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Emil's novels. French writer Zola Emile

Emil's novels. French writer Zola Emile

06.03.2019

Writer Emile Zola was born April 2, 1840 in Paris and grew up in an Italian-French family. Emil spent his childhood and school period in Aix-en-Provence. When he was not yet 7 years old, his father died and the family was in a very difficult situation. financial position. Madame Zola, counting on the support of the friends of her late husband, moved to Paris with her son in 1858.

At the beginning of 1862, Emil got a job at the Ashet publishing house, for which he earns good money and could free time spend on literary pursuits. Zola reads avidly, follows new publications, writes reviews of the latest novelties for magazines and newspapers, makes acquaintance with popular writers, tries himself in prose and poetry.

Zola worked at the publishing house for about 4 years and quit, hoping that he could live off literary talent. And in 1864 he published his debut book, Tales of Ninon, which brought together stories from different years. This period of creativity is distinguished by the influence of romanticism.

In November 1865, his first novel, The Confession of Claude, was published, which he dedicated to his friends Paul Cezanne and Baptistin Bayle. Cezanne, who arrived in Paris from Aix, introduces Zola to the circle of painters, together they visit the workshops of Camille Pissarro, Edgar Degas, meet Edouard Manet and many artists. Emile Zola energetically joined the struggle of talented masters who, with their original work, challenged the traditional academic school.

In the novels Claude's Confession, Testament of the Dead, Secrets of Marseilles, the story of sublime love, the opposition of reality and dreams are shown, the character of the ideal hero is conveyed.

The novel "Confessions of Claude" deserves special attention. This is a tough and thinly veiled autobiography. This controversial book made Emil's personality scandalous and brought long-awaited popularity.

Emile Zola. Portrait by Edouard Manet. 1868

In 1868, Emil had the idea of writing a series of novels that would be dedicated to one family - the Rougon-Macquarts. The fate of these people has been investigated for several generations. The first books in the series did not really interest readers, but the 7th volume of The Trap was doomed to big success. He not only increased the glory of Zola, but also his fortune. And all subsequent novels in the series were met with great enthusiasm by fans of the work of this French writer.

Twenty volumes of the great Rougon-Macquart cycle is Zola's most important literary achievement. But earlier he still managed to write "Therese Raquin". After his overwhelming success, Emil published 2 more cycles: "Three Cities" - "Lourdes", "Rome", "Paris"; as well as "Four Gospels" (there were 3 volumes in total). Thus, Zola became the first novelist to create a series of books about members of the same family. The writer himself, naming the reasons for choosing such a structure of the cycle, argued that he wanted to demonstrate the operation of the laws of heredity.

Zola worked on this cycle for more than 20 years. At the origins of Zola's epic idea was O. de Balzac's The Human Comedy, however, Zola contrasts the Balzac study of the social and moral springs that control a person with the study of temperament, physiological constitution, heredity, combined with the influence of a social, "environmental" factor - origin, upbringing, living conditions.

Zola introduces into literature data from natural science discoveries: medicine and physiology (the works of physiologists and psychiatrists C. Bernard, C. Letourneau), social Darwinism and the aesthetics of positivism (E. Renan, I. Taine). A truly epic coverage of all aspects of public and private life is noticeable, first of all, in the thematic diversity of the cycle. Here is the Franco-Prussian War (“The Capture of Plassen”, “The Rout”), and the peasantry and village life (“Earth”), and the labor of miners and the socialist movement (“Germinal”), and the life of Bohemia, the first performances of impressionist artists against academicism (“Creativity”), and the stock exchange and finance (“Money”), and trade (“Lady's happiness”, “The womb of Paris”), and courtesans and “ladies of the half world” (“Nana”), and the psychology of religious feeling (“ Dream"), and crimes and pathological tendencies ("Beast Man").

Maupassant called the novel "Creativity" "amazing". Russian critic Stasov wrote “How faithfully the artistic world of present-day France is depicted! How faithfully the diverse characters and personalities of contemporary artists are represented!”

"Creativity" - the fourteenth novel in the series - Zola began writing in May 1885 and finished nine months later. On February 23, 1886, he informs his friend Cear: "My dear Cear, just this morning I finished with Creativity. This is a book in which I captured my memories and spilled my soul ...".

The framework of "Creativity", as Zola defined it in a plan drawn up in 1869, is " artistic world; the hero is Claude Duval (Lantier), the second child of a working couple. The bizarre action of heredity."

