The kill (Bestseller library) [Import] [Unknown Binding]

Emile Zola (Author)

Product Details

• Unknown Binding: 318 pages
• Publisher: Elek Books (1958)
• ASIN: B0000CK1IZ
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars New Translation Brings the Paris of the 2d Empire to Life, January 18, 2005

By 

F. Orion Pozo "Orion Pozo" (Raleigh, NC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Kill (Hardcover)

This is the second book in the Rougon-Macquart series of 20 novels that traces 4 generations of a family with a book about each family member. You don't have to read the other books to read one since each stands on its own, but once you start, you may, like me, never be able to stop.

This new translation really helps bring this book to life for the modern reader. Most of Zola's novels were translated when written over a hundred years ago. These original translations are usually the only choice English-language readers have. While good, they are somewhat dated, and a new translation of a Zola novel is an event of great importance. Arthur Goldhammer does a wonderful job of both being true to the time it was written and yet sensitive to the modern reader. There are occasional footnotes to explain some terms, but they are not bothersome nor do they interupt the flow of the work.

In The Kill Zola takes the reader to the Paris of the Second Empire where Napoleon III is transforming the city into a modern marvel. Large, wide, straight new boulevards are being built to provide access to the the heart of the city.

Many people are getting rich in real estate speculation. The protagonist Aristide Saccard, has come to Paris to make a fortune for himself. He knows he can do it if he could just find someone to provide him money to get started. He hears of a rich daughter who needs a husband since she was raped and is pregnant, and strikes a deal with her and her family to a marriage of convenience. With the money he gets from marrying Renee Saccard, he builds a fortune on shady deals and speculation.

Renee is a bored sensualist who takes lovers and attends all the parties she can. She is left to raise Aristide's teenage son, Maxime, another sensualist, who today would be called a Metrosexual. Together, the two explore the sexually liberated world of 19th century Paris and eventually become lovers.

Character development and portrayal are excellent in The Kill. Zola shows us the inner workings of this amoral family and the world in which they travel. Although the ending is a bit weak, the characters and plot are excellently developed.

This is the second time I have read this book and I love the new translation. Not Zola's best work, but a very strong novel worth reading.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Consumption as depravity, May 15, 2005

By 

The Pete (Illinois) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Kill (Modern Library) (Hardcover)

First of all, this translation is very readable. If that is your concern in whether to purchase (I'd rather read a bad novel than a good novel in a poor translation), then fear not. As to the novel itself, I have begun reading the Rougon-Macquart cycle in order, so this is my second book.

I found the style of The Fortune of the Rougons carried over into this book, so the text is readable and wellplotted. I still found characterization a bit of a problem. The three main characters - Aristide, Renee, and Maxime - are rendered very well. So are a few supporting characters. For example, we get to know Sidonie Rougon who was only a footnote in the last book. However, most of the other characters are names and positions and not much else. This could be construed as serving Zola's purpose of illustrating the shallow lives of these people, but it can also get to be confusing.

As another reviewer mentioned, there's a lot of decriptive passages relating to furnishings and interiors. Again, these may serve to instill the sense of superficiality, but the descriptions can slow the narrative. However, one description (of Renee's bedroom and dressing room) appears to be a method of commenting on the psychology of her sexual relationship with her stepson rather than just sheer description. I found this an interesting device.

All the characters are bored and, despite having gained immense wealth, which if you read the last book you know was Aristide's all-consuming goal, one gets the feeling it is all for nothing. These people are consumers that make a cloud of locusts look restrained. Despite possessing hundreds of thousands of francs and "rivers of gold," they always seem one wrong step from bankruptcy. The final lines of the book underscore the sheer waste these people's lives represent.

Searching for fulfillment while being morally incapable of attaining it, I couldn't help feeling Zola's characters resonated with present day CEOs and executives behind debacles like the Enron scandal. Zola's depiction of the Saccard family is like turning over a rock and analyzing the squirming, slimy depravity of people obsessed with acquisition, consumers whose appetites are never satisfied.

In a sense, I get the feeling Zola's social criticism of the Second Empire will be a bit like looking at the Decline of Rome. And both speak to modern American culture.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stick with it...It's worth it..., July 14, 2006

By 

Max&Maia - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Kill (Modern Library Classics) (Paperback)

So I picked up this novel for two reasons: 1) I read Therese Raquin and thought it brilliant, 2) The cover was appealing. This is the first and only novel I've read in the Les Rougon-Macquart series, and, to be honest, I'm not rushing to read any more, but...I'm glad I read this one.

The focus of the story, set in 2nd Empire Paris, revolves around Renee, the daughter of "old money" who marries into "new money": Aristide Saccard and his son Maxime. Aristide is a ruthless financier and Maxime is his dashing but effeminate son. Of course, the young Renee begins an affair with Maxime, an affair that is characterized by her lustful longing for some real connection to life. The affair is quickly regretted by Maxime but becomes an obsession of Renee's...

...And that's when the novel becomes absolutely brilliant. We watch the tortuous descent of Renee into the madness that we all expected to happen, but this madness' climax (chapter 6) is one of the great feats of modern literature.

The setting of this climax is a costume ball of ridiculous extravagance. I can't adequately describe the satirical brilliance of this scene, but its absurdity ratchets up in intensity when Renee enters wearing...not much. I also don't want to spoil it.

To make a long story short, she goes insane, not that we didn't expect it. Why read it? Because this climactic scene is itself an epic of nasty grandeur. Renee manages to be both sympathetic and abhorrent, leaving the reader to ask, "What just happened?"

Don't get me wrong; this novel is boring and overly descriptive at first, but the descriptions slowly become more symbolically meaningful, as, for instance, when Renee's dressing and bathing room takes on the qualities of a vulva. And again I stress, the vividness and symbolism of the climax is INTENSE and marvelous.

I'd recommend this novel for readers with A) patience and B) a keen eye for masterful construction. Otherwise, read the next Dan Brown novel (not that I've actually read anything by him). Oh, and if you're both pornographic and literary minded, thumbs up.