Theme: Paris

Please excuse the long absence. I hope you will forgive! Thanks for checking back and enjoy a little talk of Zola.

Emile Zola was an novelist, journalist and an intellectual. The ultimate literary witness of 19th century Paris, Zola gave us all classes, from high to low, privileged to poverty-stricken, principled to immoral. Les Rougon-Macquart series is a twenty volume series of France's inhabitants during the Second Empire. Not aiming to merely write a novel reflecting French society, Zola's goal was ambitious - many novels to chronicle the lives and generations of one family: Les Rougon-Macquart. Les Rougon were rich; Les Macquart were poor. And so we begin the amazing twenty novel cycle infused with political, social, and scientific themes that give us a valuable reference of life in Paris during the 19th century.

Although I would love to claim that I am going to discuss all twenty novels, I confess, I am not up to that task. Being that there are only some thirteen of the twenty novels still available in English, I had to pick and choose wisely. Of course, I could have attempted to read the entire series in French, but that would take much longer than the twenty-one years it took Zola to actually write them.(Still, if you happen to own an extra set of Zola's series in French, or know of anyone who's looking to unload one, I would be happy to give you my address...) So, the fatalist that I am, I chose Le Ventre de Paris and L'Assommoir, both novels centered around Paris' working class.

Allow me to begin with La Ventre de Paris or also known as The Belly of Paris. This is a literal translation of the title but also a literal translation of the contents. This is not a novel for the weak of heart or stomach. Set in Les Halles, which is like one huge breathing, smelly beast of a farmer's market, we meet Florent as he is being picked up by Madame Francois, who happens to nearly run him over on her way to the markets to sell her vegetables. She takes pity on Florent and lets him hitch a ride amongst her turnips and carrot bunches. For a man who was face down in the gutter, pained with hunger, this is pretty good fortune. After meeting various people and finally locating his brother, we learn that Florent has spent years at Cayenne, a penal colony for political prisoners. His dimwitted brother is so glad to see him again that he insists that Florent live with Quenu, his lovely wife Lisa and their young chubby daughter, Pauline. Florent accepts, out of hunger and no other options, to move into the residence they keep above the pork shop they own.

Just an interjection here...one thing I have learned about reading Zola is that when it comes to domesticity, the adage 'the more the merrier' definitely does not apply. The more people that are subjected to live in a small space the more unhappiness abounds. Also, this novel in particular is one of Zola's most descriptive novels, famous for his passages about the smells and sounds of the marketplace. And not necessarily descriptions that will have your mouth watering. And, by the way, if you are a vegetarian, Zola is very difficult to get through without feeling absolutely disgusted. That said, back to the belly.
Florent's whole body thrilled at the sight. Then he perceived a woman standing in the sunlight at the door of the shop. With her prosperous, happy look in the midst of all those inviting things she added to the cheery place. She was a fine woman and quite blocked the doorway. Still, she was not over-stout, but simply buxom, with the full ripeness if her thirty years. She had only just risen, yet her glossy hair was already brushed smooth and arranged in little flat bands over her temples, giving her an appearance of extreme neatness. She had the fine skin, the pinky-white complexion common to those whose life is present in an atmosphere of raw meat and fat. There was a touch of gravity about her demeanor, her movements were calm and slow; what mirth or pleasure she felt she expressed by her eyes, her lips retaining all their seriousness. A collar of starched linen encircled her neck, white sleevelets reached to her elbows, and a white apron fell even of the tips of her shoes, so that you could see little of her black cashmere dress, which clung tightly to her well-rounded shoulders and swelling bosom. The sun rays poured hotly over the whiteness she displayed. However, although her bluish-black hair, her rosy face, and bright sleeve and apron were steeped in the glow of light, she never once blinked, but enjoyed her morning bath of sunshine with blissful tranquility, her soft eyes smiling the while at the flow and riot of the markets. She had the appearance of a very worthy woman. Ahem. Yes, after that description, I, too, think she is quite the formidable woman. Florent spends most of the novel trying to please Lisa. He takes a job as the fish market inspector against every fiber of his being on her recommendation,and, as time goes on, he spends less and less time at the shop with the Quenus sensing Lisa's aversion to him. He gets involved with the local political revolutionaries at the local bar. This comes on slowly because, throughout the whole novel, Florent seems so apathetic and victimized. His skinny body and unattractive face repels people and it seems that most of the women he deals with endure him because through his habitual presence they are inured by him. Oddly enough, Florent is never bitter, and in fact, is the most gentle person in the novel besides Madame Francois. He tries to be virtuous and forgiving of the indiscretions and improprieties of others. Introduced by the well-off Gavard to a tiny working man political enclave, Florent becomes more and more involved with them, and spending most of his nights at the bar with his friends to avoid the uneasiness of his presence at home. Amidst the gossiping women of the fish market and the spinsters that visit the pork shop, Florent is a pariah, a man not to be trusted especially since he is carousing with rebels and those overtly unhappy with the Second Empire and the particular lot in life it has dealt them. Florent masterminds an insurrection and along with this comes a revelation:

Leaning on the iron balustrade, Florent reflected that sooner or later he would certainly be punished for having accepted that inspectorship. It see,ed to lie like a stain on his life. He had to become an official of the Prefecture, forswearing himself, serving the Empire in spite of all the oaths he had taken in his exile. His anxiety to please Lisa, the charitable purpose to which he had devoted the salary he received, the just and scrupulous manner in which he always struggled to carry out his duties, no loner seemed to him valid excuses for his bade abandonment of principle. If he had suffered in the midst of all that sleek fatness, he had deserved to suffer. And before him arose a vision of the evil year which he had just spent, his persecution by the fishwives, the sickening sensations he had felt on close, damp days, the continuous indigestion which had afflicted his delicate stomach, and the latent hostility which was gathering strength against him. All these things he now accepted as chastisement. That dull rumbling of hostility and spite, the cause of which he could not divine, must forebode some coming catastrophe before whose approach he already stooped, with the shame of one who knows there is a transgression he must expiate. Then he felt furious with himself as he thought of the popular rising he was preparing; and reflected that he was no longer unsullied enough to achieve success.

As you can most likely surmise, things are tough and get tougher for Florent. What is most upsetting about this novel is the validity of other people's perception and the lynch mob mentality. No matter what Florent does, he is misconstrued and mistrusted. His principle means nothing. It also raises the question of class - does the working class fear nonconformity more than nobility? Zola doesn't address this blatantly, but certainly the pettiness and fear of the working class sets a tone that hints at an unspoken contrast with the upper classes.

Interestingly, Napoleon III, as much as Zola tried to criticize his political career throughout his novels, actually provided Zola with an endless supply of characters spanning the economic and social stratum. And Napoleon also gave French workers the right to strike(where would Paris be without it's strikes?) and hired Haussmann to design the gorgeous tree-lined avenues that are sublime to stroll down.

Ultimately, what I love about this book is that it is Zola's first novel solely focusing on the working class, a class of which he was not a stranger. We get such a strong sense at how Les Halles and Parisians set about work everyday among the brutality, gluttony, poverty and pungent smell of the food markets. Because of the descriptive nature of Zola's prose, I at times craved French delicacies like warm crusted brie with Cote de Rhone or the absolute divinity in a French made omelet, and at other times was so repulse by the detailed accounts of how things came to be sold at the markets, I could barely eat another meal. It made me aware of what I was eating, and also my station in the economic system of the United States. But I was mostly impacted by how easily slander can be taken for truth. Zola made me realize that acting pious and superior and defaming the likes of anyone is just as damaging as ignorance.

Next up is L'Assommoir. Stay tuned for another dose of Zola...and the seedy side of Paris. Debauchery and scandal. Woohoo.

Le Ventre de Paris
By Emile Zola
Translated by Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
Green Integer Press
Paperback
654 pages
ISBN: 1933382722