The plot of "Creativity" was based on some real events and facts from the life of the writer and his friends - Cezanne and Bayle, as well as Edouard Manet, Claude Monet and many others. The content of the novel is connected with the controversy that the writer led in the 60s in defense of a group of young painters. In 1866, on the eve of the opening of the Salon - a traditional exhibition visual arts, - two sensational articles appeared in the press then few people famous critic Emil Zola. In these articles, he reproached the jury, which selected the paintings for the exhibition, for not wanting to give the public the opportunity to see " bold, full-blooded paintings and studies taken from reality itself". In the Salon, Zola pointed out, the canvases of talented painters are not presented only because their work denies the ossified traditions of the academic school and thereby undermines the prestige of the influential caste.

There was a lot of controversy about the prototypes of the main characters of "Creativity". It has been argued that Sandoz is a portrait of Zola himself (in handwritten notes to Creativity, Zola indicated that "Sandoz was introduced in order to illuminate my ideas about art"); in Fajerolles they saw Paul Bourget and Guieme at the same time, in Jory's criticism - a portrait of Paul Alexis, in the image of Bongrand they found a lot from Manet, but even more from Flaubert. As for Claude Lantier, in his handwritten notes to the "Creativity" Zola writes: "Claude committing suicide in front of his unfinished creation is Manet, Cezanne, but more Cezanne."
However, one should not consider "Creativity" as a history of impressionism. Zola's novel is first and foremost a novel about the relationship of art to reality, in response to critics' belief that art and real life are incompatible. Zola, on the other hand, spoke out in defense of the art of life's truth. On the tragic example of the fate of Claude Lantier, he showed that "only the creators of life triumph in art, only their genius is fruitful...". This conclusion of the writer confirms the inconsistency of the subjective - idealistic view of art.
Emile Zola's novel opens the veil to the world of people devoted to art with all their hearts, people who experience both hell and heaven every day, who are not afraid to challenge the world frozen in monotony.

An excerpt from the novel "Creativity"

“A dazzling flash of lightning again illuminated her, and she, immediately silent, wide-eyed, began to look around in horror. Wrapped in a lilac haze, stood before her unfamiliar city like a ghost. The rain is over. On the other side of the Seine, on the Quai des Ormes, there were small, gray houses, covered with signboards, with uneven roof lines; behind them the horizon expanded, brightened, it was framed to the left - the blue slate roofs on the towers of the town hall, to the right - the lead dome of the Cathedral of St. Paul. The Seine is very wide in this place, and the girl could not take her eyes off her deep, black, heavy waters, rolling from the massive vaults of the Pont Marie to the airy arches of the new Pont Louis Philippe. The river was littered with some strange shadows—there was a sleeping flotilla of boats and skiffs; and a floating laundry and a dredger were moored to the quay; barges filled with coal, scows loaded with building stone, stood on the opposite shore, and a gigantic crane towered over everything. The light of lightning faded. Everything is gone."

Read the novel in full

Republican and DemocratZolacollaborated with the opposition press, wrote and distributed articles exposing the French military and the reactionary regime of Napoleon.

When Zola intervened in the scandalous Dreyfus affair, it became a sensation. Émile was convinced that Alfred Dreyfus, an officer of the French General Staff, who was Jewish by nationality, was unfairly convicted in 1894 for selling military secrets to Germany. So the writer exposed the army leadership, pointing out their responsibility for the miscarriage of justice. Zola formalized his position in the form of an open letter and sent it to the president of the republic with the heading "I accuse". For libel, the writer was sentenced to a year in prison. But Emil fled to England and returned to his homeland in 1899, when Dreyfus was finally acquitted.

Zola became second only to Victor Hugo in the popularity rating of French writers. But on September 28, 1902, the writer died suddenly due to an accident in his own Paris apartment. He got poisoned by carbon monoxide. But, most likely, this was set up by his political enemies. Emile Zola was a passionate defender of humanism and democracy, for which he paid with his life.

goldlit.ru › Zola

Zola Emil is the author of works that are still popular today. He is a classic foreign literature XIX century. He was born in the most beautiful and loving city of France, Paris, as they would say now, under the sign of Aries (April 2, 1840). The writer had a purposeful and passionate nature, which was clearly emphasized in his works. Unlike his contemporaries, he vividly expressed own opinion on the pages of his books, for which, according to some versions, he paid the price as a result.

Who is he

Many fans of creativity may also be interested in a biography. Emile Zola was left without a father very early. His father, a native of Italy, an engineer by profession, built a water canal in the city of Aix-en-Provence. It was there that the Zola family lived. But hard work and great responsibility did not allow the father to see his son as an adult. He died early, leaving the boy an orphan at the age of seven.

