Les Rougon-Macquart

Les Rougon-Macquart, Histoire naturelle et sociale d'une famille sous le Second Empire

First page of La Fortune des Rougon, the first book of the series
20 books, see this list
Author Émile Zola
Country France
Language French
Genre Naturalism
Published 1871–1893
Media type Print

Les Rougon-Macquart is the collective title given to a cycle of twenty novels by French writer Émile Zola. Subtitled Histoire naturelle et sociale d'une famille sous le Second Empire (Natural and social history of a family under the Second Empire), it follows the lives of the members of the two titular branches of a fictional family living during the Second French Empire (1852–1870) and is one of the most prominent works of the French naturalism literary movement.

Influences

Zola, with the book of the Rougon-Macquart under his arm, salutes the statue of Balzac.

Early in his life, Zola discovered the work of Honoré de Balzac and his famous cycle La Comédie humaine. This had a profound impact on Zola, who decided to write his own, unique cycle. However, in 1869, he explained in Différences entre Balzac et moi, why he would not make the same kind of book as Balzac:

In one word, his work wants to be the mirror of the contemporary society. My work, mine, will be something else entirely. The scope will be narrower. I don't want to describe the contemporary society, but a single family, showing how the race is modified by the environment. (...) My big task is to be strictly naturalist, strictly physiologist.[1]

As a naturalist writer, Zola was highly interested by science and especially the problem of heredity and evolution. He notably read and mentioned the work of the doctor Prosper Lucas,[2] Claude Bernard, and Charles Darwin[3] as references for his own work. This led him to think that people are heavily influenced by heredity and their environment. He intended to prove this by showing how these two factors could influence the members of a family. In 1871, in the preface of La Fortune des Rougon, he explained his intent:

The great characteristic of the Rougon-Macquarts, the group or family which I propose to study, is their ravenous appetite, the great outburst of our age which rushes upon enjoyment. Physiologically the Rougon-Macquarts represent the slow succession of accidents pertaining to the nerves or the blood, which befall a race after the first organic lesion, and, according to environment, determine in each individual member of the race those feelings, desires and passions—briefly, all the natural and instinctive manifestations peculiar to humanity—whose outcome assumes the conventional name of virtue or vice.[4]

Preparations

Letter by Zola to his publisher
In a letter to his publisher, Zola stated his goals for the Rougon-Macquart: "1° To study in a family the questions of blood and environments. [...] 2° To study the whole Second Empire, from the coup d'état to nowadays."[5]

Genealogy and heredity

Since his first goal was to show how heredity can affect the lives of descendants, Zola started working on the Rougon-Macquart by drawing the family tree for the Rougon-Macquart. Though it was to be modified many times over the years, with some members appearing or disappearing, the original tree shows how Zola planned the whole cycle before writing the first book.

The tree provides the name and date of birth of each member, along with certain properties of his heredity and his life:

Note : The gallery does not include the tree made for La Bete Humaine[7] which included for the first time Jacques, the main protagonist of the book[8]

For example, the entry for Jean Macquart on the 1878 tree read : Jean Macquart, né en 1831 - Election de la mère - Ressemblance physique du père. Soldat (Jean Macquart, born in 1831 - Prepotency of the mother - Physical likeness to his father. Soldier)

The study of the Second Empire

Note by Zola (1872) mentioning 17 ideas of book. Some would never be made, others were to be added later on.

To study the Second Empire, Zola thought of each novel as a novel about a specific aspect of the life in his time. For example, in the list he made in 1872, he intended to make a "political novel", a "novel about the defeat", "a scientific novel", and a "novel about the war in Italy". The first three ideas led to Son Excellence Eugène Rougon, La Débâcle, and Le Docteur Pascal, respectively. However, the last idea would never be made into a book.

