Customer Reviews

Pot Luck (Oxford World's Classics)

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

 

 

"Pot Bouille" is indeed a piece of treasure. Even now, I can still find myself holding on to each word since the very first page. Each page will keep you wanting for more. It tells a story of an apartment building and its occupants. One might imagine the type of brownstone mansions in New York City or Beacon Hill in Boston divided to apartment units to be rented out. Except that in Zola's pot, neighborly interactions take place regularly and make up the heart of the story.

Although many stories about bourgeoisie lives have been written, I've never come across characters as vivid, comical, harsh, evolving and disgusting as those portrayed in this book. Gossips, money, sex, adulteries, self advancement and selfishness are so well mashed in the pot, they'll warm up to readers' hearts. I can really feel for the characters cause they seem very much alive, it almost seem that I'm living next door to them. Although Monsieur Octave Mouret is described as the hero in this book, I feel that the true hero is Monsieur Josserand. "Pot Bouille" is a story about temptations and human feelings. It has every power to make me cringe, laugh, smile and cry.

"Pot Bouille" is a truly wonderful piece that will spark readers' imaginations. I've enjoyed reading the copy by Oxford World's Classics. Professor Brian Nelson has done a terrific job in translating it from its original French. Read it and have fun!!!!

A good jolly soap opera of a book. Young man comes from the provinces to the capital. Gets a room in an apartment block. Learns about life in general and the opposite sex in particular. Nothing new so far. Other authors had already trod the same path. Here, the whole process is meticulously described with Zola's usual skill (he is now on the tenth novel in his cycle). One cannot help thinking, though, that the apartment block must have been a pox doctor's paradise. But the book's real interest is in how the hero uses his acquired knowledge - which is revealed when he becomes the great retailing tycoon in the next book "Au Bonheur des Dames". So, this book is really the first part of a two-part series and it does its job of whetting the appetite for part two. It shows that the university of life is better than a business studies course any day.

This novel is not melodramatic, because it does not fit the definition. In a melodrama there is a polarization of good and evil; both are shown with an exaggerated acuteness and feelings that go along are overdramatized. In "Pot-Bouille/Pot Lock" the characters are very real and down-to-earth. The novel features sex, adulteries, self-seeking, self-advancement, hypocrisy, religion, greed, fight over inheritance, jealousy, show-boating, children born out of wedlock, etc. All of that happens among the inhabitants of the same building. The last utterance in the novel (delivered by one of the servants) shows the typical nature of the late XIXth century Parisian building, which is splendidly beautiful on the outside (referring to the beginning of chapter I). A fine-looking housekeeper, who stands on guard of morals, is an embodiment of sanctimony.

The novel is somewhat loosely tied with the sequel story about Octave Mouret "Au Bonheur des Dames/the Ladies' Delight". Both are masterpieces in their own rights and can be enjoyed independently of one another.

An entertaining read but you can't help learn something about Parisian bourgeois class homelife in the process. Plenty of intrigues and double dealings. I like how zola lets us eavesdrop on the gossip sessions of the servants in the back courtyard in order to move the plot along. The ending leaves the reader hanging somewhat. He was obiously already planning to write the next installment in the Rougon Macquart series (and this book's sequel) The ladies paradise.

Occasionally you pick up a novel and after reading about ten pages you realize two things. First, that you're in for a great story, and second, you would NEVER be able to write a novel that is as detailed, complex, and readable as the one you are holding in your hand. That is how I feel reading a Zola novel for the first time, and this tale is no exception. If you are new to Zola and stumbled upon this book and these reviews by accident, Emile Zola was a French author of the second half of the nineteenth century and wrote what could be called social commentary. His novels are typically cynical and scathing attacks on virtually every aspect of French society. Nobody is spared from his pen, not the lowest drunk living on the street nor the Emperor. Zola's primary work is a 20 volume series (the Rougon-Macquart series) which are linked in the style of Balzac with recurring characters and themes. The novel Pot Luck is the tenth in this series. Although linked, there is no need to read them in order (with one or two exceptions), they are all independent.

In this novel, a young bumpkin from the country, Octave Mouret, moves into an apartment building in Paris searching for his fortune and a few sexual conquests along the way. The primary theme of this novel is the bald-faced hippocracy in which most of the residents of the building live. There is lots of talk among the residents about chastity, purity, up-right living, but behind the facade is a cesspool of lies and immorality. The men are trying to bed as many of the women as possible (each others' wives, the servants, and outside mistresses), and the women are greedy, gossipy, and vain. On top of this, the happy middle class residents of the building are constantly hounding the servants complaining about their immorality and filth.

There are three things I love about Zola, and this novel is no exception. First, nobody develops realistic, complex characters like Zola. His characters talk and act EXACTLY like people really talk and act. Second, his themes are timeless and even though he is writing about 19th century France, a few small changes and it would sound as if he was talking about 21st century life in the West. The central themes of this novel (hypocrisy and contradiction) are as relevant today as when the novel was written, and you may well re-exam your life after reading this story. Third, he has a tremendous insight into people and exposes all their petty, dishonest machinations. Zola's writing style is gritty and direct, very different from his contemporary English counterparts. Many Americans may be shocked at the directness of his prose.

