This is Émile Zola's- The Fortunes of the Rougons
This is another book, I read over the summer and am only now posting- sorry!
If you know my blog, I love a bit of Zola and thanks to my friends and family I have a whole new set of Zola novels to read (birthday gifts)- so watch this space!
Zola’s Cycle
I have written about Zola’s 20 novel series before, but for those unfamiliar the 20 book cycle follow the Rougon-Macquart family across the 19th century. Generally poor and around Paris, although this one is set in a fictitious Provençal town of Plassans.
You’ll notice the other Rougon-Macquart novel I have read is NANA.
Nana is the 9th book in the cycle in the book cycle and this most recent one I’ve read is actually the first!
The link this novel has is Nana’s Mother is actually born in this novel, not really a central character, but there is always a helpful wee family tree at the front of most copies of Zola!
If you read a few you will understand Zola’s thought processes around making such a long cycle of books, with an overarching complicated family tree.
Literary Naturalism
In literary history, Zola is known for being the forefather of what is now called the Naturalist Literary movement.
Arising in the nineteenth century, Naturalist writers rejected Romanticism as the determiner in the novel, and instead placed scientific sequences and determinism were the deciding factors in plot development.
The narrator in Naturalist novels is usually far detached from the suffering and feeling occurring in the story they are telling, giving the idea that human suffering which occurs in predetermined an uncaring universe. In a
In this thought process, rather than fate or religious factors, Zola sets up his Rougon-Macquart cycle to present the importance of Hereditary in the fate of an individual.
Zola uses his family to examine the moral, sexual and social landscape of the late nineteenth century, against what was often a turbulent political climate.
This novel is very political, and I admit, not as fun a read as Nana, but this novel establishes a lot of themes that exist in the subsequent novels.
Zola’s Aim
In the preface to this first novel of the series, he states his aim is to,
‘explain how a family, a small group of human beings, behaves in a given society after blossoming forth and giving birth […] are linked together in the most profound ways’. Hereditary, like gravity, has laws.’
In this preface also, Zola sets out the characteristics he wishes to draw along, down the family tree, as he writes the individual novels.
This Book
This is why this book is so important, as it is the beginning display of all the characteristics that are brought forward to the successive generations of the Rougon-Macquart family. This book establishes the origins of the two branches of the Rougon- Macquart family.
The importance of this book to the rest of the series is shown in the quote on the back cover:
‘He thought he could see, in a flash, the future of the Rougon-Macquart family, a pack of wild satiated appetites in the midst of a blaze of gold and blood.’
Summer Links
After quite a lengthy beginning let’s get back to the book!
I am writing this blog at the same time as writing my blog on Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks. Subtitled, as a I mentioned ‘The Decline of a Family’.
This Zola is in fact the exact opposite being entitled, ‘The Fortunes of the Rougons’, it details how the Rougon Family used the republican resistance to Louis Napoleon Bonaparte coup’etat to further their position and influence in the fictional Provençal town of, Plassans.
I had to clue myself up in a bit of French history to understand the context of this novel, but everything you’d need to known is in some handy notes at the front of the book!
What about this book?
The Fortunes of the Rougons describes mainly how Pierre and Felicite Rougon (husband and wife), turn Louis-Napoleon’s coup d’état to their own social advantage. Louis Napoleon was the nephew of Emperor Napoleon, returning from political exile he put himself forward as a new presidential candidate, apparent freedom to all from the disorder of previous years.
Once elected, it became apparent to him he would be unable to renew his presidency, because of the constitution, so towards the end of his term he planned executed an elaborate coup to dissolve the Assembly (the separate government body from the Presidential office).
This was never going to be seen as a democratic move therefore leading to mass unrest, and the killing and imprisonment of innocent citizens.
Is it worth the read?
Although it isn’t the most straight forward of the Zola’s plots, the characters in this novel, establish the central familia traits of the Rougon Macquart family.
It this bloody establishment of this family and the character traits forwarded that proceed to the future descendants of the Rougon Macquart family, that we get to follow in Zola’s later books.
I would say his later books are the more shock-worthy ones, and therefore more exciting reads, but to understand the origins, this is still an important novel.
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