Indeed, at the beginning, Zola didn't know exactly how many books he would write. In the first letter to his publisher, he mentioned "ten episodes".[5] In 1872, his list included seventeen novels, but some of them would never be made (such as the one on the war in Italy), whereas others were to be added later on.[9] In 1877, in the preface of L'Assommoir, he stated that he was going to write "about twenty novels".[10] In the end, he settled for twenty books.

Story

Almost all of the main protagonists for each novel are introduced in the first book, La Fortune des Rougon. The last novel in the cycle, Le Docteur Pascal, contains a lengthy chapter that ties up loose ends from the other novels. In between, there is no "best sequence" in which to read the novels in the cycle, as they are not in chronological order and indeed are impossible to arrange into such an order. Although some of the novels in the cycle are direct sequels to one another, many of them follow on directly from the last chapters of La Fortune des Rougon, and there is a great deal of chronological overlap between the books; there are numerous recurring characters and several of them make "guest" appearances in novels centered on other members of the family.

The Rougon-Macquart

The Rougon-Macquart family begins with Adelaïde Fouque. Born in 1768 in the fictional Provençal town Plassans to middle-class parents (members of the French "bourgeoisie"), she has a slight intellectual disability. She marries Rougon, and gives birth to a son, Pierre Rougon. However, she also has a lover, the smuggler Macquart, with whom she has two children: Ursule and Antoine Macquart. This means that the family is split in three branches:

Because Zola believed that everyone is driven by their heredity, Adelaide's children show signs of their mother's original deficiency. For the Rougon, this manifests as a drive for power, money, and excess in life. For the Macquarts, who live in a difficult environment, it is manifested by alcoholism (L'Assommoir), prostitution (Nana), and homicide (La Bête humaine). Even the Mourets are marked to a certain degree; in La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret, the priest Serge Mouret has to fight his desire for a young woman.

                                      ┌─ Eugène Rougon      ┌─ Maxime Saccard ──── Charles Saccard
                                      │     1811–?          │     1840–1873          1857–1873
                                      │                     │
                                      ├─ Pascal Rougon   ───┼─ Clotilde Saccard ── A son
                                      │     1813–1873       │     1847–?             1874–?
                                      │                     │
                 ┌─ Pierre Rougon ────┼─ Aristide Saccard───┴─ Victor Saccard
                 │    1787–1870       │     1815–?                1853–?
                 │                    │
                 │                    ├─ Sidonie Touché ────── Angélique Marie
                 │                    │     1818–?                1851–1869
                 │                    │
                 │                    └─ Marthe Mouret ───┐ ┌─ Octave Mouret ──────────── A son and a daughter
                 │                          1819–1864     │ │     1840–?
                 │                                        │ │
                 │                                        ├─┼─ Serge Mouret
                 │                                        │ │     1841–?
                 │                                        │ │
                 │                    ┌─ François Mouret ─┘ └─ Désirée Mouret
                 │                    │     1817–1864             1844–?
                 │                    │
Adélaïde Fouque ─┼─ Ursule Macquart ──┼─ Hélène Rambeau ────── Jeanne Grandjean
   1768–1873     │     1791–1839      │     1824–?                1842–1855
                 │                    │
                 │                    └─ Silvère Mouret
                 │                          1834–1851
                 │
                 │                    ┌─ Lisa Quenu ─────── Pauline Quenu
                 │                    │     1827–1863             1852–?
                 │                    │
                 │                    │                     ┌─ Claude Lantier ─────────── Jacques-Louis Lantier
                 │                    │                     │     1842–1876                   1864–1876
                 │                    │                     │
                 └─ Antoine Macquart ─┼─ Gervaise Coupeau  ─┼─ Jacques Lantier
                       1789–1873      │     1829–1869       │     1844–1870
                                      │                     │
                                      │                     ├─ Étienne Lantier ────────── A daughter
                                      │                     │     1846–?
                                      │                     │
                                      │                     └─ Anna Coupeau ─── Louis Coupeau
                                      │                           1852–1870                   1867–1870
                                      │
                                      └─ Jean Macquart ─────── Two children
                                            1831–?