Against this background, the child experienced a personal drama. Left with his mother, he began to disdain all men. The family experienced financial difficulties, the widow, hoping for help from friends, left for Paris.

The beginning of the creative path

In the capital, Zola graduated from the Lyceum and, at will happy occasion, gets a job at a publishing house, where he begins to earn good money. What is the young man doing? He writes reviews, tries his hand at writing

Zola Emil is an extremely sensitive nature, emotional experiences and a beggarly existence immediately after the death of his father did not kill the romance in him. He had poor eyesight and speech defects, but with all this he sang beautifully. At the age of eighteen, he falls in love with a girl of twelve for the first time. The relationship of the two young people was the most tender and innocent. But for the rest life path he was not so chaste.

At the age of 25, the future writer meets, falls in love and marries Alexandrina Meley. They did not have children, which made the spouses completely strangers, since both passionately desired to have a full-fledged family.

Literary activity and family life

All your dissatisfaction family life Zola Emil invests in creativity. His novels are literally literary traditions, so frankly and openly the writer showed the public forbidden topics. Only the author himself remained aloof, not sympathizing with what he wrote about.

He lived with his wife for eighteen years, but was not truly happy. Only acquaintance with Zhanna Rosro, a twenty-year-old tall dark-eyed girl, allowed him to slightly change his worldview. Zola Emil falls in love and buys a separate house for her. And during this period of his life, he managed to know the happy feeling of fatherhood, because Jeanne bore him two children. For two years, the lovers managed to hide the relationship, but in the end he tells his wife the whole truth. Of course, this could not but upset Alexandrina, but soon she realizes that she should not get divorced and scandalous, she accepts children, and after Jeanne's death she takes care of them closely and agrees to give her father's surname.

Creation

The author's list of books is great. He began to create literary masterpieces very early. His collection of short stories, Tales of Ninon, was written when he was twenty-four years old. Each novel by Emile Zola was popular with readers. The characters, although fictional, were written off by the author from nature. Therefore, the characters are easily recognizable.

There are works that are considered his best creations. Such is the novel "The Trap". In it, the author revealed the reasons for the beggarly existence of his heroes. Their laziness and unwillingness to find work is the result that readers can observe: extreme poverty, alcoholism, spiritual impoverishment.

Below are the most famous works of the author:

The epic "Ruggon-Makkara";
"Career Rougonov";
"Money";
"Production";
"Womb of Paris";
"Abbe Mouret's act";
"Germinal";
"Nana";
"Beast Man".

Author's death

Zola Emil leads an active political life. And the death of the writer due to the fact of his involvement in politics has not quite clearly expressed reasons. By official version, the author died, having the imprudence of carbon monoxide poisoning in his own apartment. But there are also unofficial suggestions that the writer was killed. Moreover, his political enemies had a hand in the atrocity.

Many modern educated people of our time are read by his novels. If you read some reviews of his most famous works, you will notice that readers note the genuine veracity of the described state of the mendicant class in Paris. That is why he is referred to as realist writers, depicting a true picture of the life of ordinary Parisian workers, people who are not rich. Starting to read Emile Zola, one involuntarily has to pay attention to the autobiographical nature of his prose.

To say how good the author is, how understandable his creations, you need to study the period when he lived and created Zola Emile. Biography, list of books, reviews and all other information about him is very contradictory and is no less exciting reading than his novels.

Emile Zola (fr. Émile Zola). Born April 2, 1840 in Paris - died September 29, 1902 in Paris. French writer, essayist and politician.

One of the most significant representatives of realism in the second half of the 19th century - the leader and theorist of the so-called naturalistic movement, Zola stood in the center literary life France of the last thirty years of the 19th century and was associated with the largest writers of this time (“Dinners of Five” (1874) - with the participation of Gustave Flaubert, Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, Alphonse Daudet and Edmond Goncourt, “Medan Evenings” (1880) - famous compilation, which included the works of Zola himself, Joris Carl Huysmans, Guy de Maupassant and a number of minor naturalists, such as Henri Sear, Leon Ennik and Paul Alexis).

The son of an engineer of Italian origin who took French citizenship (in Italian, the surname is read as Zola), who built a canal in Aix. My literary activity Zola started as a journalist (collaboration with L'Evénement, Le Figaro, Le Rappel, Tribune); many of his first novels are typical "feuilleton novels" ("The Secrets of Marseille" - "Les mystères de Marseille", 1867). Throughout the subsequent course of his career, Zola retains contact with journalism (collections of articles: "Mes haines", 1866, "Une campagne", 1881, "Nouvelle campagne", 1886). These speeches are a sign of his active participation in political life.

