Customer Reviews

The Fortune of the Rougons

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Over and over, I keep seeing reviews of these novels that misidentify the order in which they're meant to be read. (For example, "HIS EXCELLENCY, the sixth novel of the series . . . .")

In his introduction to the 20th and final novel (DOCTOR PASCAL), Zola specified the order he intended the series to be read, and it differs greatly from the order in which the books were written. So, now that you're on the first of twenty, make a note of the LOGICAL order of the books, and you will enjoy them much more:

1)La Fortune des Rougon (tr. THE FORTUNE OF THE ROUGONS); 2) Son Excellence Eugene Rougon (tr. HIS EXCELLENCY or CLORINDA); 3) La Curée (tr. THE KILL); 4) L'Argent (tr. MONEY); 5) La Rève (tr. THE DREAM); 6) La Conquête de Plassans (tr. THE CONQUEST OF PLASSANS or A PRIEST IN THE HOUSE); 7) Pot-Bouille (tr. POT LUCK, PIPING HOT!, RESTLESS HOUSE or LESSON IN LOVE); 8) Au Bonheur des Dames (tr. THE LADIES' PARADISE or THE LADIES' DELIGHT); 9) La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret (tr. ABBE MOURET'S TRANSGRESSION); 10) Une Page d'amour (tr. A LOVE EPISODE); 11) Le Ventre de Paris (tr. THE BELLY OF PARIS or THE FAT AND THE THIN); 12) La Joie de vivre (tr. THE JOY OF LIFE, HOW JOLLY LIFE IS! or ZEST FOR LIFE); 13) L'Assommoir; 14) L'Oeuvre (tr. THE MASTERPIECE or HIS MASTERPIECE); 15) La Bête Humaine (tr. THE BEAST WITHIN or THE HUMAN BEAST); 16) Germinal; 17) Nana; 18) La Terre (tr. THE EARTH or THE SOIL); 19) La Débâcle (tr. THE DOWNFALL); and, 20) Le Docteur Pascal (tr. DOCTOR PASCAL).

Beginning with LA FORTUNE, the books proceed more-or-less according to the family tree, from the Rougons to the Macquarts, and chronologically across the generations. Following LA FORTUNE, SON EXCELLENCE is about the Second Empire's tendency toward totalitarianism, as embodied in Eugene, the eldest son of Pierre Rougon. It makes sense to read it immediately following LA FORTUNE. If you read it as the sixth book, you will have first read about the second son's exploitative and decadent Parisian life. You will have also read a book that summarizes the entire first half of the series in its theme of haves and have-nots, and two books about the struggles between secularism and clergy in a provincial town, shown from different sides of the issue. Likewise, NANA will contain much that will elude you if you read it in the ninth position instead of the seventeenth, where it belongs.

This series of novels is a very rewarding reading experience, the type of endeavor like reading Proust that will stay with you your entire life. Eleven of these are in the public domain, available for download for whatever e-book reader you might have. (Google "free kindle books" and you'll find a wealth of free literature.) Those that aren't available in the Mondial editions are available in the Oxford World's Classics series.

And in case you were wondering, if this were a single novel, it would be 6,680 pages long. C'est pas possible!

This book is the first novel in Zola's twenty-novel masterpiece, the Rougon-Macquart cycle. Like all the books in the series, this one stands alone as a self-contained novel. It will be especially enjoyable, however, to those who have read some of the other books in this series, as many of the characters introduced in this book go on to "star" in their own novels. The story takes place in the fictional town of Plassans, based on Zola's hometown of Aix-en-Provence. Zola begins the book by sketching the layout of the town, and its history, and then goes on to outline the first three generations of the Rougon-Macquart family tree. Because of the many characters introduced in this novel, there is no one main protagonist, but rather a series of intertwining story lines. These story lines range in tone from a biting cynical realism to an almost Victor Hugo-esque romanticism. The book takes place at the time of the coup d'etat in Paris which began the Second Empire under Napoleon III. At that time, various factions were competing for the throne of France--the Royalists, the Republicans, the Bonapartists. The citizens of Plassans, who only receive news from Paris through second-hand rumors, are choosing which side they are on as they await the outcome of the political upheaval in the capital. Their choices are based not so much on their political convictions, but rather on who they think will end up victorious. Everyone wants to be on the winning side of the battle so they can reap the political, financial, and social rewards once the smoke clears. What results is an in-depth study of the motivations of several fascinating characters, and a powerful meditation on ambition. How far is one willing to go to secure greater wealth and status for himself and his family? Is there a place for selfless conviction or heroism in a society based on such selfish concerns? Zola tackles these serious issues, while managing to inject a bit of humor into the proceedings as well. Fans of Zola's better-known works will certainly enjoy this novel, but it can also be read and appreciated by those who are not familiar with Zola's work at all. It is a shame that it has been out of print for so long; fortunately it is available in ebook format, free on several web sites.