View of France under Napoleon III

As a naturalist, Zola also gave detailed descriptions of urban and rural settings, and different types of businesses. Le Ventre de Paris, for example, has a detailed description of the central market in Paris at the time.

As a political reflection of life under Napoleon III, the novel La Conquête de Plassans looks at how an ambitious priest infiltrates a small Provence town one family at a time, starting with the Rougons. La Débâcle takes place during the 1870 Franco-Prussian War and depicts Napoleon III's downfall. Son Excellence also looks at political life, and Pot-Bouille and Au Bonheur des Dames look at middle class life in Paris.

Note that Zola wrote the novels after the fall of Napoleon III.

List of the novels

In an "Introduction" of his last novel, Le Docteur Pascal, Zola gave a recommended reading order, although it is not required, as each novel stands on its own.[11]

English translation

All of the twenty novels have been translated into English under various titles and editions. Many of the translations are, however, out-of-print or bowdlerized from the 19th and early 20th century.

Recent original English translations (post-1970) are available for seventeen of the twenty novels:

Adaptions

The BBC adapted the novels into a seven-hour radio drama series called Blood, Sex and Money by Emile Zola. The "radical re-imagining" was broadcast in three parts on BBC Radio 4 between November 2015 and October 2016.[42]

References

  1. ↑ Bibliothèque nationale de France, Manuscrits, NAF 10345, f. 14-15. Available online here (in French)
  2. ↑ In a note included in Une Page d'amour. Text available at wikisource (in French)
  3. ↑ In Le Roman expérimental (1888), Zola talks extensively about Claude Bernard and mentions the work of Charles Darwin. Text available at wikisource (in French)
  4. ↑ Extract from the author's preface of La Fortune des Rougon. Original text in French available at wikisource, translated text by the Project Gutenberg
  5. 1 2 Image:Plan Rougon 1860.jpg. Text available online here
  6. ↑ Traité philosophique et physiologique de l'hérédité naturelle dans les états de santé et de maladie du système nerveux: avec l'application méthodique des lois de la procréation au traitement général des affections dont elle est le principe... Lucas, Prosper (1805–1885) Available online as part of the online archive of the BNF here
  7. ↑ BNF, Manuscrits, NAF 10274, f. 581
  8. ↑ Information found here http://expositions.bnf.fr/zola/grand/z075.htm (in French)
  9. ↑ Image:Zola-Liste-des-romans-1872.jpg
  10. ↑ Original text available at wikisource (in French).
  11. 1 2 The reading order recommended by Zola can be found in Ernest Alfred Vizetelly's Emile Zola, novelist and reformer: an account of his life & work (1904), ppg.348-364.
  12. ↑ The Fortune of the Rougons; first trans. by Brian Nelson in 2012. Oxford Worlds Classics. ISBN 978-0-19-956099-8
  13. ↑ The Kill (La Curée); first trans. by Brian Nelson in 2004. Oxford World's Classics. ISBN 978-0-19-953692-4 (re-issue 2008)
  14. ↑ The Kill; first trans. bu Arthur Goldhammer in 2004. Modern Library. ISBN 978-0-679-64274-9 (2004)
  15. ↑ The Belly of Paris (Le Ventre de Paris); first trans. by Brian Nelson in 2007. Oxford World's Classics. ISBN 978-0-19-280633-8 (2008)