The political biography of Zola is not rich in events. This is a biography of a liberal living in formative times industrial society. IN last period During his life, Zola gravitated towards the socialist worldview, without going beyond the framework of radicalism. As the high point of Zola's political biography, his participation in the Dreyfus affair, which exposed the contradictions of France in the 1890s, should be noted - the famous article "J'accuse" ("I accuse"), for which the writer paid with exile in England (1898).

Zola died in Paris from carbon monoxide poisoning, according to the official version - due to a malfunction of the chimney in the fireplace. His last words addressed to his wife were: “I feel bad, my head is splitting. Look, the dog is sick too. We must have eaten something. Nothing, everything will pass. There is no need to disturb anyone ... ". Contemporaries suspected that it could be a murder, but they could not find irrefutable evidence for this theory.

Emile Zola was married twice, he had two children from his second wife Jeanne Rosero.

A crater on Mercury is named after Emile Zola.

Zola's first literary performances date back to the 1860s - Tales to Ninon (Contes à Ninon, 1864), Claude's Confession (La confession de Claude, 1865), Testament of the Dead (Le vœu d "une morte, 1866 ), "Marseille secrets".

The young Zola swiftly approaches his main works, the central node of his creative activity- the twenty-volume series "Rougon-Macquarts" (Les Rougon-Macquarts). Already the novel "Thérèse Raquin" (Thérèse Raquin, 1867) contained the main elements of the content of the grandiose "Natural and social history one family in the era of the Second Empire.

Zola goes to great lengths to show how the laws of heredity affect individual members of the Rougon-Macquart family. The whole huge epic is connected by a carefully developed plan based on the principle of heredity - in all the novels of the series, members of the same family appear, so widely branched that its processes penetrate both the highest layers of France and its deepest bottoms.

The latest novel in the series includes the Rougon-Macquart family tree, which is meant to serve as a guide to the highly intricate maze of kinship relationships that underlies the grand epic system. The real and truly deep content of the work is, of course, not this side, connected with the problems of physiology and heredity, but those social images that are given in Rougon-Macquarts. With the same concentration with which the author systematized the "natural" (physiological) content of the series, we must systematize and understand its social content, the interest of which is exceptional.

Zola's style is contradictory in its essence. First of all, it is a petty-bourgeois style in an extremely vivid, consistent and complete expression, - Rougon-Macquarts is not by chance a "family romance", - Zola gives here a very complete, direct, very organic, in all its elements vital disclosure of the being of the petty bourgeoisie . The artist's vision is distinguished by exceptional integrity, capacity, but it is precisely the petty-bourgeois content that he interprets with the deepest penetration.

Here we enter the realm of the intimate - from the portrait, which occupies a prominent place, to the characteristics of the objective environment (remember the magnificent interiors of Zola), to those psychological complexes that arise before us - everything is given in exceptionally soft lines, everything is sentimentalized. This is a kind of pink period". The novel The Joy of Living (La joie de vivre, 1884) can be seen as the most holistic expression of this moment in Zola's style.

It is planned in the novels of Zola and the desire to turn to the idyll - from real life images to a kind of philistine fantasy. In the novel "Page of Love" (Une page d "amour, 1878), an idyllic image of a petty-bourgeois environment is given while maintaining real everyday proportions. In "Dream" (Le Rêve, 1888), the real motivation has already been eliminated, the idyll is given in a naked fantastic form.

Something similar is also found in the novel The Crime of Abbé Mouret (La faute de l "abbé Mouret, 1875) with its fantastic Parade and fantastic Albina. "Petty-bourgeois happiness" is given in the style of Zola as something falling, being forced out, fading into oblivion. All this stands under the sign of damage, crisis, has a "fatal" character. In the named novel "The Joy of Living", next to the holistic, complete, deep disclosure of petty-bourgeois life, which is poeticized, the problem of tragic doom, the impending death of this life is given. The novel is constructed in a peculiar way: the melting of money determines the development of the drama of the virtuous Chanteau, the economic catastrophe that destroys "philistine happiness" seems to be the main content of the drama.

This is expressed even more fully in the novel The Conquest of Plassans (La conquête de Plassans, 1874), where the collapse of petty-bourgeois well-being, an economic disaster is interpreted as a tragedy of a monumental nature. We meet with a whole series of such "falls" - constantly recognized as events of cosmic importance (a family entangled in insoluble contradictions in the novel "The Beast Man" (La bête humaine, 1890), old Baudu, Burra in the novel "Lady's happiness" (Au bonheur des dames, 1883)). When his economic well-being collapses, the tradesman is convinced that the whole world is collapsing - economic disasters in Zola's novels are marked by such specific hyperbolization.

