tremendous pleasure to read.  It is a bit chaotic with her in laws there, her old rival now good friend, drinking companions of her husband, the women that work for her and some neighbors.  A lot happens in the novel, sometimes years go by between chapters.

There is constant spousal and child abuse, much as a direct result of drunkeness,  some of the saddest scenes I have read in a long time.  One man kills his wife by kicking her.  His eight year old daughter takes over as mother to her two younger siblings.  The man gets a horse whip just so he can beat her with it then blames the girl for requiring him to buy a whip and beats her for that.  The laundry has a mentally challenged woman working there and the owner slaps her for being slow.   Women commonly go to their spouses jobs on pay day to prevent it all being spent in a dram shop.  

After a few good years, things go from worse to horrible for the woman.  She also becomes an alcoholic.  We see her daughter Nana drawn to the streets for excitement, money, and to get away.  At fifteen  she has begun to catch the attention of older men. Her father constantly abuses her and calls her a whore.   In one desperate scene, the woman, now in her forties and very heavy, walks the streets to sell herself but can find no takers.  

There is a lot of drama in the novel.  I really enjoyed reading  it.  I read this in the Delphi Edition of The Complete Zola.  No translator credit is given and the dialogue is at times seems silly  with expressions like "Yikes, what a villain" to me in 2014 but no big deal.  The characters are very well realized.  

All in all a very powerful work. 

Mel u

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The Ladies Paradise by Emile Zola (1883)

This is my third year as a participant in the Paris in July Reading Event hosted by Book Bath and Thyme for Tea.   I find this a very interesting and creative event of the sort that helps build the book blog community.  You will find  lots of reading ideas on the host blogs.  I am greatly enjoying participating in this event.  It has motivated me to revisit the work of some of the true giants of European literature, Marcel Proust, Guy de Maupassant, Colette, Alfred Jarry,   Andre Gide, Honore Balzac ,Zola and Dumas. We visited also had visits from Edgar Allan Poe, Katherine Mansfield, The Marquis de Sade and Irene Nemirovsky.  

The Ladies Paradise is an account of life in a giant department store in Paris in the late 19th century.  It is not on the level of Nana and Germinal but I greatly enjoyed reading it.  

The best part of the novel, and it was quite brilliant, was Zola's account of how the department store functioned.  We see how the employees are treated as it grows from a few dozen employees to several thousand. We see how their viciously competitive policies drive many small businesses under.  Zola researched his novels very carefully and there is a lot to be learned about retail in Paris from this novel.  

The weakness in this novel is in the human characters.  The central figure is a heart of gold country girl, Denise, who starts out with the lowest status of jobs in the store.  We see the nasty way other employees treat her.  Many of the employees live in the store dormitory and all take meals there.  Everything is strictly regulated. There are inspectors whose job is to watch over employees to prevent theft and make sure no rules are violated.  The store is a hot bed of gossip. Sales days bring mob scenes and the chaos is exciting.  We learn about life among the ordinary employees, they can and are dismissed without notice at the whim of a superior and we learn about the store owner who has a history as a sexual predator among the female employees.   He develops an infatuation for Denise.  Most who have posted on this novel have said the romance is the weakest part of the book and I agree.  

I would suggest one read Zola's more famous books first.  Then I can see The Ladies Paradise as a good Zola novel.  The BBC recently produced a drama based on it I hope to see someday. 

I hope to post on a short story by Anatole France tomorrow.

Mel u

"The Boot Polishing Virgin" by Emile Zola (from Parisian Sketches, 1880)

Emile Zola is among the greats of European literature.   My favorite, of the four of his many novels I have read, is Nana.     There are twenty novels in his monumental saga of French life, The Rougen Macquart Cycle.  I think a reading of these novels in publication order would be a great reading experience.  I could not let Paris in July come to an end without posting on a story by Zola.  (You can buy for $2.99 an  e book  English edition of the complete works of Zola). 

