Emile Zola; France Paris; 04/02/1840 - 09/29/1902
Émile Zola is enough famous writer of his time. He is one of the brightest representatives of the realism of the 19th century and the leader of the naturalistic movement of that time. All Zola's works are scientific and well planned. He is trying to bring the literature of his time to a qualitatively new scientific level. At the same time, almost all the works of the author are tragic. The construction of the novels is done in such a way that one catastrophe is followed by the next, until the catastrophe that decides everything happens.
Biography of Emile Zola
Emile Zola was born in the family of an engineer. But already at the age of seven, the father dies and leaves the family in a very poor financial situation. Hoping for the help of his friends, the family moves to Paris. At 22, Emil gets a job at the Hachette publishing house, but after working there for less than 4 years, he quits. His hopes are connected with literary activity. And in 1865, the author's first work, Claude's Confession, was published. The work received scandalous fame due to the protection of Manet's painting in it.
In 1868, the author begins work on his main series in life - Rougon-Macquart. This series of works describes several generations and branches of one family at once. At the same time, a hereditary trait in each generation is clearly traced in it. All families in the Rougon-Macquart cycle originate from one woman who suffers from dementia. She has three sons, one legitimately born and two illegitimate, from whom there are three branches of development. The first branch is a fairly well-known family, the second branch is representatives of rake and priests, and the third family is extremely unbalanced people, since their father was an alcoholic. The first books in the series were rather coolly received by the public. Therefore, Emil even had to catch sparrows for lunch. But the seventh book in the series - "The Trap" brought the author the long-awaited fame and fortune.
Books by Emile Zola on Top Books website
Emile Zola got into our rating with the book "Earth" and the novel "Career of the Rougons". These are two representatives of the Rougon-Macquart series, which has received the greatest respect in our country. After all, it is this cycle of novels by Emile Zola that is advised to read in educational institutions to get acquainted with the work of the writer. In part, it was the entry of books into school curriculum allowed them to take a fairly high place in our rating. You can get acquainted with all the books of Emile Zola in more detail below.
All books by Emile Zola
- Tales of Ninon
- New Tales of Ninon
- Teresa Raquin
- Experimental novel
Years of life: from 04/02/1840 to 09/28/1902
French writer and public figure. One of the founders and ideologists of naturalism in literature.
Emile Zola, whose works occupy leading place in French naturalism, was himself half French. Half Greek, half Italian, his father was a civil engineer in Provence, where he led the construction water networks city of Aix. Mother Zola, originally from northern France, was a hardworking, disciplined woman. She could not find a use for herself in a cheerful, cheerful Provence. Emil's father died when the boy was six years old, leaving his wife alone with increasing poverty and a lawsuit against the city of Aix. Much in Zola's work can be explained by the reaction to the views of his strong, domineering mother, to her dissatisfaction with the bourgeoisie, who did not accept this woman, to the hatred she had for the local poor, afraid to slide to the same level. If the thesis is true that the best critics of society are those whose own position in this society is flawed, then Zola really was destined for the role of a social novelist, and his work was a kind of revenge on the city of Aix. The result of the influence of the mother can also be considered that Zola chose sexual themes in order to express his rejection of the society that rejected him. The poor are promiscuous, the middle class is hypocritical, the aristocracy is vicious - these ideas run like a red thread through all Zola's novels.
From the age of seventeen to twenty-seven, Zola led a bohemian life without succeeding in anything. He studied in Paris and Marseille but never graduated. He wrote articles for newspapers, including those on the arts. At one time, Zola rented an apartment with his childhood friend from Aix, the artist Cezanne. He also worked as an employee for the Parisian publisher and bookseller Ashette. At times, his financial situation was so difficult that he had to catch sparrows in the attics and roast them. Zola had a mistress - Alexandrina Meley, a serious, prudent girl, with developed maternal instincts and the ambition of a middle-class person. Even Zola's mother approved of their relationship. This relationship gave the writer much-needed emotional calm for his work. In 1870 Alexandrina and Emil got married.
Zola considered his life's work a series of twenty novels, conceived in imitation of Balzac's Human Comedy and tracing the fate of one family during the Second Empire. The ancestor of this family came from the city of Plassant in Provence (obviously Aix). Legitimate descendants, the Rugon family, are very active, smart people who supported Louis Napoleon during the coup of 1851 and came to power with him. One of them, Eugene, becomes a minister in the government, where his natural unscrupulousness promotes a career. The other, illegal branch of the family, the Mouret are middle-class entrepreneurs. One of the members of this family opens a huge department store in Paris and builds his fortune on the ruin of small competitors. Another illegal branch is Makkara. These are proletarians, from whose midst come thieves, prostitutes, and alcoholics. Among them are Nana and Etienne - the main characters of the two novels considered in this book. Zola's task is to explore every corner of French society, to reveal the vices that reign there. His novels are a series of consistent attacks on the officially proclaimed ideals of that time: the honor of the army, the piety of the clergy, the sanctity of the family, the work of the peasant, the glory of the empire.
The intended novels had just begun to be created when the Second Empire unexpectedly collapsed. The flow of events forced Zola to compress the time frame of the novels, and this was done quite clumsily. These novels create situations that are more suited to the seventies and eighties than to the fifties and sixties. The defeat of France at Sedan gave Zola material for the creation of a large military novel, Defeat. Other important works that stand apart from those already mentioned are The Earth, a dark and violent study of peasant life, and The Trap, a description of the degradation of the human personality under the influence of alcohol. Although the main characters of these works are related, each of the novels has its own merits and can be read independently of the others.
Zola, who once worked as a journalist, knew very well that books that touch people's feelings bring income. His works, written with this in mind, made their author rich. Over time, he satisfied the ambitions of a man who owes everything only to himself. Zola moved into a "chic" house in a fashionable area and furnished it with luxurious pomp. Zola was never able to achieve his other conceited goal - to get into the French Academy, despite all his efforts, although he remained in history as her "eternal candidate".
Enemies tried to present the writer as a monster of vice, bathing in garbage. His defenders, on the contrary, saw in him a fierce moralist, denouncing the vices of the era. Zola himself preferred to be an independent and objective scientist, investigating the results of the influence of heredity and environment on the human personality. In this he resembles the French historian Taine, who argued that vice and goodness are the same natural products as sugar and vitriol. Zola was certainly not a scientist. He had to rely on the psychology of the time, which was based on purely materialistic views. Thus, it was recognized that antisocial behavior is the result of the degeneration of the nervous system, which is inherited. Zola was so fascinated by the prestige of science that he regarded his novels as laboratories where experiments are carried out with heredity placed in certain conditions of existence. The writer also described the reaction of heredity to these conditions. Similar theoretical views are reflected in Zola's "Experimental Novel". Probably few authors could show such a lack of understanding of their own creative process.
Zola's own literary practice is better known under the name "naturalism". She established traditions somewhat different from Flaubert's early realism. Togo was equally interested in the phenomena of things, and the truthful reproduction of reality. But he had no inclination to describe vices and ugliness. Moreover, Flaubert's realism was a literary program devoid of any metaphysics. That is why the impact of these two writers was different. Flaubert's followers were sophisticated stylists concerned with the perfection of art for art's sake, while Zola's followers were more heavy-handed social novelists like Frank Norris.
As soon as the Rougon-Macquarts were written, Zola chose a different, more optimistic direction in literature. He began to sincerely believe that society is capable of correcting itself. Hints of this appear already in the novel "Germinal". This is more evident in the work "Labor", which depicts a utopian, socialist society. One reason for this turn of events can be found in the change in Zola's personal life. For many years, his marriage to Alexandrina was overshadowed by infertility. In 1888, he falls in love with a young washerwoman, Jeanne Rozera, buys her a house and, much to his joy, becomes the father of two children. When rumors of this reached Madame Zola, she smashed some of her husband's luxurious furniture in a rage. But Zola's new relationship brought relief from self-doubt as a man. Over time, he achieves satisfaction, but his work gradually loses its power and becomes almost sentimental.
His famous defense of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish captain in the French army convicted on trumped-up charges of espionage that shook the Third Republic to its foundations, however, was anything but sentimental. In this case, the writer's opponents were old enemies - the army, the church, the government, the upper strata of society, anti-Semites, wealthy people, who today would be called the "establishment". The salvo that Zola sent to this end was a letter addressed to President Fauré and published in the Aurora - "I accuse." Zola deliberately went on the charge of defamation and succeeded in this. The courtroom became the arena he wanted to acquire. The court delivered a guilty verdict, against which an appeal was filed. The second trial began, but shortly before the verdict, Zola, reluctantly and on the advice of lawyers, left for England. Here he courageously endured all the inconveniences of the English climate and cuisine, until the honor and dignity of Dreyfus were restored.
