Emile Zola

as a text on social structure i think it's great, but as a novel i was bored. though there's a whipping scene at the beginning that is ACES.

I really really liked The Earth, which is positively King Learish, and it's got a laugh-out loud funny subplot about flatulence which occupies dozens of pages over the coarse (heh, intentional) of the novel. And La Bete Humaine (Human Beast) is my favorite since it's the most melodramatic and reads like a cheapo early film reel with a mustache twirling baddie rerouting traintracks (really! only it's a woman and she derails the train of a man who spurned her because he had psychopathic urges!)

Anything in the Rougon-MacQuart cycle is good, and there's really no need to read them in order. Or read more than one or two, unless you really like them... and that's not terribly hard to do.

Reading them in sequence after reading the first one was helpful as there is some continuity - but hardly necessary - the books stand well on their own.

I found them compelling and unforgettable - but not as good in translation as in French.

I'd like to recommend "Au Bonheur Des Dames" (in english as "The Ladies Paradise") from the series as being one of my favorites.

recently discovered this. i have but haven't read Germinal and was looking up the book that the film Human Desire was based on (bete humaine) and, hey ho, here's a set of 20 books and i do love a list.

Oxford World Classics has translated all of them recently, surprisingly the first full translation since 18xx, which was half-arsed by all accounts. penguin has 8 or so of them, much cheaper. but they are all 600+ pages. i should read the one i already have, see how it goes.

my favourite writer!

I attempted to blog my way through Les Rougon-Macquart a while back, here's the ones I got through

introduction

#1 – La Fortune des Rougon (1871)

#2 – La Curée (1871-2)

#3 – Le Ventre de Paris (1873)

#4 – La Conquête de Plassans (1874)

#5 – La Faute de l’abbé Mouret (1875)

fuck off gareth

i think you might have more choice of translation now

https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/series/oxford-world-s-classics-12

https://www.penguin.co.uk/search-results?tab=books&q=Emile-Zola&x9=author&q9=Emile-Zola 7 here

Haven't read his books, but was recently impressed by his heroic part in the Dreyfus Affair, which may have cost him his life---see epic wiki article on the Affair.

halfway through Oxford Classics version of L'Assommoir, the Saints Day party. and i have the feeling it's all downhill from here.

https://azleslie.com/posts/zola-reading-order/

found this ^ and plumped for the 10 book version as a compromise. can always full in the gaps later.

I enjoyed Le Ventre de Paris last fall.

finished l'assommoir. depressing.

Nana, i'm sure, will be a laugh a minute.

Read Germinal last year. Not sure where to go next.

his mother is the focus of L'Assommoir, his sister is Nana, his brother is the guy in The Masterpiece...

in the link i posted just up a bit there are several reading orders which make more sense than publication date. i just choose one i thought I'd manage (5 wasn't enough, 20 was too many. that said, the 10 doesn't include a couple that sound interesting so i might end up with 12)

Oxford World Classics publish them all, Penguin don't, and i wanted modern translations because the older ones apparently censor bits. they show up as discounted on the ebook sites quite often too (The Beast Within currently 70% of 6, for instance)

(70% off)

Nana is a bit slower to get into. needs more fighting like the previous one.

yeah, Nana not as salacious as i thought it would be and the end was pretty gruesome smallpox as a substitute for syphilis but the theatre setting made this less interesting to me.

tempted to do the other two children of Gervaise first, just because they are Railways and Art. but that list i'm following has The Fortune next...