"The Boot Licking Virgin", taken from a set of four set in Paris short stories, Parisian Sketches, is pretty much a near for its time r rated account of an man raving on to himself about how one of his young female  household staff looks  when she is sleeping.  His first focus of attention is on her "large alabaster bust" which he can glimpse a bit.   The desired female body type, we see this in other writers of 19th century France, was heavier than today and she is described as "plump".  At the end of the story a conversation between the man and the young woman makes me wonder if she is still a virgin.  One of her duties was to polish the boots of the household.   The ending is interesting.  There are no innocents in Zola's Paris.  

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I enjoyed this story for the same reasons its first readers probably did.  Zola has much better work than this O. Henryist story, but it was fun to read.  I think the next Zola novel I read will be The Ladies Paradise, set in  a Paris department store. 

This is my third year as a participant in the Paris in July Reading Event hosted by Book Bath and Thyme for Tea.   I find this a very interesting and creative event of the sort that helps build the book blog community.  You will find  lots of reading ideas on the host blogs.  I am greatly enjoying participating in this event.  It has motivated me to revisit the work of some of the true giants of European literature, Marcel Proust, Guy de Maupassant, Andre Gide, Honore Balzac and today Zola.  I plan to next post on a short story by Anatole France.

Mel u

"The Flood" by Emile Zola

"The Flood" by Emile Zola (1877, 8 pages)

Manila August 7, 2012

In light of the recent floods in Manila, A Simple Clockwork and I have decided we would both read and post on Emile Zola's (1840 to 1902, Paris, France) famous short story, "The Flood".   I have previously posted on two of his novels, Nana and The Belly of Paris.   Zola is an incredibly powerful writer known for his very realistic novels depicting man at his most base level.

"The Flood" begins by telling us about the wonderful life a hardworking French farmer has made for himself and his family by working his land.   He takes great pride in his large family all of whom live in comfort with him.   The story opens at a family dinner and Zola does a wonderful job of letting us see how the work of the man has paid of for him.  We also feel a sense of almost hubris in his feeling of security.  "The Flood" does not need a lot of explanation, you do not at all need someone to explain it to you.   

As the story continues the rain has been coming down for a long time.  People are worried that the river may rise and flood the farms near it.   The man says people always say the river will rise and flood them out but it never does.   He assures his worried family they have nothing to worry about.   Of  course we know he is wrong but Zola does such a great job describing the terror and destruction brought on by the rising water that every event is still shocking and terrible.   This is a story of the power of nature and perhaps of the folly of arrogance it the face of its wrath.  

This story really should be read by anyone who has ever been in or seen images of floods.   It totally invokes the horrible fear rising waters can bring.   

"The Flood" can be read online HERE

I am reading this story as my participation in Short Stories on Wednesday.

Do you know of other short stories or novels centering around floods?

Mel u

"Rentafoil" by Emile Zola

"Rentafoil" by Emile Zola (6 pages, translator unknown, 1890-apx)


In the last few months I have read and really enjoyed three novels by Emile Zola  (1840 to 1902) and one short story.    I was really happy to see a few days ago that JoAnn of Lakeside Musings  recently read and endorsed another short story by Zola, "Rentafoil".      The story sounded hilarious if a bit dark so I thought I would no doubt really like it and I do!    


Everything and everyone is for sale in the Paris of Zola.   Zola does not mean this as high level principal or metaphor  of some sort, he means it pretty much literally.     Women are valued primarily for their looks as that raises the potential price they can get for themselves either in marriage to a Duke at one level of society or as a few moments pay on another level.   


"Rentafoil" centers on a new business venture that a wealthy reflective business man has come up with to take advantage of an untapped market in Paris while at the same time finding a lucrative use for ugly women (outside of the kitchen or factory floor).     The business man had noticed that attractive women often had an ugly friend that accompanied them.   The ugly friend only served to make the other woman look more attractive by contrast.     He decided to start an agency that rents out ugly women as an accessory to make other women look good.   