There's something of the soap opera in this first novel from Zola's Rougon-Macquart cycle. The vast panorama of the Rougon-Macquart family and their illegitimate children parallels Guiding Light or Dynasty. However, what makes this novel art as opposed to vapid entertainment is the theme of heredity and - more importantly - his social criticism.

Almost the entire family is corrupted by the desire for wealth without the need for talent or ability. Interestingly, the novel is suggestive that this family springs from a line plagued by insanity. Seems there's a comment there!

The only two heroic characters are Marie and Silvere. Their romance and sacrafice are especially poignant in the face of the people who actually come out on top. Tracing the rise of the Rougons, it is apparent Zola wishes to illustrate that ideals are wonderful but ultimately it's connections and timing that propel you to the top. This single point defines the difference between Zola and his opposites, the Romanticist writers who were grand believers in moral integrity and individuality.

The all consuming urge to attain position without effort corrupts these characters into amoralists who pick sides in the turbulent political times, not based on ideals or convictions, but on how they can best capitalize and profit. What is especially sad is that none of these characters have any especial plans for utilizing their prosperity. They simply want it so they can sit and do nothing. They are as intellectually empty and they are morally bankrupt.

This is an excellent translation and the text is very easy to read (which is a compliment both to Zola and the translator). The tapestry woven by Zola is fascinating, even as you shake your head at the depravity of most of the characters. My only criticism of Zola in this book is that he relies too heavily on exposition as opposed to characterization. However, he's covering a lot of ground here and the scope of the family he outlines is pretty vast for such a relatively short book.

Bottom line, I enjoyed reading it. For people who enjoy literature, this is a thinking man's tawdry soap opera.

This is a book that introduces the reader to the family tree of the Rougons and Macquarts - a naturalistic masterpiece about life in France in the 19th century. It looks like there is no other translation than this one by Ernest Vizetelly from over 100 years ago (correct me if I am wrong). Therefore, when another reviewer below writes "but there are several mistakes in translation", then this is certainly correct, but as long as nobody translates this book again, we will have to live with this. And the reader should not forget that E. Vizetelly was Zola's "official" translator, his translations were the only ones authorized by Zola, they knew each other personally very well and helped each other during hard times, and some of the old-worldish British 19th century linguistic charme that Vizetelly used for this translation (and his other Rougon-Macquart translations) cannot be reproduced by any modern, 21st century translator. His Zola translations are classics, with all their faults!

As far as I can tell, this is not a new translation of "La fortune des Rougons." There are superficial changes -- much of the first chapter, for example, seems to be newly translated, and the book throughout uses "Parc" instead of "Aire" when describing the St-Mettre field -- but mostly this is just the same old 19th century Vizetelly translation word-for-word. And Vizetelly wrote that he altered one out of every three sentences! The Emile Zola Society is advertising these new books as newly translated, but this is very misleading in the extreme. A new English translation of this book is desperately needed and way overdue. And the Emile Zola Socity should be on the forefront of making that happen. But alas! What a disappointment!

... for a decent translation of this novel, the first of Emile Zola's 20-book Rougon-Macquart series. The previous reviews suggest that this edition has problems and errata. But the search will be worthwhile, especially if you are excited by some of the later volumes of this monumental portraya of 19th C society and history.

