L'Assommoir (The Dram Shop) (Penguin Classics) [Paperback]

Émile Zola (Author), Robin Buss (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 3, 2001

This title is part of the "Les Rougon-Macquart" series which tells about two branches of a French family traced through several generations. The behaviour of the two families is shown to be conditioned by environment and inherited characteristics, chiefly drunkenness and mental instability.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'if Mauldon moves on, as one hopes she will, to another Zola novel, she will not find herself facing again the difficulties that beset her with L'Assommoir and which she has overcome so brilliantly' Times Literary Supplement

'Margaret Mauldon begins her brief "notes on the translation" ... calling it "a notoriously difficult text to translate" ... if Mauldon moves on, as one hopes she will, to another Zola novel, she will not find herself facing again the difficulties that beset her with L'Assommoir and which she has overcome so brilliantly.' Times Literary Supplement --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: French --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics (April 3, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140447539
• ISBN-13: 978-0140447538
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #965,445 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Greasy food and dirty laundry, April 15, 2003

By 

A.J. (Maryland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: L'Assommoir (Oxford World's Classics) (Paperback)

After Balzac's comedy, Stendhal's romanticism, and Flaubert's cynicism, Zola's gritty, candid realism sort of hits you like a ton of bricks. In "L'Assommoir" you get to see Paris's unwashed masses as they probably looked and lived in the sweatiest, smelliest, grimiest parts of the city, from the bars to the slums to the workplaces, in the 1850's and 1860's. Alcoholism is undeniably a theme, as indicated by the novel's title, but it is presented as a symptom of personal irresponsibility rather than of economic, political, or religious issues.

The principal character is a provincial girl named Gervaise who has been living in a small, filthy apartment in a working class Paris neighborhood with her boyfriend Lantier and their two sons, the first of whom she had when she was fourteen. Lantier runs away with another woman, leaving Gervaise to fend for herself; but soon she accepts a marriage proposal from a roofer named Coupeau. He promises to be a good husband, swearing he never touches liquor because the stuff had killed his father.

Their marriage is fine at first, producing a daughter named Nana and allowing Gervaise to start her own laundry business. But eventually things take a turn for the worse. Coupeau injures himself at work one day and during his convalescence begins drinking with his buddies and becomes too lazy to return to work full time. Lantier returns after several years, reconciling with Gervaise and Coupeau to the extent that he moves in with them and "shares" Gervaise. The family descends into inescapable poverty as Gervaise starts her own drinking habit and neglects her business. These acts of dissipation rub off on Nana, who grows up to be a saucy tart (to put it nicely), sleeping around for food and lodging because her parents are no longer providing. All the while, Coupeau's petty, jealous sister and brother-in-law, the Lorilleux, rejoice at each of Gervaise's misfortunes.

This being a novel about the working class, we expect to see a copious display of vulgarities; but the real point of interest is Zola's apparent delight in portraying these vulgarities. Whether describing a bloody melee in a laundry between Gervaise and a washerwoman who is taunting her about Lantier's infidelity, Gervaise and Coupeau's wedding party who gawk at exhibits in the Louvre and argue over the check at dinner, the gluttonous, sloppy feast on Gervaise's saint's day, or the "emptying" of Coupeau's mother's corpse, Zola is ostentatiously graphic. He harnesses the power of pure portrayal, astutely recognizing that, in subject matter like this, reality is much more convincing than caricature.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hammering., November 30, 2001

By 

Angry Mofo "angrymofo" - See all my reviews

This review is from: L'Assommoir (The Dram Shop) (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

Zola was an amazingly prolific writer - he wrote about thirty novels, and all of them were solidly on the "long" side. Moreover, each was a huge self-contained universe, and a gritty, harrowing epic to boot. In many ways, L'Assommoir is the central novel in his famed 20-novel Rougon/Macquart cycle, as many of the subsequent books have a direct connection to it (Gervaise's daughter is the "star" of Nana; her son is the star of Germinal, and her other son the star of The Masterpiece; etc. etc.). It's an extremely difficult book for the modern man to read - at the time, the novel's crude language and filth shocked readers; as the translator astutely notes, this is unlikely to happen now. Moreover, it's a damningly hard book to translate - not only is it filled with the most complex, specific 19th century French slang there was (even Zola's contemporaries had trouble deciphering it), it has a very peculiar narration style. Zola, usually a fan of a dispassionate sort of narration, adopts a very jerky, repetitive, slangy form here - it's almost as if it's told from Gervaise's perspective, although the story is clearly third-person-omniscient. This is fascinating, though the seemingly endless "Now then"s and "Lord!"s and "Let me tell you"s and so on do tend to grate after a while.

But this is all piffle seeing as the story is so amazingly powerful. Zola's one accomplishment here is this - he makes Gervaise such a believable human being that you will genuinely want her to rise above the poverty and find success and happiness. In fact, this does occur in the course of three chapters. Alas, this state does not last, and for another six chapters or so, Gervaise is more and more degraded until we come to the almost unspeakably horrible conclusion. The horrible circumstances of this end, the degradation and humiliation she suffers are undeniably harrowing, and is made worse by this - a lot of her troubles do not come from "the rich," but from her fellow poor, who delight at pounding her into the dirt.

The novel is filled with remarkable characters - Gervaise herself comes first and foremost, but there's also the striking character of Lalie, the execrable shallowness of the Lorilleux (whom I guarantee the reader will blindly hate with an almost silly passion), and above all the melancholy figure of the blacksmith Goujet. Best of all, Zola never preaches, allowing the characters to speak for themselves. It's not even necessarily a profound social statement (though it is) as much as a character study. The author presents you with the facts - now it's up to you to figure out your resulting opinions. This is truly an unforgettable piece here, certainly on par with other 19th century French titans as Hugo's Les Miserables and Balzac's Pere Goriot. Not light reading by any means, but really an incredible novel.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Zola's finest work, March 2, 2000

By 

David Harrison (NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: L'Assommoir (World Classics) (French Edition) (Paperback)

One need go no further than the title of the book, dervied from the French verb "assommer"- to beat down, to understand that this will be a brutally and painfully realistic work. Zola is true to this expectation. Emile Zola had a thunderous impact on both nineteenth century French literature and political culture. Not only did he decry blatant injustice through his works, but to a large extent, he sacrificed his livelihood in espousing the cause of Captain Dreyfus through his tract "J'accuse!". Zola's sincere moral beliefs will surprise no one who has read his works. The passion with which the novels that comprise the Rougon series are written is a rarity. Having read five or six of these novels, I find that the charcter of Gervaise in L'Assomoir is both the most real and the most endearing. As opposed to Nana who is often perceived by readers as cold and merciless, Gervaise is a simple, hard-working woman who suffers a tourmented life. Zola's classic naturalist descriptions of the bars and the consumption of absinthe are priceless. In fact, Gervaise's suffering almost (but not quite)enables us to justify the actions of her daughter Nana in the subsequent book of the series. For anyone who is interested in sampling Zola's mastery and sincere passion, this book is a must read.