Emile Zola (fr. Émile Zola). Born April 2, 1840 in Paris - died September 29, 1902 in Paris. French writer, essayist and politician.
One of the most significant representatives of realism of the second half of XIX century - the leader and theorist of the so-called naturalistic movement, Zola stood at the center of the literary life of France in the last thirty years of the 19th century and was associated with the largest writers of this time ("Dinners of Five" (1874) - with the participation of Gustave Flaubert, Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, Alphonse Daudet and Edmond Goncourt, Medan Evenings (1880) - a famous collection that included works by Zola himself, Joris Carl Huysmans, Guy de Maupassant and a number of minor naturalists like Henri Cear, Léon Ennick and Paul Alexis).
The son of an engineer of Italian origin who took French citizenship (in Italian, the surname is read as Zola), who built a canal in Aix. My literary activity Zola started as a journalist (collaboration with L'Evénement, Le Figaro, Le Rappel, Tribune); many of his first novels are typical "feuilleton novels" ("The Secrets of Marseille" - "Les mystères de Marseille", 1867). Throughout the subsequent course of his career, Zola retains contact with journalism (collections of articles: "Mes haines", 1866, "Une campagne", 1881, "Nouvelle campagne", 1886). These speeches are a sign of his active participation in political life.
The political biography of Zola is not rich in events. This is a biography of a liberal living in the days of the formation of an industrial society. In the last period of his life, Zola gravitated towards the socialist worldview, without going beyond the framework of radicalism. How highest point Zola's political biography should be marked by his participation in the Dreyfus affair, which exposed the contradictions of France in the 1890s - the famous article "J'accuse" ("I accuse"), for which the writer paid with exile in England (1898).
Zola died in Paris from carbon monoxide poisoning, according to the official version - due to a malfunction of the chimney in the fireplace. His last words to his wife were: “I feel bad, my head is splitting. Look, the dog is sick too. We must have eaten something. Nothing, everything will pass. There is no need to disturb anyone ... ". Contemporaries suspected that it could be a murder, but they could not find irrefutable evidence for this theory.
Emile Zola was married twice, he had two children from his second wife Jeanne Rosero.
A crater on Mercury is named after Emile Zola.
Zola's first literary performances date back to the 1860s - Tales to Ninon (Contes à Ninon, 1864), Claude's Confession (La confession de Claude, 1865), Testament of the Dead (Le vœu d "une morte, 1866 ), "Marseille secrets".
The young Zola is rapidly approaching his main works, the central node of his creative activity - the twenty-volume series "Rougon-Macquarts" (Les Rougon-Macquarts). Already the novel "Thérèse Raquin" (Thérèse Raquin, 1867) contained the main elements of the content of the grandiose "Natural and social history of a family in the era of the Second Empire."
Zola goes to great lengths to show how the laws of heredity affect individual members of the Rougon-Macquart family. The whole huge epic is connected by a carefully developed plan based on the principle of heredity - in all the novels of the series, members of the same family appear, so widely branched that its processes penetrate both the highest layers of France and its deepest bottoms.
The latest novel in the series includes the Rougon-Macquart family tree, which is meant to serve as a guide to the highly intricate maze of kinship relationships that underlies the grand epic system. The real and truly deep content of the work is, of course, not this side, connected with the problems of physiology and heredity, but those social images that are given in Rougon-Macquarts. With the same concentration with which the author systematized the "natural" (physiological) content of the series, we must systematize and understand its social content, the interest of which is exceptional.
Zola's style is contradictory in its essence. First of all, it is a petty-bourgeois style in an extremely vivid, consistent and complete expression, - Rougon-Macquarts is not by chance a "family romance", - Zola gives here a very complete, direct, very organic, in all its elements vital disclosure of the being of the petty bourgeoisie . The artist's vision is distinguished by exceptional integrity, capacity, but it is precisely the petty-bourgeois content that he interprets with the deepest penetration.
Here we enter the realm of the intimate - from the portrait, which occupies a prominent place, to the characteristics of the objective environment (remember the magnificent interiors of Zola), to those psychological complexes that arise before us - everything is given in exceptionally soft lines, everything is sentimentalized. This is a kind of "pink period". The novel The Joy of Living (La joie de vivre, 1884) can be seen as the most holistic expression of this moment in Zola's style.
It is planned in the novels of Zola and the desire to turn to the idyll - from real life images to a kind of philistine fantasy. In the novel "Page of Love" (Une page d "amour, 1878), an idyllic image of a petty-bourgeois environment is given while maintaining real everyday proportions. In "Dream" (Le Rêve, 1888), the real motivation has already been eliminated, the idyll is given in a naked fantastic form.
Something similar is also found in the novel The Crime of Abbé Mouret (La faute de l "abbé Mouret, 1875) with its fantastic Parade and fantastic Albina. "Petty-bourgeois happiness" is given in the style of Zola as something falling, being forced out, fading into oblivion. All this stands under the sign of damage, crisis, has a "fatal" character. In the named novel "The Joy of Living", next to the holistic, complete, deep disclosure of petty-bourgeois life, which is poeticized, the problem of tragic doom, the impending death of this life is given. The novel is constructed in a peculiar way: the melting of money determines the development of the drama of the virtuous Chanteau, the economic catastrophe that destroys "philistine happiness" seems to be the main content of the drama.
This is expressed even more fully in the novel The Conquest of Plassans (La conquête de Plassans, 1874), where the collapse of petty-bourgeois well-being, an economic disaster is interpreted as a tragedy of a monumental nature. We meet with a whole series of such "falls" - constantly recognized as events of cosmic importance (a family entangled in insoluble contradictions in the novel "The Beast Man" (La bête humaine, 1890), old Baudu, Burra in the novel "Lady's happiness" (Au bonheur des dames, 1883)). When his economic well-being collapses, the tradesman is convinced that the whole world is collapsing - economic disasters in Zola's novels are marked by such specific hyperbolization.
The petty bourgeois, experiencing his decline, receives from Zola a complete and complete expression. It is shown from different sides, revealing its essence in an era of crisis, it is given as a unity of many-sided manifestations. First of all, he is a petty bourgeois who is going through the drama of economic disintegration. Such is Mouret in The Conquest of Plassant, this new petty-bourgeois Job, such are the virtuous rentiers of Chanteau in The Joy of Living, such are the heroic shopkeepers, swept away by capitalist development, in the novel Lady's Happiness.
Saints, martyrs and sufferers, like the touching Pauline in The Joy of Living, or the unfortunate René in La curée (1872), or the gentle Angelica in The Dream, which Albina so closely resembles in The Crime of the Abbé Mouret, - here is a new form of the social essence of the "heroes" of Zola. These people are characterized by passivity, lack of will, Christian humility, humility. All of them are distinguished by idyllic good-heartedness, but they are all crushed by cruel reality. The tragic doom of these people, their death, despite all the attractiveness, the beauty of these "wonderful creatures", the fatal inevitability of their gloomy fate - all this is an expression of the same conflict that determined the drama of Mouret, whose economy was collapsing, in the pathetic novel "The Conquest of Plassant ". The essence here is one, - only the form of the phenomenon is different.
As the most consistent form of the psychology of the petty bourgeoisie, numerous truth-seekers are given in Zola's novels. All of them are striving somewhere, embraced by some hopes. But it immediately turns out that their hopes are vain, and their aspirations are blind. The hunted Floran from the novel The Belly of Paris (Le ventre de Paris, 1873), or the unfortunate Claude from Creativity (L "œuvre, 1886), or the vegetating romantic revolutionary from the novel Money (L'argent, 1891), or the restless Lazarus from The Joy of Living - all these seekers are equally groundless and wingless. None of them is given to achieve, none of them rises to victory.
These are the main aspirations of the hero Zola. As you can see, they are versatile. The more complete and concrete is the unity in which they converge. The psychology of the declining petty bourgeois receives an unusually deep, holistic interpretation from Zola.
Two novels about the working class - "The Trap" (L "assomoir, 1877) and "Germinal" (Germinal, 1885) - seem to be characteristic works in the sense that here the problem of the proletariat is refracted in the petty-bourgeois worldview. These novels can be called novels about the "class neighborhood". Zola himself warned that his novels about workers are aimed at streamlining, improving the system of relations of bourgeois society and are by no means "seditious". These works contain a lot of objectively true in the sense of depicting the modern Zola proletariat.