An ad is placed in the newspaper telling ugly girls to apply to the agency.   The problem is no one really ugly applies so Durandeau  hires some agents to walk the streets of Paris looking for girls for his agency.   This tale is narrated in the first person by an unknown observer. 

This hunt for girls who dare not face their mirrors without bursting into tears led to many memorable moments. Sometimes the agents would see passing in the street an ideally ugly woman and were so keen to show her to Durandeau that they could barely restrain themselves.

  The social satire is worthy of Swift.   One of the best scenes is when the potential ugly girls are brought in for inspection.   


Part of the pleasure the attractive get from the agency girls is that they do not have to pretend to be nice to them.   They can enjoy the ugliness of the other girls and take pleasure in the thought they will return to their thread bare hovels at the end of the day.   The ugly girls do get to go to fancy places they never would have any other way.


Watching women come to the agency to pick an ugly rent a friend is hilarious also.   Some of these women are in fact uglier than the ones at the agency but they have rich fathers so they do not know they are ugly!


JoAnn's very well done post on "Rentafoil" is here.   


"Rentafoil" can be read online here (link provided by JoAnn)  


If you have not yet read any Zola, this story might be a good starting place for you.     "Rentafoil" is just hilarious.    My guess is high school students world wide would relate well to this story.     


As always if you have any suggestion as to short stories I might like, especially those I can read online, please leave a comment.   




Mel u

Theresa Raquin by Emile Zola

Theresa Raquin  by Emile Zola (1867, 264 pages, trans. by Edward Vizetelly, 1901)

Theresa Raquin is the third Zola (1840 to 1904-France)  novel I have read since I began my blog July 2009.   I first read Nana, centering on a prostitute very much without a heart of gold, and then The Belly of Paris.   The Belly of Paris was set in the huge food markets of 19th century Paris.    Both of these works are part of Zola's twenty part cycle of novels The Les Rougon-Macquant which centers on one family and is meant to give a full picture of French life in the 1870s period.   Theresa Raquin is not part of the cycle of novels but it is considered  his first major novel.   It was first published in serial fashion in a popular magazine.

Zola seems to be looked on as a second or third tier 19th century  French novelist,  behind Flaubert, Balzac, or Hugo in quality and cultural regard.   Of course he is behind Flaubert in quality (who really is not).   As to Balzac and Hugo, I  have not read enough to personally give an opinion but I respect the opinions of those who have.   That being said, Zola is very much worth reading if you want a raw slice of 19th century French life in a novel with lots of action and interesting characters by a writer who knows how to tell a good story.

The lead character of the novel, a woman named "Theresa Raquin", has been pushed by a very dominating aunt into an unhappy marriage to a cousin.     Her husband, Camille, is sickly and sees her more as a servant/nurse than a woman with whom he has a passionate relationship.   Theresa begins a love affair with a friend of her husband, a hard drinking,  work disliking bad boy type named "Laurent".     Laurent has a simple practical reason for starting an affair with Theresa.   He figures she would be cheaper than prostitutes!    They do begin a love affair and decide to drown her husband so they can move in together.

Ford Madox Ford called Zola a naturalist.   By this he means an author who sees humanity as a beast with few if any redeeming qualities.   As Theresa Raquin proceeds guilt begins to take over the minds of the two killers.    Their relationship quickly evolves into a series of brutal fights and mutual distrust.   Each begin to see the other as the lead figure in the murder.   The aunt moves in with them and is also abused.   She begins to suffer great mental torment when she learns of the murder as she had actually pushed her niece into the marriage after her husband disappeared.  (His body was never found and he was just assumed dead).   Things proceed and the story comes to a perhaps predictable but still satisfying conclusion.

