The Émile Zola Tag #Zoladdiction2023

Here's my response to the Émile Zola tag from Fanda's blog 

How was your first introduction to Émile Zola? We'd love to hear your stories!

My first real introduction to Zola was through Germinal, in the translation by Roger Pearson published by Penguin Classics. Of course, I knew about him and his work, at least cursorily, specially the role he had played in the Dreyfus affair. I also knew about his description heavy style of writing. Around in 2014 when I first decided to read Zola, I was in a major reading slump which had lasted a long time. I used to always pick-up one of those topical non-fiction books or "novels of the season" which everyone was talking about without having any real personal interest of my own and almost always after some time leave them back on the shelf unfinished. I had also grown weary of a mode of writing which was interioristic, confesssional, and self-centred, which was the default style of so much of contemporary literary fiction (If I recall correctly, I was reading Knausgaard at the time). 

Germinal was a breath of fresh air in that sense. Here was a writer not writing about his personal "struggle." He was not interested in his own life, his own childhood, his own memories, his own sexual life. He was more passionate about the external world, about people unlike himself. As I continued reading Germinal, I was completely taken aback by how intense it was. Based on what I knew beforehand from cursory readings about Zola, I had expected it to be a somewhat dull, dreary, documentary account of the struggles of coal miners. I had also expected sentimental platitudes about class struggle and evils of capitalism. I was just not prepared for the intense, gruesome and at times hallucinogenic descriptions that went on and on for many pages that left you stunned at the end, completely overwhelmed with sensory overload. The descriptions of the brutish living conditions of the poor, of the interiors of the mine, of the strike and its aftermath, this was nothing like I had ever read before. I particularly remember a section where Zola describes the fate of a couple of horses who were made to haul the coal inside the mines. As I was reading those passages, my hands were shaking, my throat was getting dry and there was a strong burning sensation in my eyes. I don't think I ever had such a physical reaction to a reading. A few months after Germinal, I picked up L'Assommoir (The Drinking Den, in the translation by Robin Buss, also published by Penguin) and I had an even stronger reaction this time. I read the last hundred pages which describes the infernal descent of the main character Gervaise, in almost a single sitting, late into the night. At the end I felt almost physically crushed, as if I had been hit by a sledgehammer on my head which left me completely stunned, almost literally (hinted at in the original French tile). 

I had a become a devoted fan of Zola by then but it took me some time to decide that I would read all of his Rougon-Macquart novels, and even longer to actually complete reading all fo them. It was only in 2021 that I finished reading all the 20 novels in the series (plus Thérèse Raquin)

Do you read Zola's randomly, or do you follow a certain, or even your own, order?

I read randomly. I see many prospective readers asking this question on twitter. My advice always is, you should start with the best, like I did - with Germinal or L'Assommoir. If you want something shorter, then Thérèse Raquin - it is somewhat unrepresentative of his style, though still spell binding, powerful and shocking.

When I re-read the series, I will try to read them in chronological order. It is always interesting to analyse how a writer grows or changes over a course of time.

What do you like and/or dislike from Zola? It can be his works, views, or personality. Or if you've just found Zola: What makes you decided to read Zola?

I like the particular school of fiction, call it realism, or as Zola preferred to call it, naturalism, which he took to all possible extremes. Zola brought a sense of perfection to this style of fiction writing, which Balzac had originally pioneered. In Balzac and Zola, you don't just see people, with their hopes, dreams, struggles and desires, but you also see, often much more vividly, the world in which they live in, the systems which are pitted against them, the institutions of modern life in an advanced capitalist society that they must work with by either manipulating them or by struggling against their workings and in the process often getting crushed and defeated by them. In most realistic fiction this context remains in the background but in Zola and Balzac this context itself becomes the main source of interest. I also love how unflinching, how relentless they both are in how they go about it.

I also like the scientific and materialistic view of "life" and how Zola uses his fiction to explore its implications, again something that was there in Balzac as well but then was perfected by Zola. This is the Darwinian view (in Balzac's case it was the more mystical view, the then prevalent philosophy of "vitalism"), which sees human beings on the same continuum with all other living beings.