Here's what I wrote about the French edition that I read:

""I wonder what I'd think of this novel if I'd read it without being aware of what came after. "La Fortune des Rougon" is the first of Emile Zola's twenty (20!) novels chronicling the history of French society through the middle decades of the 19th Century by tracing the fortunes of a single family - the Rougon-Macquart kindred - through several generations. I had read several of the most esteemed volumes previously, some in English and some in French, some recently and some decades ago. From that approach, "La Fortune des Rougon" might seem laboriously contrived as a retrospective attempt to tie up all the evolutionary threads of the chronicle; minor characters pop up insistently, who will become major figures in later novels, and the editor 'helpfully' footnotes their future significance. But in fact, this really WAS the first of the series, so it makes slightly more sense to perceive it as an outline of things to come, and it makes Zola's assiduous tenacity of purpose all the more remarkable, as if he truly had a clear conception of the whole monumental series from his first paragraph. I'm trying now, by the way, to read the whole series in French and in 'chronological' order, a project that may take me almost as many years as it took Zola to write it.

But let's take a look at "La Fortune des Rougon" in and of itself, as if Zola had never written another book. It's a hefty novel, a broad 19th Century novel, ample, explicit, and at times unnecessarily discursive. Started in 1869 and published in '71, it is therefore contemporary with classics of English Victorian fiction by Dickens, Eliot and Trollope. I point that out because there's an odd 'dissonance' about reading Zola; the social and psychological perceptions he expresses seem far more modern - more 20th C - than the style and structure of his works. He is unabashedly the "omniscient narrator" of his era, so soon to be jostled out of fashion by writers like Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Ford. He IS discursive and at times verbose. They all were, in his day. People must have either read faster than we do, or else wanted to get their money's worth out of a book, savoring its verbosity over leisurely weeks. It won't help anyone to appreciate Zola's accomplishment to expect him to be as terse as Joseph Roth or as playfully self-observant as Nabokov. Despite the boldness of his themes, Zola is not a modernist.

He is also not a hack, despite his literary abundance. Yes, he wanted to earn a living at writing, but his ambitions were not to cultivate an audience with facile entertainments. In fact, he intended to be didactic, to expound a theory of human behavior based on evolutionary sociology. Here's something from his preface to "La Fortune des Rougons", translated to English:

""By resolving the double question of temperament and environment, I will try to expose and trace the thread of connection which leads mathematically from one person to another. When I have hold of every thread, and have possession of a complete social group in my hands, I shall show this group in operation, participating in its historical period."

Something of a 'determinist" was our Monsieur Zola? Yes, at times, and especially when referring to social caste. But in fact, the development of characters in Zola's novels usually plays out as a conflict of "nurture versus nature", still an unresolved dichotomy among sociologists today. Even the most fleetingly useful minor personage in Zola's novels is flesh-and-blood. The major characters in "The Fortune", the founding generation of the Rougon-Macquarts, are hateful, greedy, smug, callous opportunists, people of small souls and talents who grind through years of resentful mediocrity until an opportunity opens their path to fortune by trampling the hopes and the corpses of others. The opportunity is the coup d'état that replaced the Republic with the Empire of Louis Napoleon III, perhaps the first modern dictator. Zola's contempt for the victors in that upheaval flares like phosphorus in every sentence of "La Fortune." The essential message of the novel is that the crises of society often favor the least scrupulous scoundrels.

The novel is set in Plassans, a provincial bastion of class-bound conservatism in Provence. Class 'warfare' is one of the themes of Zola's work that seems prescient of more modern fiction. The town has three quarters - the shabby mansions of the moribund aristocracy, the old town of peasants and small merchants, and the new town of the up-and-coming professionals. Characters from each quarter cram their selfish interests into the narrative. Reading the novel as History, one can get quite a dynamic sense of social conflicts and change in mid-19th C France. Zola also excels at pure description. One can visualize Plassans as it was; in fact, it looks very much like one of the "plus belles villages" so relished by tourists of our times. Some readers may feel that Zola lavishes too many words on his descriptions of the settings of scenes, but I wouldn't agree. Good descriptive writing has a worth of its own.