The existence of this social group in the works of Zola is full of the greatest tragedy. Everything here is engulfed in confusion, everything stands under the sign of the inevitability of fate. The pessimism of Zola's novels finds expression in their peculiar, "catastrophic" structure. The contradiction is always resolved in such a way that a tragic death is a necessity. All these Zola novels have the same development - from shock to shock, from one paroxysm to another, the action unfolds in order to come to a catastrophe that blows everything up.
This tragic realization of reality is very specific to Zola - here lies the characteristic feature of his style. Along with this, an attitude towards the petty-bourgeois world arises, which can be called sentimentalizing.
In the novel "Money" the stock exchange appears as something opposite to the degrading petty bourgeoisie; in "Ladies' happiness" - a grandiose department store is revealed as an affirmation of a new reality; the railway in the novel "The Man-Beast", the market with all the most complex system of commodity economy in the novel "The Belly of Paris", the city house, presented as a grandiose "machine pour vivre".
The nature of the interpretation of these new images is sharply different from everything portrayed by Zola before. Things dominate here, human experiences are pushed aside by the problems of management and organization, the artist deals with completely new matters - his art is freed from sentimentalism.
New human figures also appear in Zola's works. These are no longer petty-bourgeois Jobs, not sufferers, not vain seekers, but predators. They succeed. They achieve everything. Aristide Saccard - a brilliant rogue in the novel "Money", Octave Mouret - a high-flying capitalist entrepreneur, owner of the "Ladies' happiness" store, bureaucratic predator Eugene Rougon in the novel "His Excellency Eugene Rougon" (1876) - these are the new images.
Zola gives a fairly complete, versatile, detailed concept of it - from a predator-acquirer like Abbé Fauges in "The Conquest of Plassant" to a real knight of capitalist expansion, like Octave Mouret. It is constantly emphasized that despite the difference in scale, all these people are predators, invaders, pushing out the respectable people of that patriarchal petty-bourgeois world, which, as we have seen, was poetized.
The image of a predator, a capitalist businessman, is given in the same aspect with the material image (market, stock exchange, shop), which occupies such a significant place in the system of Zola's style. The assessment of predation is also transferred to the material world. Thus, the Parisian market and the general store become something monstrous. In the style of Zola, the objective image and the image of the capitalist predator must be considered as a single expression, as two sides of the world, which the artist knows, adapting to the new socio-economic order.
In the novel "Lady's Happiness" a clash of two essences is given - petty-bourgeois and capitalist. On the bones of the ruined small shopkeepers, a huge capitalist enterprise arises - the whole course of the conflict is presented in such a way that "justice" remains on the side of the oppressed. They are defeated in the struggle, destroyed in fact, but morally they triumph. This resolution of the contradiction in The Lady's Happiness is very characteristic of Zola. Here the artist bifurcates between the past and the present: on the one hand, he is deeply connected with the collapsing being, on the other hand, he already thinks himself in unity with the new way of life, he is already free enough to imagine the world in its real connections, in its fullness. content.
Zola's work is scientific, he is distinguished by the desire to raise literary "production" to the level scientific knowledge of his time. His creative method was substantiated in a special work - "Experimental Novel" (Le roman expérimental, 1880). Here you can see how consistently the artist pursues the principle of unity of scientific and artistic thinking. "The 'experimental novel' is the logical consequence of the scientific evolution of our century," says Zola, summing up his theory of the creative method, which is the transfer of techniques into literature scientific research(in particular, Zola relies on the work of the famous physiologist Claude Bernard). The entire Rougon-Macquart series was carried out in terms of scientific research carried out in accordance with the principles of the "Experimental Novel". The scientific nature of Zola is evidence of the artist's close connection with the main trends of his era.
The grandiose series of "Rougon-Macquart" is oversaturated with elements of planning, the scheme of the scientific organization of this work seemed to Zola an essential necessity. The plan of scientific organization, the scientific method of thinking - these are the main provisions that can be considered the starting points for Zola's style.
Moreover, he was a fetishist for the scientific organization of the work. His art constantly violates the boundaries of his theory, but the very nature of Zola's planned and organizational fetishism is quite specific. This is where the characteristic mode of presentation that distinguishes the ideologists of the technical intelligentsia comes into play. The organizational shell of reality is constantly taken by them for the whole of reality, the form replaces the content. Zola expressed in his hypertrophies of plan and organization the typical consciousness of the ideologist of the technical intelligentsia. Approximation to the era was carried out through a kind of "technization" of the bourgeois, who realized his inability to organize and plan (for this inability he is always castigated by Zola - "Happiness of the Ladies"); Zola's knowledge of the era of the capitalist upsurge is realized through planned, organizational and technical fetishism. The theory of the creative method developed by Zola, the specificity of his style, which is exposed in the moments turned to the capitalist era, goes back to this fetishism.
The novel "Docteur Pascal" (Docteur Pascal, 1893), which completes the Rougon-Macquart series, can serve as an example of such fetishism - the issues of organization, systematics, and construction of the novel stand out in the first place here. This novel also reveals a new human image. Dr. Pascal is something new in relation to both the falling philistines and the victorious capitalist predators. The engineer Gamelin in Money, the capitalist reformer in Travail (1901) are all varieties of the new image. It is not developed enough in Zola, it is only outlined, only becoming, but its essence is already quite clear.
The figure of Dr. Pascal is the first schematic sketch of the reformist illusion, which expresses the fact that the petty bourgeoisie, the form of practice of which Zola's style represents, "technicalizing", reconciles itself with the era.
The typical features of the consciousness of the technical intelligentsia, above all the fetishism of the plan, system and organization, are transferred to a number of images of the capitalist world. Such, for example, is Octave Mouret from The Ladies' Happiness, not only a great predator, but also a great innovator. Reality, which until recently was assessed as a hostile world, is now perceived in terms of some kind of “organizational” illusion. The chaotic world, the brutal cruelty of which was proved only recently, is now beginning to be presented in pink clothes of the “plan”, not only a novel, but also social reality is planned on scientific foundations.
Zola, who always gravitated towards turning his creativity into a tool for "reforming", "improving" reality (this was reflected in the didacticism and rhetoric of his poetic technique), now comes to "organizational" utopias.
The unfinished series of "Gospels" ("Fecundity" - "Fécondité", 1899, "Labor", "Justice" - "Vérité", 1902) expresses this new stage in Zola's work. Moments of organizational fetishism, always characteristic of Zola, here receive a particularly consistent development. Reformism is becoming an ever more exciting, dominating element here. Fertility creates a utopia about the planned reproduction of mankind, this gospel turns into a pathetic demonstration against the fall in the birth rate in France.
In the interval between the series - "Rougon-Macquarts" and "Gospels" - Zola wrote his anti-clerical trilogy "Cities": "Lourdes" (Lourdes, 1894), "Rome" (Rome, 1896), "Paris" (Paris, 1898) . The drama of Abbé Pierre Froment, seeking justice, is given as a moment of criticism of the capitalist world, opening up the possibility of reconciliation with it. The sons of the restless abbot, who has taken off his cassock, act as evangelists of reformist renewal.
Zola gained popularity in Russia several years earlier than in France. Already "Contes à Ninon" was marked by a sympathetic review ("Notes of the Fatherland", 1865, vol. 158, pp. 226-227). With the advent of translations of the first two volumes of "Rougon-Maccarov" ("Bulletin of Europe", 1872, books 7 and 8), its assimilation by a wide readership began. Translations of Zola's works came out with cuts for censorship reasons, the edition of the novel La curee, published in the ed. Karbasnikova (1874) was destroyed.
The novel Le ventre de Paris, simultaneously translated by Del, Vestnik Evropy, Otechestvennye Zapiski, Russkiy Vestnik, Iskra, and Bibl. desh and public." and published in two separate editions, finally established Zola's reputation in Russia.
In the 1870s Zola was assimilated mainly by two groups of readers - the radical raznochintsy and the liberal bourgeoisie. The first were attracted by sketches of the predatory mores of the bourgeoisie, which we used in our struggle against the fascination with the possibilities of Russia's capitalist development. The latter found in Zola material that clarified their own position. Both groups showed great interest in the theory of the scientific novel, seeing in it a solution to the problem of constructing tendentious fiction (Boborykin P. A real novel in France // Otechestvennye zapiski. 1876. Books 6, 7).