I can't think of anything I really dislike about Zola. On a few occasions sometimes I do get impatient with those descriptions, wondering if he would come to the point soon but at the end I always realize it is the problem with the reader who is short of time or too impatient to finish the current book and jump to the next one and not the writer.

If you must spend a day with one character from Zola's books, who would you rather be with? And what both of you would do? (This is hard, I know! Zola didn't create many loveable characters 🤭)

I love Pauline from "La joie de vivre." I know some readers complain about her being too perfect but then in the book itself she is compared with Virgin Mary! If I meet her, I will ask her about her love of life, despite all the pain, disappointments and miseries that life throws at us with abandon. I think it might be an interesting meeting, because I think I am somewhat like Lazare myself, at least in some of my blacker Schopenhauerian moods.

Name one of Zola's books you would recommend others to read! Or if you haven't read him, which book would you like to start with?

Like I mentioned before, I will definitely recommend you start with Germinal or L'Assommoir. If you are not sure and want something shorter that you can read in a few sittings, then Thérèse Raquin. Some of my other favourite Zola novels are: La Terre, L'Argent, La joie de vivre, Au Bonheur des Dames, La Bête humaine, L'Œuvre, and La Débâcle. But really, I will recommend you read them all. But make sure, you read them in modern translations, preferably with introductions and annotations which explain the historical and cultural context (in other words, read them in the Oxford World's Classics editions).  

You were invited in one of Zola's soirees (Zola's famous literary dinners of Naturalism writers) at Médan tonight. You may listen to all the conversation/discussion, but you're only allowed to suggest one topic - what would that be?

What an interesting question! If I were invited to one of those "les Soirées de Médan," since I was coming from the 21st century future, I would ask Zola if he still felt optimistic about the coming triumph of science, which he sang paeans of and wrote so rhapsodically about, after what I explain him what happened in the 20th century, in the two world wars, or the nuclear bomb, and how instead of liberation science and technology found newer ways of enslaving man. 

What is your least favorite book from Zola?

Perhaps, Pot-Bouille. I think it lacked his characteristic style and its sour mood didn't really catch me at the time. It may also have been the case (more likely actually) that I was not in the right mood for the book at the time. 

Have you read any book/work by other authors about Zola? Biography, companion book, essay, historical fiction, etc. Share them, please! (It may inspire others). If you haven't, would you like to?

I haven't read a lot of supplemental works on Zola but I do want to. I am definitely going to prioritise them soon. That said, the introductions and the end notes in the OUP editions of Zola are extremely good (specially those by Brian Nelson, Valerie Minogue, Roger Pearson, and Robert Lethbridge). 

I want to read the big biography by Frederick Brown, if I can find and procure it. I also want to read some general studies of naturalism, like the ones by David Bagueley. I also want to read some historical works about 19th century France, specially the second empire and the third republic which focus on social and cultural history of the period.

Of the Rougons, the Macquarts, and the Mourets, which family do you like best? Why? (wrong-answers are acceptable 😜)

Zola was at his best writing about the working class characters and those who are at the bottom of the society. So even though that world is full of ugliness, pain, and suffering, I will go with the Macquarts. 

Your favourite Zola's quote(s) ?

Since I have it handy, here're a short passage from Germinal:

Was Darwin right, then? Would the world forever be a battleground on which the strong devoured the weak in pursuit of the perfection and continuity of the species? The question worried him, even if, as a man sure in the certainty of his own knowledge, he believed he could answer it. But there was one prospect which dispelled all his doubts and held him in thrall, and this was the idea that his first speech would be devoted to his own version of Darwin’s theory. If one class had to devour the other, then surely it was the people, still young and hardy, which would devour a bourgeoisie that had worn itself out in self-gratification? New blood would mean a new society. And by thus looking forward to a barbarian invasion that would regenerate the old, decaying nations of the world, Étienne once again demonstrated his absolute faith in the coming revolution, the real revolution, the workers’ revolution, whose conflagration would engulf the dying years of the century in flames as crimson as the morning sun which now rose bleeding into the sky.