Theresa Raquin  is a fast read.   It kept me interested.   The characterizations are very well done.   The story line is not at all difficult to follow.   This is not a "hard to read" book at all.   The over all plot line is hardly a groundbreaking idea but it is very well done by Zola.   I could really feel the horrible changes in the relationship of Theresa and Laurent.    

Life advise from this book?    Do not expect a marriage to a fellow conspirator in a murder to go well and women should avoid at all cost a marriage to man who first began his relationship with them because he feels that they will be cheaper for him than prostitutes.

In the world of  Theresa Raquin  everything comes down to the need for  money to satisfy the basic instincts of people.   Men are predators or fools and women are either prostitutes (or close too it) or duped by a man into romantic love so he can get free sex from her and a domestic slave.   People work their lives away in coal mines and grim factories so the owners (or their grandsons) can have money for nights out on the town in the company of  Nana and her coworkers.    I have read only three of Zola's many novels and I will for sure read more.  I might at some point decide to read in order the 20 novel cycle.   (As of now this is sort of a weak might, probably I will just read the two or three best Zola I have not yet read).   Maybe there is a brighter world to be found in some of his other novels.

The Edward Vizetelly translation from 1901 (I read the book via Dailylit.com) read very well for me.   It may be a partially censored translation (those shocking French being too much for the English speaking literary world in 1901) but it is a free read!

Of the three Zola novels I have read, I think Nana is clearly the best, no contest here.   I found The Belly of Paris more interesting than Theresa Raquin because to me the subject matter was more interesting and it has some great set pieces about different characters in the market that are really brilliant.   Theresa Raquin is for sure a very much worth reading novel but it does look into a dark closed in world.

Please leave any suggestion you might have on future Zola reads or any thoughts you might have as to how he should be ranked among the great French novelists of the 19th century.




Mel u

The Belly of Paris by Emile Zola

The Belly of Paris by Emile Zola (1873, 275 pages, translated by Brian Nelson)




In April I read and posted on Nana by Emile Zola (1840-1902, Paris) as part of the Classics Circuit Zola month.     Nana is a near photo-realistic look at prostitution in Paris during the middle of  the 19th century.    In Nana men are treated as if their only motive for economic activity was to have enough money to hire prostitutes.   Women are seen as nearly all prostitutes of one form or another.   It does not depict a pretty world and it in no way glamorises the lives of prostitutes. their clients or those who are parasites on them.   Zola's descriptions of the lead character, Nana, preforming in the brothel/theater where she works, had a strong visual and visceral impact.

The Belly of Paris is set in a giant recently developed food market in Paris known as , " Les Halles".    Zola goes into great detail describing the foods in the market.   Some of the descriptions of the food makes you appreciate the beauty of the bounty of fruits and vegetables and some of the descriptions of the slaughter houses are very horrific.    It is said that you will enjoy a great French sausage much more if you know nothing about how it is made and Zola for sure drives that point home.    

The food market is so huge it is like a small town.  I kept in mind  as I was reading that in 1873 people shopped everyday.    People, or their servants, had a butcher, a baker, a seller of poultry, a fish monger and a vegetable stall that they saw  every day.    The merchants and their customers knew each other.    There were always a tremendous amount of gossip and scandalous going ons among workers and patrons of the market.

I thought the best thing about The Belly of Paris were Zola's marvelous descriptions of some of the people of the market.   When Zola wrote about a well off man who took a stall in the market to sell vegetables but really just wanted to hear all the gossip it was completely real to me.   I admit I laughed out loud when I first heard his story.   The man goes on to become a successful merchant.   There is also about ten pages devoted to a relationship between a boy and girl, near orphan  children living in the food market that is simply wonderful.  When Zola is at his best he is nearly as good as it gets.    There also numerous social themes and satires in the book.   Being fat is equated with being rich, thin poor.  (That has really changed in the 21th century!)