The petty bourgeois, experiencing his decline, receives from Zola a complete and complete expression. It is shown from different sides, revealing its essence in an era of crisis, it is given as a unity of versatile manifestations. First of all, he is a petty bourgeois who is going through the drama of economic disintegration. Such is Mouret in The Conquest of Plassant, this new petty-bourgeois Job, such are the virtuous rentiers of Chanteau in The Joy of Living, such are the heroic shopkeepers, swept away by capitalist development, in the novel Lady's Happiness.

Saints, martyrs and sufferers, like the touching Pauline in The Joy of Living, or the unfortunate René in La curée (1872), or the gentle Angelica in The Dream, which Albina so closely resembles in The Crime of the Abbé Mouret, - Here new form social entity"heroes" Zola. These people are characterized by passivity, lack of will, Christian humility, humility. All of them are distinguished by idyllic good-heartedness, but they are all crushed by cruel reality. The tragic doom of these people, their death, despite all the attractiveness, the beauty of these "wonderful creatures", the fatal inevitability of their gloomy fate - all this is an expression of the same conflict that determined the drama of Mouret, whose economy was collapsing, in the pathetic novel "The Conquest of Plassant ". The essence here is one, - only the form of the phenomenon is different.

As the most consistent form of the psychology of the petty bourgeoisie, numerous truth-seekers are given in Zola's novels. All of them are striving somewhere, embraced by some hopes. But it immediately turns out that their hopes are vain, and their aspirations are blind. The hunted Florent from the novel The Belly of Paris (Le ventre de Paris, 1873), or the unfortunate Claude from Creativity (L "œuvre, 1886), or the vegetating romantic revolutionary from the novel Money (L'argent, 1891), or the restless Lazarus from The Joy of Living - all these seekers are equally groundless and wingless. None of them is given to achieve, none of them rises to victory.

These are the main aspirations of the hero Zola. As you can see, they are versatile. The more complete and concrete is the unity in which they converge. The psychology of the declining petty bourgeois receives an unusually deep, holistic interpretation from Zola.

Two novels about the working class - The Trap (L "assomoir, 1877) and Germinal (Germinal, 1885) - are presented characteristic works in the sense that here the problem of the proletariat is refracted in the petty-bourgeois worldview. These novels can be called "class neighborhood" novels. Zola himself warned that his novels about workers were aimed at streamlining, improving the system of relations of bourgeois society and were by no means "seditious". In these works there is much that is objectively true in the sense of Zola's depiction of the modern proletariat.

Being this social group in the works of Zola is full of the greatest tragedy. Everything here is engulfed in confusion, everything stands under the sign of the inevitability of fate. The pessimism of Zola's novels finds expression in their peculiar, "catastrophic" structure. The contradiction is always resolved in such a way that tragic death is a necessity. All these Zola novels have the same development - from shock to shock, from one paroxysm to another, the action unfolds in order to come to a catastrophe that blows everything up.

This tragic awareness of reality is very specific to Zola - here lies salient feature his style. Along with this, an attitude towards the petty-bourgeois world arises, which can be called sentimentalizing.

In the novel "Money" the stock exchange appears as something opposite to the degrading petty bourgeoisie; in "Ladies' happiness" - a grandiose department store is revealed as an affirmation of a new reality; the railway in the novel "The Man-Beast", the market with all the most complex system of commodity economy in the novel "The Belly of Paris", the city house, presented as a grandiose "machine pour vivre".

The nature of the interpretation of these new images is sharply different from everything portrayed by Zola before. Things dominate here, human experiences are pushed aside by the problems of management and organization, the artist deals with completely new matters - his art is freed from sentimentalism.

New human figures also appear in Zola's works. These are no longer petty-bourgeois Jobs, not sufferers, not vain seekers, but predators. They succeed. They achieve everything. Aristide Saccard - a brilliant rogue in the novel "Money", Octave Mouret - a high-flying capitalist entrepreneur, owner of the "Ladies' happiness" store, bureaucratic predator Eugene Rougon in the novel "His Excellency Eugene Rougon" (1876) - these are the new images.

Zola gives a fairly complete, versatile, detailed concept of it - from a predator-acquirer like Abbé Fauges in "The Conquest of Plassant" to a real knight of capitalist expansion, like Octave Mouret. It is constantly emphasized that despite the difference in scale, all these people are predators, invaders, pushing out the respectable people of that patriarchal petty-bourgeois world, which, as we have seen, was poetized.