There is a love story in "La Fortune des Rougon". The lovers are as childish as Romeo and Juliet, and just as apparently ill-fated. The boy is the idealistic Silvere, a grandson of Pierre Rougon for whom that monster of self-promotion cares not at all. The girl is truly a child, 13-year-old Miette, the abused daughter of a convict in the galleys. Their romance is the stuff of grand opera, a melodrama quite comparable to any of Verdi's or Puccini's. Once again, I suggest that the reader remember Zola's era; melodrama was high art in 1871. Their poignant love affair is something like a gilded frame around the sordid portrayal of the coup and the triumph of venality. The novel begins and ends with them, and the longest single episode is the pastoral depiction of their discovery of sexuality beyond mere childhood companionship. It's true that this depiction does not advance the central narrative of the novel. It's true that Zola may have loved his own flow of language too much ever to have edited his novel to modern satisfaction. But the romance of Miette and Silvere has a blushing, operatic charm that balances and sweetens the asperity of the novel as a whole. I wouldn't cut it too much.

If you've never read Zola at all, it's quite unlikely that you'll start with "The Fortune of the Rougons". It's not widely considered one of Zola's masterpieces, and it frankly isn't equal to Germinal, The Debacle, or the Human Beast. That's why I've rated it at only four stars, since the most I can award is five to such a masterpiece as "The Masterpiece", Zola's portrayal of the lives of painters and writers in the Paris of the Impressionists. All in all, nevertheless, "The Fortune of the Rougons" is the sort of novel that builds power as you read it, until you find yourself engrossed in its development and transported to its milieu.

I was pleased and excited to learn that the "Emile Zola Society" was planning a series of new translations, in a uniform edition, of the entire Rougon-Macquart cycle. Such a project is long overdue: two of the twenty novels in the cycle, including this one, have not been translated since the nineteenth century; and the modern translation of His Excellency, published by Elek in the 1960's, is very hard to find.

Anticipation changed to crashing disappointment when I examined The Fortune of the Rougons. As reviewer UncleCliffy correctly notes, this is essentially the nineteenth century Vizetelly translation. If you have been unlucky enough to buy it, just check your copy against the Vizetelly rendering, which is readily available on the net. I don't know who "translator" Robert Smith is, but he has a lot of explaining to do. And so does The Emile Zola Society. This kind of marketing is just not acceptable.

CONTRARY TO A COMMONLY HELD VIEW THAT THIS NOVEL IS EXCLUSIVELY FOR HARD-CORE ZOLA FANS, IT IS AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE ROUGON-MACQUART EPIC. IT IS THE FIRST ROUGON-MACQUART NOVEL AND IT PORTRAYS THE RISE OF THE SECOND EMPIRE WITH THE SAME FORCE AS ZOLA'S RENOWN NOVEL "LA DEBACLE/THE DOWNFALL" (THE NINETHEENTH IN THE ROUGON-MACQUART EPIC) PORTRAYS ITS DEMISE. HAVING SAID THAT, ONE MUST ADD THAT IN THE FRENCH LITERATURE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, ZOLA'S ROUGON-MACQUART EPIC IS AS IMPORTANT TO UNDERSTANDING THE FRENCH SOCIETY UNDER NAPOLEON III AS BALZAC'S "LA COMEDIE HUMAINE/THE COMEDY OF HUMAN LIFE" IS TO UNDERSTANDING THE FRENCH SOCIETY UNDER LOUIS-PHILIPPE, EVEN THOUGH THE LATTER CONSISTS OF 97 NOVELS, WHEREAS THE FORMER CONSISTS OF ONLY 20 AND FURTHERMORE, ONLY 19 NOVELS IN THE ROUGON-MACQUART EPIC DIRECTLY REFLECT THE PERIOD IN HISTORY BETWEEN 1852 AND 1870, BECAUSE ZOLA NEEDED THE NOVEL "DOCTOR PASCAL" TO EXPRESS HIS VIEWS ON THE HEREDITY THEORY.

UNLIKE THE OVERWHELMING MAJORITY OF THE ROUGON-MACQUART NOVELS, IN WHICH EVENTS TAKE PLACE IN PARIS, A SMALL SOUTHERN TOWN CALLED PLASSANS IS CHOSEN AS A SETTING. IN REALITY SUCH TOWN DOES NOT EXIST, IT IS ONLY INTENDED TO RESEMBLE A PLACE CALLED "L'AIX", WHERE ZOLA SPENT MOST OF HIS CHILDHOOD.

