The Soil (The Earth. The Rougon-Macquart) [Paperback]

Emile Zola (Author), Andrew Moore (Editor), Henry Vizetelly (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 3, 2008

The Soil (aka The Earth; French original title: La Terre), around which the greatest controversy has raged, is a novel which treats of the conditions of agricultural life in France before the war with Prussia (1870-1871), and the subsequent downfall of the Second Empire. It is, in some respects, the most powerful of all Zola's novels. In parts the book is Shakespearian in its strength. --- Jean Macquart, son of Antoine Macquart and brother of Gervaise (see The Fortune of the Rougons), having served his time in the Army, comes to the plain of La Beauce, and becomes an agricultural labourer on the farm of La Borderie, which belonged to Alexandre Hourdequin. He falls in love with a neighbour, Lise Mouche, and later her sister Francoise... --- The interest of the book is largely connected with the history of the Fouans, another family of peasants, the senior member of which, having grown old, divided his land among his three children. The intense and brutish rapacity of these peasants, their utter lack of any feeling of morality or duty, their perfect selfishness, not stopping short of parricide, form a picture of horror unequalled in fiction. --- This English translation of La Terre (in 1888) aroused such an outcry that a prosecution followed, and the translator and publisher, Henry Vizetelly, was sentenced to three months' imprisonment. (J. G. Patterson)

Product Details

• Paperback: 424 pages
• Publisher: Mondial (March 3, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1595690883
• ISBN-13: 978-1595690883
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,570,318 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Zola's great work re-captured, October 7, 2009

By 

Douglas Cox "retired programmer" (Palo Alto, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Soil (The Earth. The Rougon-Macquart) (Paperback)

I first read Zola's Earth when I was much younger. I remember being hugely impressed with the earthiness of it. So, thinking I'd like to read it again, I bought Douglas Parmee's translation, presuming that that was the translation that I'd read. But the language in that translation was not earthy, it was pedestrian, as though the translator was trying to appeal to the average English reader. I couldn't read it. I remembered the earthiness in the language of the translation I'd read as being something that perfectly represented the people and place in Zola's book. And it was a delight. So I bought this re-issue of an old translation, and yes, it was the one I'd read and loved before. I can't imagine how anyone who reads and enjoys Zola and other similarly great authors could prefer the newer translation to this older one. I can only guess that Parmee's translation was meant to appeal to readers whose main entertainment is television, and who want a writer to use simple, familiar words that describe simple, familiar feelings.