tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post9177851002587824026..comments2024-03-29T03:04:00.853-05:00Comments on Wuthering <br>Expectations: This ennobled lemur, this hair-crowned bubble of the dust - Zola the conceptual anti-humanistAmateur Reader (Tom)http://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-52267399572151435082010-04-22T09:03:23.908-05:002010-04-22T09:03:23.908-05:00I'm in Colleen's boat. I appreciate your c...I'm in Colleen's boat. I appreciate your comments but I getting more and more Done with Zola the more I read about him!Rebecca Reidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06062252252301802298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-42451711530495784052010-04-21T08:39:26.308-05:002010-04-21T08:39:26.308-05:00Some problems, litlove:
1. The characters in Thé...Some problems, litlove:<br /><br />1. The characters in <i>Thérèse Raquin</i> are not poor. They're bourgeois shopkeepers. They have extensive savings.<br /><br />You'e talking about <i>Germinal</i> and <i>Nana</i> and such, right? I can see how part of what Zola is doing is a reaction to Hugo and lesser figures, to French Romanticism.<br /><br />2. I don't think Zola is condescending to the poor. Based on this novel, he is condescending to <i>humans</i>. If he writes about the poor as unromantically as he writes about these shopkeepers, that's impressive, a real commitment to the concept. <br /><br />3. I don't know what Zola believes, and happily take your word for it. I know what he <i>says</i> he believes about this novel, and I know what he actually puts in the book. Those two things do not actually mesh as well as the author claims. That's what I try to get at today. My suspicion is that he's insincere and slippery. Your suggestion is that he's a true believer and therefore any deviation is a failure in his purpose or art.<br /><br />4. I don't have to like it, sure. But I did! I liked <i>Thérèse Raquin</i>. Anyone who likes noirs would like this book. And I want to read more Zola.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-8435469514834226442010-04-21T02:34:31.886-05:002010-04-21T02:34:31.886-05:00Poor old Zola. I think he did believe his own theo...Poor old Zola. I think he did believe his own theories, quite genuinely. And he was writing in an era in which the poor had been either romanticized or ignored, or else used to teach moral lessons. (There was an ongoing fascination with the figure of the prostitute and endless stories in which she was saved from sin, converted to religion and then obliged to die to keep the moral nice and clean and intact). <br /><br />Zola wanted to show this class in the midst of fierce passions and genuine longings. It may still look condescending to emphasise their animality, but it was better than using them as some sort of object lesson pandering to the ideological niceties of the upper classes. But hey, no one said you had to like it. :-)litlovehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10952927245186474480noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-12703355978661939722010-04-20T23:48:16.638-05:002010-04-20T23:48:16.638-05:00Colleen's experience with The Human Beast was ...Colleen's experience with <i>The Human Beast</i> was <a href="http://www.bookphilia.com/2010/01/maybe-february-will-be-better.html" rel="nofollow">not exactly positive</a>. You make it sound, conceptually, almost the same as this earlier novel.<br /><br />My sense, Emily, of what Zola believes is weak. I know he doesn't believe eveything he writes (tomorrow's topic du jour). One power of the Natualist conception - like evolutionary psychology - is that it can explain anything. The question is, how well?<br /><br />J-37 - I fear I have been overemphasizing the pseudo-scientific parts. Because you're right, a lot of the writing is quite good - crisp, vivid, clean. And you're right about the Zola's coceptual motive, too - it's partly real, partly prankish, partly marketing. That's my guess, at least.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-49387373779844714472010-04-20T17:40:14.019-05:002010-04-20T17:40:14.019-05:00I am reading Therese Raquin for the first time and...I am reading Therese Raquin for the first time and it is the first Zola novel I've ever read. Yes...his animalization of the characters is striking. I enjoy the book just for the language itself...the simple directness of it is refreshing for me right now. His insistence on his scientific purpose (in the forward)kind of dulls the magic of his prose, which is often beautiful. One wonders too how much of that is rallied up in response to the accusations of his being a filth monger by his critics of the time. Is he perhaps covering up his own possible prurient interests in the creation of his texts and what lofty eye gives him the perfect detachment to look down upon these woeful creatures? In the forward he writes that his own friends accuse him of making others feel inferior. I can only imagine what this Zola guy was like and I look forward to reading a bio I am set to go on after finishing TR. Some days I am inclined to agree with him. Regardless....Thanks for these posts and like very much your summation "the conceptual anti-humanist" this is a worthy area for exploration. BestAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-16424737593142617632010-04-20T15:52:42.704-05:002010-04-20T15:52:42.704-05:00This post is interesting to me in light of the end...This post is interesting to me in light of the end of <em>Germinal</em>, which I just read last night and am having trouble coming to terms with...it's either weirdly and unconvincingly idealistic all of a sudden, or it's somehow arguing that so-called idealism is just another pap that animalistic man suckles. Actually, if Zola agreed with Stevenson that living for a misconceived ideal is inherently "consoling," that would explain a lot! <br /><br />Reading this entry, I do think <em>Germinal</em> is more complex in its view of humans and human motivation than Therese Raquin. There is that irrational animalism, but there are other causes of human behavior, as well.Emilyhttp://www.eveningallafternoon.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-29251311779611647732010-04-20T11:30:03.222-05:002010-04-20T11:30:03.222-05:00And fortunately for me, I have no obligation to li...And fortunately for me, I have no obligation to like (or read any more) Zola even though I very much like your posts about him.<br /><br />Looking forward to tomorrow's post about not believing authors...Bookphiliahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05155882653615842141noreply@blogger.com