I was lucky enough to have an incredible history teacher assign Germinal in 9th grade, and its violence and vividness blew away my young misperceptions about “classic”/“old” novels. I reread it last month on a lark and was amazed how much I still remembered, decades later… age/long COVID/weed dementia have done a number on my memory but Germinal was, apparently, seared into my brain. I decided to keep going and attempt more from the cycle, starting with Nana… I found it dazzling for a bit, but it became a slog and I put it down.
Anyhow I’ve been delighted by the coincidence of your Zola journey, and vindicated/let off the hook by your Nana assessment. The LRB piece was wonderful, and I’m excited to resume with one of your premium Zola choices… I’ll never finish the full cycle, but I can at least tackle your remaining faves.
After reading your essay, I went to see The Beast last night— a French movie based on HJ’s Beast in the Jungle. I disliked it, but in addition to the James connection parts of it resonated strongly with your brilliant observations about resurgent naturalism (and fatalism) in the present moment. Another nice coincidence, even if the movie was otherwise a slog.
Write the Zola book! I'll buy it -- especially since François Camoin and I butted heads so hard on naturalism & realism while I was in grad school.
Eagerly awaiting the LRB piece in the post. Frankly, I think they're the best periodical out there these days -- congrats for the piece! and congrats to them for being smart enough to wait for as long as it took you to do it right.
Very exciting content! Your writing reminded me of a line in L’Œuvre which for me is one of the most crucial to the series - ‘we who no longer believe in God, still believe in our own immortality’. The characters are subject to the stated intention of the Rougon-Macquart, and yet are confronted by its limitations on every page. Their humanity manifests in a desire to create something inhuman, to transcend their material conditions, which Zola the author is able to manifest. In the LRB piece, it is so interesting how you describe Zola’s poetry of silence when silence seems so fundamentally at odds with writing, creating meaning through words. Almost every character in the series is fixated by this desire for more than their reality which utterly undermines the supposed point of the project, in the most beautiful and human way. I could say a lot more but suffice to say this made me think a lot.
A heroic undertaking! I can't wait to read in the paper LRB. Zola has a special place in my heart as he saved my undergraduate degree from ignominy. At the v last moment in my French modrn literature exam, I decided to write an essay arguing that Houellebecq's then pretty-new Atomised was a natural evolution of Zola's naturalism... and I got the best mark on that paper and scraped through. Probably because the marker hadn't read Houellebecq. But still. Go naturalism!
i really enjoyed the LRB piece!! i’ve read Germinal, The Ladies Paradise, and Nana over the last few months (i was also very ready for Nana to be over by the time it ended) and now i want to dive back into a new one
and please write a Zola book, i would definitely read it! regardless, i’m looking forward to any other Zola essays you post
I was lucky enough to have an incredible history teacher assign Germinal in 9th grade, and its violence and vividness blew away my young misperceptions about “classic”/“old” novels. I reread it last month on a lark and was amazed how much I still remembered, decades later… age/long COVID/weed dementia have done a number on my memory but Germinal was, apparently, seared into my brain. I decided to keep going and attempt more from the cycle, starting with Nana… I found it dazzling for a bit, but it became a slog and I put it down.
Anyhow I’ve been delighted by the coincidence of your Zola journey, and vindicated/let off the hook by your Nana assessment. The LRB piece was wonderful, and I’m excited to resume with one of your premium Zola choices… I’ll never finish the full cycle, but I can at least tackle your remaining faves.
After reading your essay, I went to see The Beast last night— a French movie based on HJ’s Beast in the Jungle. I disliked it, but in addition to the James connection parts of it resonated strongly with your brilliant observations about resurgent naturalism (and fatalism) in the present moment. Another nice coincidence, even if the movie was otherwise a slog.
Write the Zola book! I'll buy it -- especially since François Camoin and I butted heads so hard on naturalism & realism while I was in grad school.
Eagerly awaiting the LRB piece in the post. Frankly, I think they're the best periodical out there these days -- congrats for the piece! and congrats to them for being smart enough to wait for as long as it took you to do it right.
Holy smokes! That first paragraph! All you have done in two years moves me to put down the crossword and get to work!
Come for the Zola, stay for the canny use of "pleiotropic" at just the right moment. Damn!
You write the Zola, and I'll read it.
Any recs of where to start if you haven't read any of Zola yet?
I really enjoyed your Zola essay. I learned a lot and now I want to read some Zola.
Very exciting content! Your writing reminded me of a line in L’Œuvre which for me is one of the most crucial to the series - ‘we who no longer believe in God, still believe in our own immortality’. The characters are subject to the stated intention of the Rougon-Macquart, and yet are confronted by its limitations on every page. Their humanity manifests in a desire to create something inhuman, to transcend their material conditions, which Zola the author is able to manifest. In the LRB piece, it is so interesting how you describe Zola’s poetry of silence when silence seems so fundamentally at odds with writing, creating meaning through words. Almost every character in the series is fixated by this desire for more than their reality which utterly undermines the supposed point of the project, in the most beautiful and human way. I could say a lot more but suffice to say this made me think a lot.
A heroic undertaking! I can't wait to read in the paper LRB. Zola has a special place in my heart as he saved my undergraduate degree from ignominy. At the v last moment in my French modrn literature exam, I decided to write an essay arguing that Houellebecq's then pretty-new Atomised was a natural evolution of Zola's naturalism... and I got the best mark on that paper and scraped through. Probably because the marker hadn't read Houellebecq. But still. Go naturalism!
Congratulations!
Will read. It was an essay on realism and naturalism in 19th century French lit that got me into Cambridge nearly 40 years ago.
Marvelous! merveilleux!
I look forward to reading the LRB piece! Congrats!
i really enjoyed the LRB piece!! i’ve read Germinal, The Ladies Paradise, and Nana over the last few months (i was also very ready for Nana to be over by the time it ended) and now i want to dive back into a new one
and please write a Zola book, i would definitely read it! regardless, i’m looking forward to any other Zola essays you post
A remarkable achievement in its own right-- but the fact that you did *THIS* in addition to everything else named in that first paragraph?! WELL.
Can't wait for the book.
How exciting! Congratulations on your piece and I look forward to more on Zola here.