  16. ↑ The Belly of Paris; first trans. by Mark Kurlansky in 2009. Modern Library. ISBN 978-0-8129-7422-5 (2009)
  17. ↑ The Conquest of Plassans (La Conquête de Plassans); first trans. by Helen Constantine in 2014. Oxford World's Classics. ISBN 978-0199664788 (2014)
  18. ↑ The Sin of Father Mouret; first trans. by Sandy Petrey in 1969 by Prentice-Hall. Latest edition is University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-9901-6 (1983)
  19. ↑ The Sin of Abbé Mouret; trans. by Valerie Pearson Minogue in 2017. Oxford World's Classics. ISBN 978-0-1987-3663-9 (2017)
  20. ↑ L'Assommoir; first trans. by Margaret Mauldon in 1995. Oxford World's Classics (re-issued 1999). ISBN 978-0-19-283813-1
  21. ↑ The Drinking Den (L'Assommoir); first trans. by Robin Buss in 2000. Penguin Classics. ISBN 978-0-14-044954-9 (re-issued 2004)
  22. ↑ A Love Story (Une Page d'amour); first trans. by Helen Constantine in 2017; Edited by Brian Nelson. Oxford World's Classics. ISBN 978-0-1987-2864-1 (2017)
  23. ↑ Nana. first trans. by George Holden in 1972. Penguin Classics. ISBN 978-0-14-044263-2 (1972)
  24. ↑ Nana; first trans. by Douglas Parmee in 1992. Oxford World's Classics. ISBN 978-0-19-283670-0 (re-issue 1999)
  25. ↑ Pot Luck (Pot-Bouille); first trans. by Brian Nelson in 1999. Oxford World's Classics. ISBN 978-0-19-283179-8 (1999)
  26. ↑ The Ladies Paradise (Au Bonheur des Dames); first trans. by Brian Nelson in 1995. Oxford World's Classics. ISBN 978-0-19-953690-0 (re-issued 2008)
  27. ↑ Au Bonheur des Dames; first trans. by Robin Buss in 2001. Penguin Classics. ISBN 978-0-14-044783-5 (re-issued 2004)
  28. ↑ Germinal. first trans. by Stanley Hochman in 1970. Signet Classics. ISBN 978-0-451-51975-7 (1970)
  29. ↑ Germinal, first trans. by Peter Collier in 1993. Oxford World's Classics. ISBN 978-0-19-953689-4 (re-issued 2008)
  30. ↑ Germinal; first trans. by Roger Pearson in 2004. Penguin Classics. ISBN 978-0-14-044742-2 (2004)
  31. ↑ The Masterpiece (L'Œuvre); first trans. by Thomas Walton in 1993. Oxford World's Classics. ISBN 978-0-19-953691-7 (re-issued 2008)
  32. ↑ The Earth (La Terre); first trans. by Douglas Parmee in 1980. Penguin Classics. ISBN 978-0-14-044387-5 (re-issued 2002)
  33. ↑ The Earth; first trans. by Brian Nelson in 2016. Oxford World's Classic. ISBN 978-0199677870
  34. ↑ The Dream, first trans. by Michael Glencross in 2005. Peter Owen Ltd. ISBN 978-0-7206-1253-0 (2005).
  35. ↑ The Dream, first trans. by Andrew Brown in 2005. Hesperus Press. ISBN 978-1-84391-114-2 (2005)
  36. ↑ La Bete Humaine; first trans. by Leonard Tancock in 1977. Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-044327-4 (1977)
  37. ↑ La Bete Humaine; first trans. by Roger Pearson in 1999. Oxford World's Classics. ISBN 978-0-19-283814-8 (1999)
  38. ↑ The Beast Within (La Bete Humaine); first trans. by Roger Whitehouse in 2008. Penguin Classics. ISBN 978-0-14-044963-1 (2008)
  39. ↑ Money; first trans. by Valerie Minogue in 2014. Oxford World's Classics. ISBN 978-0199608379 (2014)
  40. ↑ The Debacle (La Debacle); first trans. by Leonard Tancock in 1973. Penguin Classics. ISBN 978-0-14-044280-9 (1973)
  41. ↑ La Débâcle, first trans. by Elinor Dorday in 2000. Oxford World's Classics. ISBN 978-0-19-282289-5 (2000)
  42. ↑ "Blood, Sex and Money by Emile Zola". BBC News Online. BBC. Retrieved 25 October 2016.
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