IT SHOWS HOW PIERRE ROUGON (THE OLDEST SON OF ADELAIDE FOUQUE) MAKES A CAREER FOR HIMSELF, HIS WIFE AND TWO OF HIS SONS DURING THE COUP D'ETAT. AGAINST THE BACKGROUND OF HIS RISE, WE WITNESS A TRAGIC FATE OF HIS NEPHEW SILVERE AND SILVERE'S BELOVED MIETTA. THEY DIE YOUNG FOR THEIR IDEALS.

THE SUBSEQUENT NOVELS WILL SHOW VARIOUS SIDES OF LIFE UNDER NAPOLEON III. ADELAIDE FOUQUE'S GRANDCHILDREN AND GREAT-GRANDCHILDREN WILL EITHER BE MAIN CHARACTERS OR AT LEAST PLAY A SECONDARY ROLE IN ALL OF THEM. MANY OF THESE CHARACTERS WILL POSSESS INNATE VICES OF DIFFERENT KINDS. FOR EXAMPLE, GERVAISE MACQUART'S ADDICTION TO ALCOHOL IN "L'ASSOMOIR/THE DRAM SHOP" TOGETHER WITH DIFFERENT KINDS OF NEUROSIS DEVELOPED BY HER SONS CLAUDE ("L'OUVRE/THE MASTERPIECE") AND JACQUES ("LA BETE HUMAINE/THE BEAST IN MAN") ARE ALL HEREDETARY. THE SAME GOES FOR THE DEPRAVED NATURE OF GERVAISE'S DAUGHTER NANA IN "NANA". ADELAIDE FOUQUE'S GRANCHILDREN FRANCOIS MOURET AND MARTA ROUGON ("LA CONQUET DES PLASSANS/THE CONQUEST OF PLASSANS") DIE AFTER GOING INSANE, LIKE THEIR GRANDMOTHER.

WE LEARN FROM THE SECOND CHAPTER OF THIS NOVEL THAT NOT ONLY ADELAIDE FOUQUE HERSELF, BUT HER FATHER AS WELL WAS INSANE. THEREFORE, ADELAIDE FOUQUE IS NOT THE ORIGIN OF THE VICES THAT RUN IN THE FAMILY. NONETHELESS, THE GENEALOGICAL TREE OF THE ROUGON-MACQUART FAMILY INCLUDED IN THE NOVEL "DOCTOR PASCAL" BEGINS WITH HER.

The Fortune Of The Rougons has everything you expect from good French literature: intrigue, skull duggery, a complex maze of intertwining characters and all this against a vivid historical background.

The drama takes place in Plassans - a small, fictional province in rural France. It is a time of great political upheaval in which the followers of Napoleon Bonaparte are attempting to oust the Monarchist government, while in Plassans both the poor and the not so poor volley for position and power. This novel is the first in Zola's Rougon-Macquart Cycle, which comprises twenty volumes, so it is best to begin here if you want to experience the entire body of work in the manner Zola intended.

This is the first novel in Zola's Rougon-Macquart cycle which details every level of French society and a variety of characters and settings during the period of the Second Empire of Napoleon III (1852-1870). This book sets up the Rougon-Macquart family and introduces many characters who will become important throughout the cycle. Zola was an exponent of naturalism-he believed we could study people and their development through understanding their genetic background and watching as heredity would ultiamtely determine people's fate and character. This family, as is clearly shown, is marked by alcoholism and insanity plus an almost surreal level of greed, dishonesty and opportunism. This book is quite enjoyable as a case study of mankind at its most venal and repellent. Certainly his vision has its limits, we are not as completely determined by the mechanisms of biology as he might suggest (and he does even acknowledge this through the surprisingly decent/moral character of Doctor Pascal)and good is not always so completely smothered by evil. The book is very entertaining, clearly and simply written and a real page-turner. I'm looking forward to the rest of the cycle. This edition has some problems with the type face being less than appealing to the eye and because there are some smudges on the lower parts of the even-numbered pages.