Émile Zola, página 8 de 35

Editor: David Widger

Nana is a novel by the French naturalist author Émile Zola. Completed in 1880, Nana is the ninth installment in the 20-volume Les Rougon-Macquart series, which was to tell "The Natural and Social History of a Family under the Second Empire."The novel was an immediate success. Le Voltaire, the French newspaper that was to publish it in installments from October 1879 on, had launched a gigantic advertising campaign, raising the curiosity of the reading public to a fever pitch. When Charpentier finally published Nana in book form in February 1880, the first edition of 55,000 copies was sold out in one day. Flaubert and Edmond de Goncourt were full of praise for Nana. On the other hand, a part of the non-reading public, spurred on by some critics, reacted to the book with outrage. While the novel is held up as a fine example of writing, it is not especially true to Zolas touted naturalist philosophy; instead, it is one of the most symbolically complex of his novels, setting it apart from the earthy "realism" of LAssommoir or the more brutal "realism" of La Terre (1887). However, it was a great deal more authentic than most contemporary novels about the demimonde.Nana is especially noted for the crowd scenes, of which there are many, in which Zola proves himself a master of capturing the incredible variety of people. Whereas in his other novels -- notably Germinal (1885) -- he gives the reader an amazingly complete picture of surroundings and the lives of characters, from the first scene we are to understand that this novel treads new ground.Flaubert summed up the novel in one perfect sentence: Nana tourne au mythe, sans cesser detre reelle. (Nana turns into myth, without ceasing to be real.)

Nana is a novel by the French naturalist author Émile Zola. Completed in 1880, Nana is the ninth installment in the 20-volume Les Rougon-Macquart series, which was to tell "The Natural and Social History of a Family under the Second Empire."The novel was an immediate success. Le Voltaire, the French newspaper that was to publish it in installments from October 1879 on, had launched a gigantic advertising campaign, raising the curiosity of the reading public to a fever pitch. When Charpentier finally published Nana in book form in February 1880, the first edition of 55,000 copies was sold out in one day. Flaubert and Edmond de Goncourt were full of praise for Nana. On the other hand, a part of the non-reading public, spurred on by some critics, reacted to the book with outrage. While the novel is held up as a fine example of writing, it is not especially true to Zolas touted naturalist philosophy; instead, it is one of the most symbolically complex of his novels, setting it apart from the earthy "realism" of LAssommoir or the more brutal "realism" of La Terre (1887). However, it was a great deal more authentic than most contemporary novels about the demimonde.Nana is especially noted for the crowd scenes, of which there are many, in which Zola proves himself a master of capturing the incredible variety of people. Whereas in his other novels -- notably Germinal (1885) -- he gives the reader an amazingly complete picture of surroundings and the lives of characters, from the first scene we are to understand that this novel treads new ground.Flaubert summed up the novel in one perfect sentence:Nana tourne au mythe, sans cesser detre reelle.(Nana turns into myth, without ceasing to be real.)

Hijo de Gervaise Macquart et de su amante Lantier, el joven Étienne Lantier es despedido de su trabajo por haberle dado una bofetada a su patrón. Desempleado, se va al norte de la Francia en busca de trabajo. Es contratado en las minas de Montsou en donde vive condiciones de trabajo sumamente precarias.

Nana is a novel by the French naturalist author Émile Zola. Completed in 1880, Nana is the ninth installment in the 20-volume Les Rougon-Macquart series, which was to tell "The Natural and Social History of a Family under the Second Empire."The novel was an immediate success. Le Voltaire, the French newspaper that was to publish it in installments from October 1879 on, had launched a gigantic advertising campaign, raising the curiosity of the reading public to a fever pitch. When Charpentier finally published Nana in book form in February 1880, the first edition of 55,000 copies was sold out in one day. Flaubert and Edmond de Goncourt were full of praise for Nana. On the other hand, a part of the non-reading public, spurred on by some critics, reacted to the book with outrage. While the novel is held up as a fine example of writing, it is not especially true to Zolas touted naturalist philosophy; instead, it is one of the most symbolically complex of his novels, setting it apart from the earthy "realism" of LAssommoir or the more brutal "realism" of La Terre (1887). However, it was a great deal more authentic than most contemporary novels about the demimonde.Nana is especially noted for the crowd scenes, of which there are many, in which Zola proves himself a master of capturing the incredible variety of people. Whereas in his other novels -- notably Germinal (1885) -- he gives the reader an amazingly complete picture of surroundings and the lives of characters, from the first scene we are to understand that this novel treads new ground.Flaubert summed up the novel in one perfect sentence:Nana tourne au mythe, sans cesser detre reelle.(Nana turns into myth, without ceasing to be real.)