The Russkiy Vestnik took advantage of the pallid portrayal of the Republicans in La fortune de Rougon and Le ventre de Paris to combat the hostile ideology of the radicals. From March 1875 to December 1880, Zola collaborated on Vestnik Evropy. The 64 "Paris Letters" published here were composed of social and everyday essays, stories, literary-critical correspondence, art and theater criticism, and set forth for the first time the foundations of "naturalism". Although successful, Zola's correspondence caused disillusionment among radical circles in the theory of the experimental novel. This entailed, with little success in Russia, such works by Zola as "L'assomoir", "Une page d'amour", and the scandalous fame of "Nana", a drop in Zola's authority (Basardin V. The latest Nana-turalism // Delo. 1880 Books 3 and 5, Temlinsky S. Zolaism in Russia, Moscow, 1880).
From the beginning of the 1880s. the literary influence of Zola became noticeable (in the stories “Varenka Ulmina” by L. Ya. Stechkina, “Stolen Happiness” by Vas. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, “Kennel”, “Training”, “Young” by P. Boborykin). This influence was insignificant, and most of all it affected P. Boborykin and M. Belinsky (I. Yasinsky).
In the 1880s and the first half of the 1890s. Zola's novels did not enjoy ideological influence and were circulated mainly in bourgeois reading circles (translations were published regularly in "Kn. Nedelya" and "Observer"). In the 1890s Zola again acquired a major ideological influence in Russia in connection with the echoes of the Dreyfus affair, when a noisy controversy arose around the name of Zola in Russia (“Emile Zola and Captain Dreyfus. A New Sensational Novel”, vol. I-XII, Warsaw, 1898).
Zola's latest novels were published in Russian translations in 10 or more editions at the same time. In the 1900s, especially after 1905, interest in Zola noticeably subsided, only to revive again after 1917. Even earlier, Zola's novels received the function of propaganda material ("Labor and Capital", a story based on Zola's novel "In the Mine" ("Germinal" ), Simbirsk, 1908) (V. M. Friche, Emil Zola (To whom the proletariat erects monuments), M., 1919).
Emile Zola. Biography and review of creativity
1840-1902
Emile Zola is a writer who most fully reflected the life of French society in the second half of the 19th century. Zola continued the traditions of "great French literature" - Stendhal, Balzac, Flaubert.
French critical realism in this era did not escape the influence of the reactionary bourgeois ideology, losing many of its achievements. That is why Engels wrote that he considers Balzac "... a much greater master of realism than all the Zolas of the past, present and future ...". But at the same time, the development of realism did not stop, it acquired new qualities, new themes.
Zola was the son of his era. And this was reflected in the contradictions of his worldview and creativity. He sought to "enrich" realism with the techniques of naturalism, which, in his opinion, met the requirements of modernity. This was a delusion of Zola, who did not understand the inferiority of the foundations of naturalism.
Zola was one of the theorists of naturalism, but Zola's aesthetics cannot be reduced to the doctrine of naturalism. She is contradictory. Realistic and naturalistic tendencies struggle in it. In the work of Zola, although it pays tribute to naturalism, the realistic tradition triumphs. This allowed M. Gorky to say that "one can study an entire era based on the novels of Emile Zola."
Around the name of Zola there are constant disputes that began during his lifetime. The reaction will never forgive the great writer for his denunciatory works, tireless and passionate struggle in the name of justice, democracy, humanism. Progressive criticism seeks to fully reveal and explain the contradictions of Zola, pointing to the main direction of the writer's creative activity.
Zola's biography
Emile Zola was born on April 2, 1840 in Paris, but he spent his childhood in the south of France, in the Provencal town of Aix. His father, an Italian, was a talented engineer, builder railway and channel, inventor. He died in 1847, leaving his family completely unprovided.
In 1858 E. Zola moved to Paris. An attempt to complete his education by passing the bachelor's degree examination was unsuccessful. The difficulties of a beggarly life began, without constant work, in a huge, indifferent city. But Zola stubbornly continued to write poetry, poems, although, according to Maupassant, they were "sluggish and impersonal."
With difficulty, Zola managed in 1862 to get a permanent job in a book publishing house as a packer in a warehouse. During these years, Zola began to write chronicles and literary criticism for newspapers. Journalism turned out to be a very useful school, developing in him an attention to reality. He soon left the publishing house, devoting himself entirely to literary work.
In 1864, Zola published a collection of short stories, Tales of Ninon. Zola's early novels, such as Claude's Confession (1865), The Testament of a Dead Woman (1866), and The Mysteries of Marseilles (1867), are not distinguished by their originality. But gradually Zola freed herself from the epigone adherence to romanticism, characteristic of his early works. The passion for the poetry of the romantics is replaced by a growing interest in the work of the realists Balzac, Flaubert, in the naturalistic theories of the critic and literary historian Hippolyte Taine.
In Thérèse Raquin (1867) and Madeleine Férat (1868), Zola creates examples of the naturalistic novel. In the first of them, the writer set the task of “clinically examining” the feeling of remorse that Teresa possesses, who, together with her lover, killed her husband. Despite some realistic moments that attract the reader, the novel is naturalistic. Zola was constantly developing the theory of naturalism. He wrote many literary-critical articles, most fully expounding the principles of naturalism in the Experimental Novel (1880), Natural Novelists, Naturalism in the Theater (1881).
Zola's creative heritage is very diverse. It consists of several collections of short stories, collections of literary criticism and journalistic articles, several dramatic works (the play The Heirs of Rabourdain, 1874 is especially famous), but novels occupy the first place in it in terms of value and volume.
Zola has an idea for a grandiose epic, like Balzac's The Human Comedy. He decides to create "a natural and social history of one family during the period of the Second Empire", striving at the same time to embody in it the provisions of naturalism. For about 25 years he has been working on the epic Rougon-Macquart, which reflects the history of French society from 1851 to 1871.
Over the long years of work on Rougon-Macquarts, Zola's views on life have changed significantly. The social contradictions of the reality of the Third Republic force Zola, the theorist of naturalism, to abandon objectivism in his best works, actively intervene in life, focus not on the biological, “natural”, but on the social history of society. Zola showed himself to be a remarkable realist artist, creating with his novels, according to Gorky, “an excellent history of the Second Empire. He told it in the way that only an artist can tell a story .. He knew perfectly well everything that needed to be known: financial scams, the clergy, artists, in general, he knew everything, the whole predatory epic and the whole collapse of the bourgeoisie, which first won in the 19th century and then on laurels of decaying victory.
The events of the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune had a huge impact on the writer. The events of the Franco-Prussian war are directly depicted by the writer in the novel Defeat (1892), as well as in the famous short story The Siege of the Mill, which, together with Maupassant's Dumpling, was included in the collection Medan Evenings (1880). In this short story, with great love, he showed ordinary people: the miller uncle Merlier, his daughter Francoise, the young man Dominique - modest and selfless patriots of France.
But bourgeois narrow-mindedness prevented the writer from fully understanding his people, who fought for freedom. He did not accept the Paris Commune, although the bloody terror of the Versailles provoked a sharp condemnation of Zola.
Zola's participation in the Dreyfus affair, his famous letter to the President of the Republic F. Faure "I accuse" (1898) is evidence of Zola's courage and passionate hatred for the enemies of truth and justice, militarists and clerics. The progressive public of the whole world warmly supported Zola, but the reaction subjected him to persecution. To avoid imprisonment, Zola was forced to leave France for a year.
In the 90s and 900s, after finishing work on Rougon-Macquarts, Zola created two more series of novels: the anti-clerical trilogy Three Cities (1894-1898) and the Four Gospels cycle (1899-1902), which reflected the author's passion for socialist ideas. Due to reformist delusions, Zola did not see the right path for the development of society, he could not come to scientific socialism, the ideas of which spread at the end of the 19th century. in France. And yet, in his last works, Zola I raised a number of the most acute social issues of our time, concluding: “The bourgeoisie betrays its revolutionary past ... It unites with reaction, clericalism, militarism. I must put forward the basic, decisive idea that the bourgeoisie has finished its role, that it has gone over to reaction in order to preserve its power and its wealth, and that all hope lies in the energy of the people. Salvation is only in the people.
Creative and social activity Zola was suddenly interrupted: he died in 1902 from intoxication. In 1908, the ashes of the writer were transferred to the Pantheon. The French people honor the memory of the great writer. His best novels - "Germinal", "Trap" - are still the most popular books in public libraries.
Aesthetic views of Zola
Formation of aesthetic views
Zola begins in the 60s. In 1864, he declared that of the three "screens" of art: classical, romantic, realistic - he prefers the last one. In the early collection of articles “My Hatred”, Zola defended the realistic art of Stendhal, Balzac, Courbet, and others. In his subsequent speeches, Zola talks about the advantages and disadvantages, from his point of view, of the artistic method of Stendhal and Balzac. He sees their strength in their closeness to reality, in its truthful reflection, in "a powerful ability to observe and analyze, to depict their era, and not fictional fairy tales." However, the invariable in the aesthetics of Zola, the craving for realism is often limited to a one-sided perception of the artistic method of the great realists, the desire to find support from them for naturalistic theory. Zola sometimes denies their strong points. Admiring Balzac, especially his "accurate analysis", he considers "unbridled imagination" as the weakness of this great artist. Deep generalizations, "exceptional" characters, which Balzac serves as a realistic typification, seem to Zola to be an excessive "exaggeration", a game of fiction. "only one statement of facts is given."