The image of a predator, a capitalist businessman, is given in the same aspect with the material image (market, stock exchange, shop), which occupies such a significant place in the system of Zola's style. The assessment of predation is also transferred to the material world. Thus, the Parisian market and the general store become something monstrous. In the style of Zola, the objective image and the image of the capitalist predator must be considered as a single expression, as two sides of the world, which the artist knows, adapting to the new socio-economic order.

In the novel "Lady's Happiness" a clash of two essences is given - petty-bourgeois and capitalist. On the bones of the ruined small shopkeepers, a huge capitalist enterprise arises - the whole course of the conflict is presented in such a way that "justice" remains on the side of the oppressed. They are defeated in the struggle, destroyed in fact, but morally they triumph. This resolution of the contradiction in The Lady's Happiness is very characteristic of Zola. Here the artist bifurcates between the past and the present: on the one hand, he is deeply connected with the collapsing being, on the other hand, he already thinks himself in unity with the new way of life, he is already free enough to imagine the world in its real connections, in its fullness. content.

Zola's work is scientific, he is distinguished by the desire to raise literary "production" to the level of scientific knowledge of his time. His creative method was substantiated in a special work - "Experimental Novel" (Le roman expérimental, 1880). Here you can see how consistently the artist pursues the principle of unity of scientific and artistic thinking. "The 'experimental novel' is the logical consequence of the scientific evolution of our age," says Zola, summing up his theory creative method, which is a transfer to the literature of techniques scientific research(in particular, Zola relies on the work of the famous physiologist Claude Bernard). The entire Rougon-Macquart series was carried out in terms of scientific research carried out in accordance with the principles of the "Experimental Novel". The scientific nature of Zola is evidence of the artist's close connection with the main trends of his era.

The grandiose Rougon-Macquart series is oversaturated with planning elements, the scheme scientific organization this work seemed to Zola an essential necessity. Scientific organization plan, scientific method thinking - these are the main provisions that can be considered as starting points for Zola's style.

Furthermore, he was a fetishist of the plan for the scientific organization of the work. His art constantly violates the boundaries of his theory, but the very nature of Zola's planned and organizational fetishism is quite specific. This is where the characteristic mode of presentation that distinguishes the ideologists of the technical intelligentsia comes into play. The organizational shell of reality is constantly taken by them for the whole of reality, the form replaces the content. Zola expressed in his hypertrophies of plan and organization the typical consciousness of the ideologist of the technical intelligentsia. Approximation to the era was carried out through a kind of "technization" of the bourgeois, who realized his inability to organize and plan (for this inability he is always castigated by Zola - "Happiness of the Ladies"); Zola's knowledge of the era of the capitalist upsurge is realized through planned, organizational and technical fetishism. The theory of the creative method developed by Zola, the specificity of his style, which is exposed in the moments turned to the capitalist era, goes back to this fetishism.

The novel "Docteur Pascal" (Docteur Pascal, 1893), which completes the Rougon-Macquart series, can serve as an example of such fetishism - the issues of organization, systematics, and construction of the novel stand out in the first place here. This novel reveals a new human image. Dr. Pascal is something new in relation to both the falling philistines and the victorious capitalist predators. The engineer Gamelin in Money, the capitalist reformer in Travail (1901) are all varieties of the new image. It is not developed enough in Zola, it is only outlined, only becoming, but its essence is already quite clear.

The figure of Dr. Pascal is the first schematic sketch of the reformist illusion, which expresses the fact that the petty bourgeoisie, the form of practice of which Zola's style represents, "technicalizing", reconciles itself with the era.

Typical Features the consciousness of the technical intelligentsia, above all the fetishism of the plan, system and organization, is transferred to a number of images of the capitalist world. Such, for example, is Octave Mouret from The Ladies' Happiness, not only great predator but also a great innovator. Reality, which until recently was assessed as a hostile world, is now perceived in terms of some kind of “organizational” illusion. The chaotic world, whose brutal brutality was recently proven, is now beginning to appear in pink robes of the "plan", planned for scientific foundations not only a novel, but also social reality.

Zola, who always gravitated towards turning his creativity into a tool for "reforming", "improving" reality (this was reflected in the didacticism and rhetoric of his poetic technique), now comes to "organizational" utopias.