If you haven't read any of the other Rougon-Macquart novels, I don't know that I'd start here. This is a great story, and far better than virtually anything written by any other author, but it doesn't stand up to Zola's best works. If you are a newbie, I'd start with Nana or L'Assommoir, they are overall better stories and typical of Zola's style (but not his 2 best, which are Germinal and La Debacle). If you've read Zola before, all I can say is that you're in for more of the same, and that this is a complex, enjoyable tale. The Oxford World Classic translation by Brian Nelson is only OK, not great (not as good as some of the other OWC translations). Nelson occasionally drops a bit of English slang into the text, and it sounds completely inappropriate. I've never read the French version, but I suspect that a great deal of the lingo was lost in translation. Additionally, there are so many characters in this novel that sometimes it is difficult to keep track of who is sleeping with who, which servants work for which tenants, etc. A dramatis personae up front would have been most useful to the reader to keep track of all the characters. These are minor quibbles though, this is a thoughtful, engaging tale by one of the world's greatest novelists.

Zola's story definitely deserves a five star rating. I commend Brian Nelson for his fantastic introduction and for attempting to translate one of Zola's greatest works of sociological fiction. Moreover, Pot Luck is a decent translation for someone who does not have the language skills to read Pot-Bouille in French.

Saying that, however, I find that Mr. Nelson tried too hard to keep Zola's original French syntax intact - often literally translating an expressive text. Mr. Nelson also employed apposition far too frequently, which if over-used, as it is in Pot Luck, becomes tedious for the reader. There are also a couple of grammatical mistakes which perhaps could be the fault of the editor. Furthermore, I do not like the title "pot luck". As far as what I can gather, pot luck is a term used when one is having a party and each person or group of people contributes a dish of food to be shared amongst the group. I don't think that "pot luck" captures any of the connotations of the original boiling pot title which Zola used metaphorically to symbolize the `maison' stewing with class division, bourgeois hypocrisy, adultery, etc.

Finally, the English readers should beware that they are missing out on the beautiful style and tone of Zola. The English translation doesn't even come close to Zola in this regard. As Mounin wrote, `the only pity about a translation is that it is not the original.'

First off, I think Zola in general should be read more. His analysis and novelization of culture and time and place is in general brilliant. That said, I would not start my journey with "Pot Luck"..."L'Assommoir" would be my first choice, "Germinal" my second...possibly "Therese Raquin" third...but of course I have not read everything, those are just my favorites so far.

For me the problem with "Pot Luck" is Zola's attempt to manage a great number of characters and not really being able to attribute much personality to any of them. The only two characters I got a feel for were Berthe (a little) and the skinflint drunken Uncle Bachelard. In addition to these two there must be twenty five or so others populating the pages, but not really doing enough to identify themselves as relevant.

My other problem was with the Deus ex Machina ending with...

1. A servant giving birth to the child of one of her bosses.
2. The death of Monsieur Josserand
3. The attempted suicide of Duveyrier

Basically I think Zola overplays his hand here trying to make the long journey to book's end worthwhile.

But the book has all of Zola's wonderful attention to detail and his ability to paint a milieu like almost nobody else. I mostly feel the book is overpopulated with few real characters rising to take the frame. This of course could have been his intention, as he was attempting to portrait the bourgoisie. It just doesn't make for super compelling reading.

By all means read Emile Zola...just make this the 7th or 8th book you read, not the first.

After his hit novel L'Assommoir, Zola was much attacked for betraying the working classes. The picture of alcoholism and prostitution among the lower ranks of the French people in the capital city was not received happily by defenders of the proletariat. One might argue that L'Assommoir is more about Lumpen-Proletariat, the declassed lower strata, than about real workers, but the sting stung.

Thus, Pot-Bouille is an act of class justice: we are shown the depravity of the petite bourgeoisie. This is volume 10 of 20 in the Rougon-Macquart series. Halftime in a rewarding expedition! I am not sure my French did really get much better so far, but I can definitely read more fluently now than 10 volumes ago.

The French title Pot-Bouille is hard to translate. The German word Eintopf is a reasonable equivalent: all in one pot. Americans don't seem to have a word for that. Hotpot might give an idea. Melting pot is definitely off. Piping Hot has been used and is not even trying to be an equivalent. Pot Luck is quite misleading.

Pot-Bouille was published in 1882, but is set in the early 60s, about midways during the Second Empire. Its location is a pretentious but flawed 4 storey apartment house, where an offspring of the Rougon line, Octave Mouret, moves in as a young bachelor determined to make a career in the capital. He has rented a room here, through a friend from home in the Provence, who has made it as an architect. Octave is quite the adventurer, a careerist and amateur Casanova.
At moving in, Octave is given warning about morality: no women, no scandals here, please! He learns that this is all just window-dressing. He has entered a melting pot of hypocrisy, vulgarity, adultery, greed, pretensions, envy, jealousy, dishonesty, debauchery, stinginess...

The novel is one of the most populated in the series. There are so many characters that one would need a list of them, which my edition doesn't have. It is also one of the more entertaining and fast-paced in the series. Zola is never `funny', but the accumulation of sordid details behind the shiny surface is quite amusing. One would have to admit this is more social propaganda than naturalism.