Paying tribute to the great realists, he finds much of their method outdated.
Zola seems impossible to develop modern realism without the use of achievements in the field of science. The appeal to science could play a positive role if it did not rely on the pseudo-scientific idealistic philosophy of positivism.
Zola was also negatively influenced by the theories of vulgar materialism, which distorted the achievements of the natural sciences and transferred the laws of nature to human society.
In an effort to link literature with the natural sciences, Zola was interested in the works of natural scientists and physicians: Claude Bernard (“Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine”), Letourneau (“Physiology of Passions”), the theories of heredity Lucas, Lombroso, etc.
In his theory of the "experimental novel", Zola argued that the writer must be a scientist. The task of the novelist is to create something like a scientific psychology that complements scientific physiology. But as a result of this “scientific research”, the social nature of the human psyche was not taken into account, physiology was brought to the fore, the image of a “man-beast” appeared, and the human in a person was belittled.
According to the theory of naturalism, the writer, creating a novel, conducts a kind of scientific experiment. Observing, documenting everything with strictly verified facts, he studies the influence of the environment on the hero. But the concept of environment here loses its social meaning, being determined only by biological, partly by everyday elements. With such a narrow concept of the environment, the theory of heredity, beloved by naturalists, is also connected, which asserts the innateness of vices.
Zola himself in his artistic practice, and in his aesthetic performances, often went beyond naturalism and determinism, understanding the environment as a social factor. Even in the "Experimental Novel" he wrote that "the main subject of our study is the constant impact of society on man and man on society." This was reflected in the contradictory views of Zola, the beneficial influence on him of the aesthetics of the great realists with their constant attention to the social conditions that shape the character of the hero. In most of Zola's novels, the understanding of the environment is undoubtedly social.
Rougon Macquart
The epic Rougon-Macquart (1871-1893) - the most outstanding creation of Zola - consists of 20 novels. The idea of this grandiose epic arose in 1868. The impetus for the work was the fascination with the fashionable theory of heredity. The writer decided to consider four generations of one family. But from the very beginning of his work, he did not limit himself to biological problems only. The author set two tasks: 1) "to study the issues of blood and environment on the example of one family", 2) "depict the entire Second Empire, from the coup d'état to the present day." Trying to fulfill the first, he compiled a genealogical tree of the Rougon-Macquart family, giving each member of the family a detailed medical description in terms of hereditary traits.
Having decided to write a history of several generations of Rougon-Macquarts, Zola sought to show the situation various classes and social groups of French society - the people, the bourgeoisie, the aristocracy, the clergy. It is no coincidence that the ramifications of the Rougon-Macquart family penetrate all social strata of France. But Zola is not satisfied with this. Oi populates his novels with a huge number of characters (the total number of characters in the series is about 1200), sometimes without family ties with the Rougon-Macquarts. And this is done by the artist for a more complete coverage of reality.
“It was necessary to study life perfectly in order to create an excellent history of the Second Empire, in order to lead the reader into all the nooks and crannies of the modern world ...” 1 wrote the pre-October Pravda about Zola.
For his epic, the novelist chose one of the most reactionary periods in the history of France. This is the "epoch of shame and madness" - the 1950s and 1960s, when the reactionary bourgeoisie and the government of Napoleon III, which served its interests, fought mercilessly against every manifestation of free thought, revolutionary traditions, and freedom of the press. Fearing the people, the bourgeoisie created a "strong government" that gave it unlimited opportunities to plunder the country.
The second empire collapsed. Its history ended with a tragic war and the Paris Commune. As a result of these events, much has changed in the views of Zola. The social line in Rougon-Macquarts was gradually strengthened at the expense of the biological line.
Rougon-Macquart is a complex and multifaceted work. It is possible to single out the leading themes in it, outline the main lines, although they will not cover the entire content of the epic. This is the depiction of the bourgeoisie in the novels The Career of the Rougons, The Booty, The Womb of Paris, The Scum, Money, and others. The life of the people is depicted in the novels The Trap, Germinal, and The Earth. The anti-clerical theme is found in the novels The Conquest of Plassant, ♦ The Misdemeanor of Abbé Mouret, and others. The theme of art and creativity is the novel Creativity.
There are in the series and works in which the main focus. devoted to the problem of heredity, - "Man-beast", "Doctor Pascal".
Novels about the bourgeoisie. "The Rougon Career"
In the first novel, The Career of the Rougons (1871), the genealogical lines of the Rougon-Macquart family are outlined. The ancestor of the family is the nervously ill Adelaide Fook, whose life is deeply tragic. Adelaide's children and grandchildren from her first marriage to the peasant Rougon and from her second marriage to the vagabond and drunkard Macquart act in the novel. The author traces
in the future, the influence of heredity, neurosis and alcoholism of parents on offspring, although this does not become the main thing. The Rougon branch is associated with the bourgeoisie. Makkarov is primarily with the people.
In the preface to the novel, Zola states: "The family that I am about to study is characterized by unbridled desires, the powerful desire of our age, eager for pleasure." The artist reveals these typically bourgeois, predatory traits of the Rougon family in the behavior of the characters in the events of 1851 that decide the fate of France. south of France. In essence, in the image of Zola, this town represents the whole of France.
The novel was mostly written under the empire, when Zola's hatred of Bonapartism was combined with an ardent faith in the Republic.
In a stagnant, provincial town, all affairs are handled by the bourgeoisie, nobles, and clergy. Petty disagreements between them disappear at the slightest threat from the people. To unite in order to "finish off the Republic" - such is the slogan of all who tremble for "their money". In the world of wealthy Plassanian inhabitants, the family of the former shopkeeper Rougon and his wife, the cunning, ambitious Felicite, stand out with a special hatred for the Republic and monstrous greed.
The sons of Rougon - Eugene and Aristide, not satisfied with the scale of Plassant, go to Paris. The crimes of these predators in Paris are as natural in the conditions of the empire as the prosperity of their parents in the provinces. Here, on a more modest scale, but with no less cruelty, the older Rougons act. Thanks to connections with their son Eugene, who rotates in the political elite, they learn about the impending Bonapartist coup and seize power in the city. They become "benefactors", "saviors" of the city from the "republican infection". They are showered with favors by the victorious empire, they seized upon the “state pie”.
Zola depicts the "menagerie", "yellow salon", Rougonov, uniting people who have nothing sacred but money. The cruelty of Pierre Rougon towards his old, sick and robbed mother is characteristic. It is no coincidence that "having nothing to do with the family" Dr. Pascal, the third son of the Rougons, observing the "yellow salon", likens its visitors to insects and animals: the Marquis de Carnavan reminds him of a large green grasshopper, Vuillet - a dull, slippery toad, Roudier - a fat ram .
The novel uniquely combines angry satire with high pathos, fanned by the breath of the revolution. It combines the satirical depiction of the Bonapartist clique with the romance of a popular uprising, dull gray colors with purple, the color of blood and banners.
The hot sympathy of the artist is on the side of the Republicans. He especially vividly describes the movement of the Republicans to Plassan, where the workers joined them. This procession of the people seems grandiose and majestic. The nobility and disinterestedness of the Republicans are visible in "faces transformed by spiritual uplift", "in heroic strength", "the simple-hearted gullibility of giants". The revolutionary impulse of the people is expressed by the writer hyperbolically, as something embracing nature itself, gigantic, sublime, romantic. Here, for the first time, the artist's skill in depicting the insurgent people is manifested.
Zola connects in this novel the fate of his positive characters - the grandson of Adelaide Silver and his beloved, the young Mietta - with the Republicans. Silver's purity, his disinterestedness, kindness distinguish this young man from the Rougon-Macquart family. He is the only one in the whole family who takes care of the sick old woman, his grandmother. Silver becomes a Republican, although this poor man, like many others, discovered during the years of the Republic born in 1848 that "not all is for the best in this best of republics."
The death of Silver and Mietta, as it were, personifies the death of the Republic. The family is involved in their murder: Aristide sees how Silver is being led to the execution, and does not interfere with this. Distraught with grief at the sight of her grandson's death, Adelaide curses her children, calling them a pack of wolves that devoured her only child.