The unfinished series of "Gospels" ("Fecundity" - "Fécondité", 1899, "Labor", "Justice" - "Vérité", 1902) expresses this new stage in the work of Zola. Moments of organizational fetishism, always characteristic of Zola, here receive a particularly consistent development. Reformism is becoming an ever more exciting, dominating element here. Fertility creates a utopia about the planned reproduction of mankind, this gospel turns into a pathetic demonstration against the fall in the birth rate in France.

In the interval between the series - "Rougon-Macquarts" and "Gospels" - Zola wrote his anti-clerical trilogy "Cities": "Lourdes" (Lourdes, 1894), "Rome" (Rome, 1896), "Paris" (Paris, 1898) . The drama of Abbé Pierre Froment, seeking justice, is given as a moment of criticism of the capitalist world, opening up the possibility of reconciliation with it. The sons of the restless abbot, who has taken off his cassock, act as evangelists of reformist renewal.

Zola gained popularity in Russia several years earlier than in France. Already "Contes à Ninon" was marked by a sympathetic review ("Notes of the Fatherland", 1865, vol. 158, pp. 226-227). With the advent of translations of the first two volumes of "Rougon-Maccarov" ("Bulletin of Europe", 1872, books 7 and 8), its assimilation by a wide readership began. Translations of Zola's works came out with cuts for censorship reasons, the edition of the novel La curee, published in the ed. Karbasnikova (1874) was destroyed.

The novel Le ventre de Paris, translated simultaneously by Del, Vestnik Evropy, Otechestvennye Zapiski, Russkiy Vestnik, Iskra, and Bibl. desh and public." and published in two individual publications, finally approved the reputation of Zola in Russia.

In the 1870s Zola was assimilated mainly by two groups of readers - the radical raznochintsy and the liberal bourgeoisie. The first were attracted by sketches of the predatory mores of the bourgeoisie, which we used in our struggle against the fascination with the possibilities of Russia's capitalist development. The latter found in Zola material that clarified their own situation. Both groups showed big interest to the theory of the scientific novel, seeing in it a solution to the problem of constructing tendentious fiction (Boborykin P. A real novel in France // Otechestvennye zapiski. 1876. Books 6, 7).

The Russkiy Vestnik took advantage of the pallid portrayal of the Republicans in La fortune de Rougon and Le ventre de Paris to combat the hostile ideology of the radicals. From March 1875 to December 1880, Zola collaborated on Vestnik Evropy. The 64 "Paris Letters" published here were composed of social and everyday essays, stories, literary-critical correspondence, art and theater criticism, and set forth for the first time the foundations of "naturalism". Although successful, Zola's correspondence caused disillusionment among radical circles in the theory of the experimental novel. This entailed, with little success in Russia, such works by Zola as "L'assomoir", "Une page d'amour", and the scandalous fame of "Nana", a drop in Zola's authority (Basardin V. The latest Nana-turalism // Delo. 1880 Books 3 and 5, Temlinsky S. Zolaism in Russia, Moscow, 1880).

From the beginning of the 1880s. the literary influence of Zola became noticeable (in the stories “Varenka Ulmina” by L. Ya. Stechkina, “Stolen Happiness” by Vas. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, “Kennel”, “Training”, “Young” by P. Boborykin). This influence was insignificant, and most of all it affected P. Boborykin and M. Belinsky (I. Yasinsky).

In the 1880s and the first half of the 1890s. Zola's novels did not enjoy ideological influence and circulated mainly in bourgeois reading circles (translations were published regularly in "Kn. Nedelya" and "Observer"). In the 1890s Zola again acquired a major ideological influence in Russia in connection with the echoes of the Dreyfus affair, when a noisy controversy arose around the name of Zola in Russia (“Emile Zola and Captain Dreyfus. A New Sensational Novel”, vol. I-XII, Warsaw, 1898).

Zola's latest novels were published in Russian translations in 10 or more editions at the same time. In the 1900s, especially after 1905, interest in Zola noticeably subsided, only to revive again after 1917. Even earlier, Zola's novels received the function of propaganda material ("Labor and Capital", a story based on Zola's novel "In the Mine" ("Germinal" ), Simbirsk, 1908) (V. M. Friche, Emil Zola (To whom the proletariat erects monuments), M., 1919).

In Wikisource.

Tombstone of Zola in the Pantheon

As the highest point of Zola's political biography, his participation in the Dreyfus affair, which exposed the contradictions of France in the 1890s, should be noted - the famous "J'accuse" ("I accuse"), which cost the writer exile in England ().