 The people in The Belly of Paris are not quite as nasty as those in Nana.     ( Both novels are part of Zola's series of 20 novels Les-Rougon-Macquart.   The Belly of Paris is work number three in the series   These works depict the underside of life in Paris in the middle of the 19th century.    Reading these novels would be a great reading project, assuming all have been translated.)    I am not sure which of these two I like best.    If one wanted you could stop by the part of Paris depicted in Nana for some entertainment and then take a carriage over to the markets of  The Belly of Paris   to gossip a bit with the butchers, bakers, and the fish mongers while picking out the ingredients for a great meal.   As I was reading The Belly of Paris  I noticed there were dozens and dozens of references to large breasts.     One has to see this as tying up sexuality and food together.  

I really liked The Belly of Paris.    I recommend it without reservations of any kind.  

I want to read more Zola.   I do not know if I can fit in his 20 volume cycle in my reading plans in the years to come or not so if anyone has any suggestions as to a third Zola, please leave a comment.   Also let us know if you think Zola belongs in the canon of world literature.

Mel u

"The Death of Oliver Bescaille" by Emile Zola

"The Death of Oliver Bescaille" by Emile Zola (23 pages-read through Dailylit.com)

I recently read and posted on Emile Zola's (1840 to 1902-Paris) Nana for the Classics Circuit.   As soon as I saw that Book Bath and Thyme For Tea were hosting an event dedicated to French culture,  Paris in July,  I knew I wanted to participate.    A few months ago I began to overcome a life time aversion to the short story so I decided I would read and post on a couple of short stories by canon status French authors for the event.    I enjoyed Nana (some who read it find it takes a very harsh a view of people) and my favorite on line reading web page Dailylit.com had "The Death of Oliver Bescaille"  one of Zola's short stories on line  so I decided to read it.   Dailylit.com does not normally give either the translator or date published information on its choicies and I was unable to find this information in a quick search.   My guess on the publication date is from 1864 to 1880.

Oliver Bescaille, the central figure and narrator of "The Death of Oliver Bescaille" suffers from syncope.   Victims of this disease blackout so deeply that they are often thought to be dead but they can be in fact aware of what is going on around them.    At the time of the story (set in Paris) this disease was unclassified by doctors and when Oliver has an attack the doctor called  by his wife pronounced him dead.   Oliver can hear and see everything that is going on but his eyes appear glazed over and he cannot move or speak and his body feels cold. 

It was on a Saturday, at six in the morning, that I died after a three days' illness. My wife was searching a trunk for some linen, and when she rose and turned she saw me rigid, with open eyes and silent pulses. She ran to me, fancying that I had fainted, touched my hands and bent over me. Then she suddenly grew alarmed, burst into tears and stammered:   "My God, my God! He is dead!"

I heard everything, but the sounds seemed to come from a great distance. My left eye still detected a faint glimmer, a whitish light in which all objects melted, but my right eye was quite bereft of sight. It was the coma of my whole being, as if a thunderbolt had struck me. My will was annihilated; not a fiber of flesh obeyed my bidding. And yet amid the impotency of my inert limbs my thoughts subsisted, sluggish and lazy, still perfectly clear.   

Oliver is left in the parlor in this condition for several days.    He hears what all those who come to pay their respects say about him, good and otherwise.   Oliver was basically a decent husband and father, no big accomplishments but no major faults either.    In a few days Oliver is taking to the cemetery  and placed in  the family tomb.    He comes out of his attack and is able to open the tomb door and after escaping it he closes the door behind him.    Oliver realizes he is now a free man, of sorts.    He begins to roam the city of Paris dressing in rags as befits the living dead.     A year or so passes and he returns to his old place of residence to see how his family is doing.     What happens then is much the point and interest of the story so I will not spoil it.  

"The Death of Oliver Bescaille"  is worth reading for a sample of the work of Zola.   It is a well plotted and thought out tale if not a first rank example of the short story.    I hope to post on a short story by Guy Du Maupassant next week.  

Mel u