Thérèse Raquin is a novel by Émile Zola, first published in 1867. It was originally published in serial format in the journal LArtiste. It was published in book format in December of the same year. I

Les Rougon-Macquart doivent se composer d’une vingtaine de romans. Depuis 1869, le plan général est arrêté, et je le suis avec une rigueur extrême. L’Assommoir est venu à son heure, je l’ai écrit, co

That morning Jean, with a seed-bag of blue linen tied round his waist, held its mouth open with his left hand, while with his right, at every three steps, he drew forth a handful of corn, and flung it broadcast. The rich soil clung to his heavy shoes, which left holes in the ground, as his body lurched regularly from side to side; and each time he threw you saw, amid the ever-flying yellow seed, the gleam of two red stripes on the sleeve of the old regimental jacket he was wearing out. He strode forward in solitary state; and behind him, to bury the grain, there slowly came a harrow, to which were harnessed two horses, driven by a waggoner, who cracked his whip over their ears in long, regular sweeps.

Translated by Mary J. Serrano

His Masterpiece is the tragic story of Claude Lantier, an ambitious and talented young artist who has come from the provinces to conquer Paris but is conquered instead by the flaws of his own genius. Set in the 1860s and 1870s, it is the most autobiographical of the twenty novels in Zolas Rougon-Macquart series. It provides a unique insight into Zolas career as a writer and his relationship with Cezanne, a friend since their schooldays in Aix-en-Provence. It also presents a well-documented account of the turbulent Bohemian world in which the Impressionists came to prominence despite the conservatism of the Academy and the ridicule of the general public.

La Joie de Vivre, here translated as The Joy of Life, was written by M. Zola in 1883, partly at his country house at Médan, and partly at Bénodet, a little seaside place in Brittany. The scene of the story is laid, however, on the coast of the neighbouring province of Normandy, between the mouth of the Orne and the rocks of Grandcamp, where the author had sojourned, more than once, in previous years. The title selected by him for this book is to be taken in an ironical or sarcastic sense. There is no joy at all in the lives of the characters whom he portrays in it. The story of the hero is one of mental weakness, poisoned by a constantly recurring fear of death; whilst that of his father is one of intense physical suffering, blended with an eager desire to continue living, even at the cost of yet greater torture. Again, the story of the heroine is one of blighted affections, the wrecking of all which might have made her life worth living. And there is a great deal of truth in the various pictures of human existence which are thus presented to us; however much some people, in their egregious vanity, may recoil from the idea that life and love and talent and glory are all very poor and paltry things.

En el París febril y deslumbrante del Segundo Imperio todo el mundo habla de Naná, la nueva estrella del Teatro de Variedades. Su atractivo es irresistible, su ambición, enorme; pero más allá del brillo de la vida mundana se ocultan tambien la miseria, el sufrimiento y las tragedias personales. Simbolo de la decadencia de la Francia de su epoca, Nana es tambien el prototipo de la mujer fatal y de la cortesana sin escrupulos sentimentales.

"El padre Lacour estará cómodo en esa fosa. Conoce la tierra, y la tierra lo conoce a él. Se llevarán bien. Hace ya sesenta años que ella le dio cita, el día en que él la abordó por primera vez con su pico. Sus amores debian terminar de esa manera, la tierra debia tomarlo y guardarlo para si." Vivir, casarse, morir. En los textos que presentamos, Zola se interroga sobre las diferentes configuraciones que adoptan el matrimonio y la muerte en la sociedad burguesa. A traves de casos ejemplares (tomados de la aristocracia, la alta burguesia y las capas populares), el autor nos muestra con un humor corrosivo ese escandalo que subyace a las diversas manifestaciones sociales: la desigualdad. Huerfano desde su juventud, Emile Zola se ve obligado a trabajar tempranamente. A los veinticinco años obtiene sus primeros ingresos de fuentes literarias gracias a la publicacion -de sus versos y ensayos, y en 1867 escribe su opera prima, Therese Raquin. Su interes por las conductas sociales y el detalle con que las describe lo convierten en el fundador del Naturalismo.

Con" Naná" , Zola se propuso hacer un estudio verdadero de las cortesanas de lujo, hastiado por el tratamiento engañoso que del tema se había estado haciendo. Consiguió, sin embargo, crear una nueva divinidad, un nuevo tipo de mujer fatal y una nueva belleza diabolica. En" Nana" , Zola liga estrechamente los avatares de la existencia individual de una cortesana a los de las clases hegemonicas, en una etapa historica intencionadamente acotada, el Segundo Imperio.

Como prostituta de lujo, gran conocedora de los bajos fondos parisinos, Nana es un gran espejo de aumento de todos los males de aquel París mundano, vicioso y contradictorio. El maestro del naturalismo llevo a cabo un minucioso retrato de una mujer de belleza arrebatadora y voracidad sin limites. Del fin una heroina tragica. Inolvidable para la literatura, Nana morira dejando tras de si una corte de hombres que en su dia perdieron la cabeza y el bolsillo por ella. Pero al fin su muerte no le importara a nadie.