Mining
Having shown in The Rougon's Career how the bourgeoisie came to power, Zola in his next novel, Prey (1871), painted a picture of a society "saved" from the revolution, which "blissed, rested, slept under the protection of firm power." Among the triumphant bourgeoisie, the son of the Rougons is Aristide Saccard. He stands out for his ability to deftly swim in the muddy waves of speculation that swept French society, especially during the Crimean War. His dying wife Saqqara is talking to her husband about his plans for a new marriage for 100,000.
Having robbed his second wife (for Saqqara she was a “bet, working capital”), he seeks to cash in on his son, marrying him profitably. The Saqqara family is the center of vice and depravity.
The typicality of this image, with which Zola continues the line of Balzac's hoarding heroes, is emphasized by the whole feverish atmosphere of profit, robbery that swept "the Parisians of the era of decline *.
The artist uses vivid means to expose the triumphant, tormenting France of the big bourgeoisie. The new house of Aristide Saccard, representing a mixture of all styles, resembles the "important and stupid face of a wealthy upstart." The description of the magnificent table setting, the living room, where “everything flowed with gold”, denounces not only bad taste, but also looting, which flourishes in defeated France.
The seal of decline and disintegration has already marked the triumphant caste of the bourgeoisie. It is no coincidence that the writer compares Rene, the wife of Aristides, with Phaedra Euripides, although he notes ironically that her criminal passion for her stepson is a parody of the tragedy of the ancient heroine.
The vicious world of decline and decay, depicted by the artist, crowns the image of Napoleon III - lifeless, with his deathly pale face and leaden eyelids covering dull eyes. The writer repeatedly mentions these "dull eyes, yellow-gray eyes with a clouded pupil", creating the image of a cruel and stupid predator.
Showing the horrific depravity of the ruling classes, Zola is sometimes carried away by naturalistic details. And yet the reader is convinced that already in the first novels of Zola there is no place for the dispassionate attitude towards bourgeois reality, for which he advocated in naturalistic aesthetics. They are full of anger and sarcasm, they are a kind of political pamphlet of great power.
Belly of Paris
The novel The Belly of Paris (1873) was created by Zola during the years of the Third Republic, which he initially welcomed. Remaining for a long time a supporter of bourgeois republicanism, the writer, with his characteristic observation, was forced already in the first years to state that the bourgeois republic had changed almost nothing in the country.
The focus of the writer in this novel is the petty bourgeoisie, its behavior in the era of the empire, its attitude towards the republic. The Parisian market depicted in the novel is the personification of "fat-bellied Paris", which "grew fat and secretly supported the empire." These are the "fat men" who devour the "skinny ones". The philosophy of these “decent”, “peaceful” people is most fully expressed by the shopkeeper Lisa Quenu, whose convictions are determined by profit. The empire provides an opportunity to profit, trade, and she is for the empire.
This calm, beautiful, restrained woman is capable of any abomination, any betrayal and secret crime for the sake of profit.
A convict appears in Lisa's family, her husband's brother Florent. In the December days of 1851, when the people of Paris fought for the Republic at the barricades, Florent happened to be on the street. This was enough to get to hard labor, about the horrors of which he tells a fairy tale to the little girl Polina. Florent is a dreamer. He does not even realize that the Republican conspiracy, the organization of which he is absorbed, is known to the police agents from the very beginning.
If Zola condemns Florent for groundlessness, then he denounces the rest of the members of the republican group as ambitious, demagogues, traitors, as typical bourgeois republicans (teacher Charvet, shopkeeper Gavard, etc.).
In the conflict between the "fat" shopkeepers and the "skinny" Florent, "decent" people win, who one after another rush to report him to the police prefecture. “What scoundrels, however, are all these decent people!” - with these words of the artist Claude Lantier, the author concludes his novel.
To show the "satiation" of the prosperous bourgeois, Zola paints material abundance, a picture of the Parisian market. The generosity of his colors is reminiscent of Flemish still lifes. He devotes whole pages to describing fish and meat rows, mountains of vegetables and fruits, conveying all shades, all colors, all smells.
His Excellency Eugene Rougon
In the novel "His Excellency Eugene Rougon" (1876), Zola again returns, as in "Production", to show the ruling circles of the empire. For several years of the existence of the Third Republic, Zola saw politicians, adventurers and intriguers ready to change their political orientation at any moment. This contributed to the creation of a bright, satirical. the image of the political businessman Eugene Rougon. "
In order to get to power and keep it, all means are good for Rougon - hypocrisy, intrigues, gossip, bribery, etc. The hardened politician de Marci, deputies, and ministers are similar to him. The only difference between Rougon is that, like a big pointing dog on a hunt, he manages to grab the largest piece of prey. In terms of scale, Rougon can only be compared with the leader of this Bonapartist pack - the emperor himself.
Rougon is a cunning politician playing a complicated game. He is ready to outdo the reaction of the emperor himself, demanding the destruction of the parliament, already deprived of its rights. Zola very subtly notes Rougon's sycophancy towards superiors and contempt for inferiors, hypocrisy, narcissism, the cult of one's own personality.
When Rougon speaks of the people, he is full of hatred and malice. His ideal is tyranny: "to control people with a whip, like some kind of herd", "to rule, holding a whip in his hand." He is sure that "the crowd loves a stick", that "outside the principle of strong power for France there is no salvation."
Under pressure from the people, the emperor was forced to carry out minor liberal reforms. The turn that Rougon, this supporter of the kulak and strong power, makes, is amazing even for worldly-wise bourgeois politicians. From now on, in order to maintain power, Rougon acts as a defender of the liberal policy of the emperor.
The novel about Eugene Rougon is a topical, sharp political pamphlet directed against the supporters of "strong power".
Nana, Scale
Since the end of the 70s, the position of the Third Republic has been strengthened, reactionary attempts to return the monarchy ended in failure. The elections of 1877 were won by the bourgeois republicans. But the position of the people in the bourgeois Third Republic remained just as difficult as in the years of the empire.
The influence of bourgeois reality and reactionary ideology on literature during these years was reflected in a decrease in criticism, in the strengthening of naturalistic tendencies.
The predominance of features of naturalism, some adaptation to the tastes of the bourgeois reader led to the fact that in the novel "Nana" (1880) in the first place, according to Saltykov-Shchedrin, was the "female torso". The writer sought to show the immorality of the top of France / the collapse of the ruling classes, making the image of the courtesan Nana a symbol of all this. But sometimes Zola's critical position was not clearly expressed.
Nakipi (1882) shows the world of the middle bourgeoisie, officials. These are the inhabitants of one house, outwardly having a "stately appearance, full of bourgeois dignity." In fact, behind this hypocritical bourgeois respectability lies the most rabid depravity, venality, and cruelty.
The impudent treatment of a wealthy doorkeeper of the house with a sick, old woman who washes stairs for a penny and does the dirtiest work has a symbolic meaning. Its exploitation personifies the attitude of the bourgeoisie towards the people.
Zola was distinguished by the ability to feel and capture the "zeitgeist", to guess new trends in the development of society. Before other French writers, he reflected the beginning of the era of imperialism. Zola manages to realistically show the growth of monopolies and the process of ruin of small proprietors in the novel Ladies' Happiness (1883). Big capital, represented here by the department store "Ladies' happiness", mercilessly crushes the owners of small shops. Tragic is the fate of the cloth maker Uncle Bodiu and his family, the old man Bourret and other small merchants. The artist conveys the inevitability of their death by constantly contrasting the huge, bright, attracting crowds of buyers of the Lady's Happiness store with the dark "burrow" of Uncle Bodyu. The reasons for the success of Octave Mouret, the owner of "Ladies' happiness", are that he operates with huge capital, introduces new methods of trade, makes extensive use of advertising, and ruthlessly exploits the store's employees. Octave Mouret is merciless to his subordinates, he is not touched by the tragedies of the ruined, ruined by him people. He lives and acts in the name of profit.
The traits of a predator, an entrepreneur of a new era, are clearly outlined by Zola in the image of Octave Mouret. But the attitude of the writer to the owner of "Ladies' Happiness" is ambivalent. Observing the intensive development of capitalism, Zola believed that it contributes to the progress of society, to the improvement of general well-being. This was the influence of bourgeois positivism. Therefore, the writer does not unconditionally condemn Octave Mouret, believing that "he is simply fulfilling the task facing his century." All the activities of Octave Mouret are given in the novel through the perception of Denise Bodiu, who is in love with him, idealizing the hero. Octave Mouret appears as a "poet" of his craft, bringing fantasy into commerce, a man of exceptional energy. In the novel "Scum" Octave Mouret is a depraved young man, but here the author ennobles his hero, endowing him with the ability to truly love the poor girl Denise. It is unexpected that the owner of "Lady's happiness" meets Denise's desire to improve the position of employees, her dream of "a huge ideal store - a phalanster of trade, where everyone receives his share of the profits according to his merits and where he is provided with a comfortable future by agreement."
