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Lourdes (Hardcover)
Ernest Alfred Vizetelly, ÿMile Zola
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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Emile Zola's "His Masterpiece" is the author's most
autobiographical novel, based in part on his boyhood friendship
with the painter Paul Cezanne. The painter of "His Masterpiece,"
Claude Lantier, has much in common with Cezanne, as well as Manet
-- the controversial painter of this period whose "realistic" work
in some ways mirrors Zola's writing. Claude's friend Pierre Sandoz,
the clerk and writer of the novel, is based closely on Zola
himself. Not as fortunate in life as was Manet, Claude Lantier's
art is misunderstood, and he struggles emotionally and financially.
From his ill-fated romance with his beautiful muse Christine to his
battle to make his art understood, Claude's story is always
compelling. Of particular interest to readers seeking to learn
about French Impressionism, as well as for its realistic depiction
of Bohemian Paris in the 1860s and 1870s, "His Masterpiece" is
among Zola's most readable, and compelling work.
EMILE ZOLA - A NOVELIST AND REFORMER - AN ACCOUNT OF HIS LIFE &
WORK by ERNEST ALFRED VIZETELLY. Originally published in 1904.
PREFACE: THIS book is an attempt to chronicle the chief incidents
in the life of the late fimile Zola, and to set out the various
aims he had in view at different periods of a career which was one
of the most strenuous the modern world has known. Virtually all his
work is enumerated in the following pages, which, though some are
given to argument and criticism, will be found crowded with facts.
The result may not be very artistic, but it has been partially my
object to show what a tremendous worker Zola was, how incessantly,
how stubbornly, he practised the gospel which he preached. An
attempt has been made also to show the growth of humani tarian and
reforming passions in his heart and mind, passions which became so
powerful at last that the novelist in Zola seemed as nothing. Yet I
do not think I can be charged with having neglected the literary
side of his career. It is that which bulks most largely in the
present volume, and that I think is as it should be for while Zola
was certainly, and in some respects essentially, a Reformer, the
pen was the weapon with which he strove to effect his purposes.
Designed more particularly for British and American readers, the
book contains some passages which I should have abbreviated omitted
perhaps if I had been addressing a French audience. And some
subjects, which, in that case, I might have treated more fully,
have here been dealt with briefly. For instance, though I have
enumerated all the plays that Zola wrote, and most of those founded
by others on his works, I have not entered into any real discussion
of his viewsrespecting the stage, or of his indirect influence on
it in France. I have thought it sufficient to indicate that such
influence was exercised. A full examination of Zolas relations with
the stage would have materially increased the length of a work
which is long already, and which I have been anxious to keep within
the scope of one volume a desire which has made my task more
difficult than it would have been had I used my materials in all
their fulness. But I am distinctly of opinion that biographies in
several volumes have nowadays little chance of surviving, even for
a moderate number of years. With respect to Zolas share in the
Dreyfus case everybody will recognise, I think, how difficult it is
to narrate the doings of any one individual in such an intricate
mtUe without constant reference to the other combatants and
explanation of the many points at issue. Nevertheless, though I
fully recognise that the deliverance of Captain Dreyfus was not
effected by Zola only, that many other able and whole-hearted men
co-operated in that great achievement, have endeavoured to
disentangle Zolas share in the battle from that of the others,
saying of them only what has seemed to me strictly necessary to
explain his actions. I mention this in order that none may think me
unjust towards Zolas fellow-fighters. And though in some
introductory pages I have endeavoured to indicate the primary
causes of the Affair, such as I think them to have been, in the
hope that the reader may be better able to understand the fury of
the fray, I have not plunged into a discussion of the Affair
itself. Besides, M. Dreyfuss case is now once more before the Cour
de Cassation, and reserve on a variety of matters hastherefore
become advis able. Further, for some years already, a far abler pen
than mine, wielded by one of far greater authority, M...
Raised alongside her sickly cousin, Therese lives the quietest of
lives. Yet something impetuous and wild stirs within her -- as she
learns of herself during moments of escape into the countryside.
But now the family is in Paris, taking over a mercer's shop in
the dingy Arcade of the Pont Neuf. To appease the aunt who has
cared for her, she marries her pale, nerve-wracked cousin. Then a
schoolmate of her husband's appears -- almost his complete
opposite, with full voice, jovial laughter -- and a strapping build
that givers her nervous pangs to contemplate . . .
And a new Therese, one her aunt or husband has never known,
threatens to break free of the restraints that have bound her, all
these years
The first of a series of more than twenty novels, "The Fortune of
the Rougons" presents the passions and conflicts of two families --
one wealthy and aiming at the aristocracy, the other working-class
and in desperate poverty -- in a French village in the years
leading up to Napoleon III's coup against the weak French republic
and the triumph of his Second Empire. The great political tides of
their time flow in, mingling national rivalries with the personal
and familial passions of the one town and two families. Zola ties
together the triumph of schemers on the national level with the
victory of cunning, deceit, and wealth over those hoping merely for
the safety of their loves and the chance at an honest life.
Emile Zola was a French novelist and exponent of Naturalism, as
well as a noted political liberal. Half of Zola's novels were a set
of twenty called Les Rougon-Macquart, set in France's Second
Empire. It traces two branches of a single family over a period of
generations. "The Fat and the Thin" is the third novel of Zola's
twenty volume Rougon-Macquart series.
"The Fat and the Thin" is a study of the teeming life which
surrounds the great central markets of Paris. The heroine is Lisa
Quenu, a daughter of Antoine Macquart. She has become prosperous,
and increasingly selfish. Her brother-in-law Florent has escaped
from penal servitude in Cayenne and lives for a short time in her
house, but she becomes tired of his presence and ultimately
denounces him to the police.
As a critic put it: "It also embraces a powerful allegory, the
prose song of the eternal battle between the lean of this world and
the fat - a battle in which, as the author shows, the latter always
come off successful."
Emile Zola's "His Masterpiece" is the author's most
autobiographical novel, based in part on his boyhood friendship
with the painter Paul Cezanne. The painter of "His Masterpiece,"
Claude Lantier, has much in common with Cezanne, as well as Manet
-- the controversial painter of this period whose "realistic" work
in some ways mirrors Zola's writing. Claude's friend Pierre Sandoz,
the clerk and writer of the novel, is based closely on Zola
himself. Not as fortunate in life as was Manet, Claude Lantier's
art is misunderstood, and he struggles emotionally and financially.
From his ill-fated romance with his beautiful muse Christine to his
battle to make his art understood, Claude's story is always
compelling. Of particular interest to readers seeking to learn
about French Impressionism, as well as for its realistic depiction
of Bohemian Paris in the 1860s and 1870s, "His Masterpiece" is
among Zola's most readable, and compelling work.
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