The belief in the civilizing mission of capitalist entrepreneurship, borrowed from the positivist O. Comte and other bourgeois sociologists, is also characteristic of Zola's other novel about monopolies, Money. The writer artificially separates money from production and social relations, fetishizes it as a special, unrelated force, as a "progress factor".
Idealizing money, the writer elevates the protagonist of the novel, Aristide Saccard, although he shows the crime of the stock exchange, with which all his activities are connected. It's been twenty years since this financial swindler was featured in The Prey. But if then Zola treated his hero only negatively, now the image of Saccard is dual.
Saccard embarks on a scam by creating the "World Bank" without his own capital. He is fascinated by projects for the development of the Middle East, the construction of communication lines, mines, etc. Through various tricks of advertising, thousands of gullible people are caught, who become small shareholders of the bank. Stock exchange fraud is truthfully shown in the novel. In competition with the solid bank of the millionaire Gundermann, the inflated bank of Saqqara collapses. It is characteristic that large shareholders deftly save their capital, the entire burden of ruin falls on the shoulders of the poor. The tragedy of many disadvantaged families is staggering. The objective conclusion is that money associated with capitalist activity leads to crime and misfortune.
But it seems to Zola that the commonwealth of science and money drives progress, even if it is carried out through blood and suffering. In this regard, the image of Aristide Saqqara is idealized. He is energetic, proactive, takes care of the poor children of the orphanage. This is a person who allegedly takes a great interest in his work for the sake of it. Having failed with the "World Bank", he continues his activities in Holland, draining the seashore.
In the novel Germinal, created in the mid-80s, Zola exposed monopoly capital, the joint-stock company that owns the mines. There are no longer any illusions about the creative role of capitalism.
Novels about the people of the "Trap"
The theme of the people had its own tradition in French literature before Zola. Suffice it to recall the works of O. Balzac, J. Sand, V. Hugo. But the significance of this topic is especially; significantly increased in the 1970s and 1980s due to the growth of the revolutionary activity of the masses. Zola's novel The Trap (1877) is dedicated to the life of the people, the life of Parisian artisans. In the plan of the novel, the author partly proceeded from naturalistic principles, trying to show "how the hereditary vice of alcoholism destroys Gervaise Macquart and her husband, the roofer Coupeau. However, the writer's desire to avoid lies in the image of the people is already reflected in the plan, to tell the truth," to explain the morals of the people, the vices , fall, moral and physical ugliness of the environment, the conditions created for the workers in our society. " Zola wanted to recreate reality with absolute accuracy, so that the picture contained "morality in itself."
The appearance of the novel caused a storm in bourgeois criticism. He was considered immoral, rude, dirty.
Zola turned to the image of unbearable living conditions that give rise to vices. The heroine of the novel is Gervaise Macquart. hardworking woman, loving mother. She dreams of working quietly, having a modest income, raising children, "dying in her bed." Gervaise makes incredible efforts to achieve well-being for her family. But all in vain. Misfortune - Coupeau's fall from the roof - destroys all of Gervaise's dreams. Having been injured, Coupo no longer works as before, he falls into a trap - Uncle Colomb's tavern, turns into an alcoholic. Poverty gradually destroys the family; depressed by the failures, Gervaise starts drinking with Coupeau. Both of them die. What is the reason for the death of these honest workers? In the heredity of vice, in an accident, or in the conditions of their life? Undoubtedly, the novel denounces the social injustice of bourgeois society, the tragic deprivation of the people; it is his impoverishment that leads to the corruption and death of the worker.
The hardest work does not provide people in bourgeois society with confidence in the future. Not only alcoholics are begging. The house painter Uncle Bru, who lost his sons in the Crimea and honestly worked for fifty years, dies a beggar under the stairs.
And yet the artist did not fully understand the causes of the plight of the people.
Zola limited his conclusions to philanthropic purposes. He wrote: "Close the taverns, open the schools... Alcoholism undermines the people... Improve the health of the workers' quarters and increase wages."
A. Barbusse rightly wrote: “The huge gap in this exciting work: the playwright does not indicate true reasons evil, and this prevents him from seeing the only means of its destruction, it follows from this that the book leaves the impression of hopelessness, hopelessness, there is no indignation against the vile order.
The desire to arouse compassion for the people among the ruling classes forced the artist to exacerbate the shadow sides. He endows the workers with all sorts of vices, which led to the accusation of the writer of discrediting the working class. In fact, Zola believed in the purity of the people. Evidence of this are the images of Gervaise, the blacksmith Gouget, Uncle Bru and others.
Paul Lafargue also noted that Zola's mistake is that he portrays the people as passive, not fighting, he is only interested in their way of life.
Earth
The picture of French society would be incomplete without showing the life of the peasantry. In the novel "Earth" (1887) a real picture of peasant life is recreated. The stubborn, inhuman labor of the peasants does not relieve them of want in bourgeois society. To stay on the surface, the peasant stubbornly clings to a piece of land.
Ownership psychology divides the peasants, forces them to stick to everything habitual, inert, determines the savagery of their morals. The desire to keep the land at all costs pushes the peasant Buteau and his wife Lisa to commit crimes: they kill old Fouan, they kill Lisa's sister Francoise.
Realistically reflecting the conditions for the existence of the French village, Zola, however, thickened the dark colors in the depiction of the peasants. The novel suffers from excessive physiology.
The book was condemned by critics from various positions. The attacks of bourgeois criticism are explained primarily by the fact that Zola touched on a forbidden topic - the life of the people. Progressive criticism, on the contrary, appreciated the courage of the writer, but reacted sharply to the naturalism of the work. However, the positive images of the novel were found precisely among the people.
Despite the inhuman conditions, humanity is preserved in the peasants Jean, Francoise, old Foine. Subsequently, in the novel Defeat, the peasant Jean, first depicted in The Earth, becomes the embodiment of the healthy strength of the entire nation, the spokesman for the positive ideals of Zola.
Anti-clerical novels
All his life, Zola struggled with the reaction in all its manifestations. Therefore, an important place in the Rougon-Macquart series is occupied by the exposure of the clergy, the Catholic religion.
In the novel The Conquest of Plassant (1874), in the image of the Jesuit Abbé Fauges, Zola presented a cunning politician, an energetic adventurer who serves the empire of Napoleon III. Appearing in Plassan as a poor priest unknown to anyone with a dark past, Abbé Fauja soon becomes omnipotent. Abbé Fauja deftly removes all the obstacles that prevent him from promoting the deputy needed by the government of Napoleon III. He quickly finds mutual language with representatives of various political parties in the city. Even among the bourgeois Plassants, the Abbé Fauges stands out for his grip.
Appeared in 1875, the novel "The Misdemeanor of Abbé Mouret" is based on the opposition of an ascetic, religious worldview and the philosophy of a joyful perception of life. The embodiment of church dogmas hated by the writer, asceticism brought to the point of absurdity, is the caricature figure of the "God's gendarme", the monk brother Arkanzhia. He is ready to destroy all living things, full of disgust for the very manifestation of life. The complete opposite of this "freak" is the philosopher Zhanberia, a follower of the 18th century enlighteners.
IN latest novel epic - "Doctor Pascal" (1893) - summarizes the development of four generations of Rougon-Macquart. Dr. Pascal follows the history of his family, studying the problem of heredity. But even in the novel, where much attention is paid to this problem, it is not the main one. Doctor Pascal himself, beloved by the people, a noble man, is not connected with his family, deprived of it. negative traits; the people call him simply "Doctor Pascal", but not Rougon.
The novel sings of life, love, alien to the world of proprietary interests. The ending of the novel is symbolic, in which the child of the deceased Pascal, “raising up, like a banner, his little hand, as if calling for life.”
But the true completion of the Rougon-Macquart epic is the novel Defeat, although it is the penultimate, nineteenth, in the series.
rout
This novel was created at a time of increased reaction, the dominance of the military and the monarchists, who especially manifested themselves in the well-known Dreyfus affair. He exposes the reactionary ruling circles, who are ready to seek salvation from the threat of revolution in military adventures. That is why the novel was received with hostility by the reaction. Zola was accused of being anti-patriotic.
Defeat (1892) completes the social history of the Second Empire. The novel depicts the tragedy of France - the defeat of the French army near Sedan, the defeat in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871. These events were reflected in Maupassant, Hugo and other writers, but Zola tried to cover them in full, to find out the reasons for the defeat. The writer devoted a lot of time to studying the history of the war, documents, was interested in the stories of its participants, got acquainted with the area where the battles took place.
In depicting events and battle scenes, Zola followed the realistic tradition of Stendhal and L. Tolstoy, rejecting the false manner of embellishing the war. This did not prevent Zola from paying tribute to the patriotism of the French people, French soldiers. He spoke excitedly about the exploits of the defenders of desecrated France. Among them are ordinary soldiers - Corporal Jean, artilleryman Honore, dying on a gun carriage, the heroic defenders of Bazeille - working Laurent and employee Weiss, and many other ordinary people. These are patriotic officers who are ready to honestly fulfill their duty - Colonel de Weil, General Marguerite. All the sympathies of the author are on their side, in them he sees the best forces of his people.
The people are not to blame for the defeat of France. Zola saw the cause of the military catastrophe in the betrayal of the ruling classes, in the rotten political regime of the country. The symbol of the decayed regime is the puppet figure of the emperor, who, with his huge retinue, only gets in the way under the feet of the army. Zola denounces the unpreparedness for the war of the leadership, the lack of coordination of actions, the careerism of the officers. The betrayal of the upper classes is determined by their greed, proprietary interests. Fabricant Delahers and his wife quickly find a common language with the invaders. The fist-farmer Fouchard spares a piece of bread for his soldiers, but cooperates with the Germans.
The army mass is depicted differentially, remembered vivid images soldiers and officers - this is the great merit of the novel.
Having shown the viciousness of the political regime of France, which led her to a catastrophe, the writer, however, rejected the way out chosen by the people of Paris - the Commune. The two final chapters of the novel depict battles between the Versailles troops and the Communards. The writer did not understand the Paris Commune, he considered it the result of demoralization caused by the war. His favorite hero, the peasant Jean, whom Zola considered the "soul of France", is forced to shoot the Communards. Maurice, Jean's friend, becomes a Communard, but the whole appearance of this hero is not characteristic of the true defenders of the Commune. He is only an anarchist fellow traveler of the Commune. Maurice is shot by his friend Jean.
The ending of the novel expresses the views of Zola, who chose the reformist path. Jean returns to earth, "ready to take on the great, difficult task of rebuilding the whole of France."
three cities
In the 90s, struggling with the Catholic reaction, Zola created the anti-clerical series of novels "Three Cities".
The first novel of the trilogy, Lourdes (1894), depicts a small town in the south, which the churchmen have turned into "a huge bazaar where masses and souls are sold." The peasant girl Bernadette, suffering from hallucinations, had a vision of the Virgin Mary at the source. The church created a legend about a miracle, organized a pilgrimage to Lourdes, establishing a new profitable enterprise.
The priest Pierre Froment accompanies the sick girl Marie de Guersin, a childhood friend, to Lourdes. Marie is healed. But Pierre understands that Marie's healing is not the result of a miracle, but of self-hypnosis, which can be fully explained by science. Seeing the deceit, the swindle of the "holy fathers", the depravity of the city in which the "holy source" ruined the patriarchal morals, Pierre Froment is painfully going through a spiritual crisis, losing the remnants of faith. He believes that "Catholicism has outlived itself." Pierre dreams of a new religion.
In the next novel, Rome (1896), Pierre Froment breaks with the church.
In the third novel, "Paris" (1898), Pierre Froment tries to find his vocation and solace in philanthropy. Zola draws in this connection screaming social contradictions, the abyss between the rich and the poor. Being a man of reason, Pierre is convinced of the helplessness of philanthropy.
And yet, rejecting the revolutionary path of changing intolerant social conditions, Zola believes that gradual evolution will play a decisive role. He pins his hopes on science and technological progress. This manifested the reformist delusions of the writer, who did not take the revolutionary path.
The trilogy "Three Cities", exposing the dark machinations of the churchmen, the intrigues of the Vatican, was catholic church in the index of banned books.
Four Gospels
The next series of Zola's novels, The Four Gospels, was a response to the strengthening of the revolutionary labor movement and the spread of socialist ideas. “Whenever I now undertake any research, I come across socialism,” wrote Zola.
The series includes the novels Fertility (1899), Labor (1901), Truth (1903), and the unfinished Justice.
The most significant novel in this series is Labour. The work is strongly a denunciation of capitalist reality, an exposure of class contradictions. I remember the realistic description of hard labor, the monstrous exploitation of workers at the Abyss plant. These conditions give rise to general depravity - the degeneration of the bourgeoisie from excesses and luxury, the workers - from hopeless poverty.
Zola is looking for ways to change inhuman relations. He understands the need for socialism, but considers it possible to achieve it only by a reformist path. The novel shows the outdated social-utopian ideas of Fourier, which Zola was fond of at that time.
The reformist idea of the commonwealth of "labour, capital and talent" is guided by main character, engineer Luc Fromeman, son of Pierre Fromeman. He finds support and capital from a wealthy scientist - the physicist Jordan. This is how the metallurgical plant in Kreshri arises on new principles; around it, isolated from the whole world, is a socialist city, where new relations, a new way of life are being created.
Labor becomes free. Kreshri's influence extends to "The Abyss". The love of young workers from families of workers and wealthy citizens erases social barriers. The "Abyss" disappears, a happy society remains.
The weakness and illusory nature of such a utopia are obvious. But it is characteristic that Zola connects the future of mankind with socialism.
Zola and Russia
In the preface to the French edition of the collection Experimental Novel, Zola wrote that he would forever retain his gratitude to Russia, which, in the difficult years of his life, when his books were not published in France, came to his aid.
Interest in Russia awakened in Zola, undoubtedly under the influence of I. S. Turgenev, who lived in France in the 60-70s. With the assistance of Turgenev, Zola became an employee of the Russian journal Vestnik Evropy, where from 1875 to 1880 he published many correspondence and literary critical articles.
Zola was a popular writer among Russian progressive readers, who saw him as a representative of the "natural realistic school". But the demanding Russian reader, as well as advanced criticism, condemned Zola's passion for naturalism in such novels as "Nana", "Earth".
In the 1990s, E. Zola's struggle with reaction, participation in the Dreyfus affair, his courage and nobility aroused the ardent sympathy of the progressive Russian public, the writers Chekhov and Gorky.
Zola Emile (1840-1902)
French writer. Born April 2, 1840 in Paris, in an Italian-French family: an Italian was his father, a civil engineer. Emil spent his childhood and school years in Aix-en-Provence, where one of his closest friends was the artist P. Cezanne. He was less than seven years old when his father died, leaving the family in distress. In 1858, counting on the help of her late husband's friends, Madame Zola moved with her son to Paris.
In early 1862, Emil managed to find a job at the Ashet publishing house. After working for about four years, he quit in the hope of securing his existence by literary work. In 1865, Zola published his first novel, a tough, thinly veiled autobiography, The Confessions of Claude. The book brought him scandalous fame, which was further increased by E. Manet's ardent defense of painting in his review of an art exhibition in 1866.
Around 1868, Zola had the idea of a series of novels dedicated to one family (Rougon-Macquart), whose fate is being explored over four or five generations. The first books in the series did not arouse much interest, but the seventh volume, The Trap, was a great success and brought Zola both fame and fortune. Subsequent novels in the series were met with great interest - they were vilified and extolled with equal zeal.
The twenty volumes of the Rougon-Macquart cycle represent Zola's main literary achievement, although the earlier Teresa Raquin must also be noted. IN last years Zola's life created two more cycles: "Three Cities" - "Lourdes", "Rome", "Paris"; and "Four Gospels" (the fourth volume was not written). Zola was the first novelist to create a series of books about members of the same family. One of the reasons that prompted Zola to choose the structure of the cycle was the desire to show the operation of the laws of heredity.
By the time the cycle was completed (1903), Zola enjoyed worldwide fame and, by all accounts, was the largest French writer after V. Hugo. All the more sensational was his intervention in the Dreyfus affair (1897-1898). Zola became convinced that Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer of the French General Staff, had been unfairly convicted in 1894 for selling military secrets to Germany.
The exposure of the military leadership, which bears the main responsibility for the apparent miscarriage of justice, has taken the form open letter to the President of the Republic with the title "I accuse". Sentenced to a year in prison for libel, Zola fled to England and was able to return to his homeland in 1899, when the tide turned in favor of Dreyfus.
On September 28, 1902, Zola died suddenly in his Paris apartment. The cause of death was carbon monoxide poisoning, an "accident" most likely orchestrated by his political enemies.