Zola died in Paris from carbon monoxide poisoning, according to the official version - due to a malfunction of the chimney in the fireplace. His last words to his wife were: “I feel bad, my head is splitting. Look, the dog is sick too. We must have eaten something. Nothing, everything will pass. There is no need to disturb anyone ... ". Contemporaries suspected that it could be a murder, but they could not find irrefutable evidence for this theory.

A crater on Mercury is named after Émile Zola.

Creation

Zola's first literary appearances date back to the 1860s. - “Tales to Ninon” (Contes à Ninon,), “Confessions of Claude” (La confession de Claude,), “The Testament of the Dead” (Le vœu d’une morte,), “Marseille Secrets”. The young Zola is rapidly approaching his main works, the central node of his creative activity - the twenty-volume series "Rougon-Macquarts" (Les Rougon-Macquarts). Already the novel "Thérèse Raquin" (Thérèse Raquin,) contained the main elements of the content of the grandiose "Natural and social history of a family in the era of the Second Empire".

Zola's style is contradictory in its essence. First of all, this is a petty-bourgeois style in an extremely vivid, consistent and complete expression, - "Rougon-Macquarts" is not accidental a "family romance", - Zola gives here a very complete, direct, very organic, in all its elements, vital disclosure of the being of the petty bourgeoisie . The artist's vision is distinguished by exceptional integrity, capacity, but it is precisely the petty-bourgeois content that he interprets with the deepest penetration.

Here we enter the area of the intimate - from the portrait, which occupies a prominent place, to the characteristics of the objective environment (remember the magnificent interiors of Zola), to those psychological complexes that arise before us - everything is given in exceptionally soft lines, everything is sentimentalized. This is a kind of "pink period". The novel The Joy of Living (La joie de vivre, ) can be seen as the most holistic expression of this moment in Zola's style.

It is planned in the novels of Zola and the desire to turn to the idyll - from real life images to a kind of philistine fantasy. In the novel "Page of Love" (Une page d'amour,) an idyllic image of a petty-bourgeois environment is given while maintaining real everyday proportions. In The Dream (Le Rêve,) the real motivation has already been eliminated, the idyll is given in a naked fantastic form.

We also meet something similar in the novel “The Crime of Abbé Mouret” (La faute de l’abbé Mouret,) with its fantastic Parade and fantastic Albina. “Petty-bourgeois happiness” is given in the style of Zola as something falling, being repressed, fading into non-existence. All this stands under the sign of damage, crisis, has a "fatal" character. In the titled novel The Joy of Living, along with a holistic, complete, deep disclosure of petty-bourgeois being, which is poetized, the problem of tragic doom, the impending death of this being, is given. The novel is structured in a peculiar way: the melting of money determines the development of the drama of the virtuous Shanto, the economic catastrophe that destroys “petty-bourgeois happiness” seems to be the main content of the drama.

This is expressed even more fully in the novel The Conquest of Plassans (La conquête de Plassans, ), where the collapse of petty-bourgeois well-being, an economic disaster is interpreted as a tragedy of a monumental nature. We meet with a whole series of such "falls" - constantly recognized as events of cosmic importance (a family entangled in insoluble contradictions in the novel "The Beast Man" (La bête humaine,), old Bodiu, Burra in the novel "Lady's happiness" (Au bonheur des dames, )). When his economic well-being collapses, the tradesman is convinced that the whole world is collapsing - economic catastrophes in Zola's novels are marked by such specific hyperbolization.

The petty bourgeois, experiencing his decline, receives from Zola a complete and complete expression. It is shown from different sides, revealing its essence in an era of crisis, it is given as a unity of versatile manifestations. First of all, he is a petty bourgeois who is going through the drama of economic disintegration. Such is Mouret in The Conquest of Plassant, this new bourgeois Job, such are the virtuous rentiers of Chanteau in the novel The Joy of Living, such are the heroic shopkeepers, swept away by capitalist development, in the novel The Happiness of the Ladies.

Saints, martyrs and sufferers, like the touching Pauline in The Joy of Living, or the unfortunate René in La curée (1872), or the gentle Angelica in The Dream, which Albina so closely resembles in The Crime of the Abbé Mouret, - here is a new form of the social essence of the "heroes" of Zola. These people are characterized by passivity, lack of will, Christian humility, humility. All of them are distinguished by idyllic good-heartedness, but they are all crushed by cruel reality. The tragic doom of these people, their death, despite all the attractiveness, the beauty of these "wonderful creatures", the fatal inevitability of their gloomy fate - all this is an expression of the same conflict that determined the drama of Mouret, whose economy was collapsing, in the pathetic novel "The Conquest of Plassant ". The essence here is one, - only the form of the phenomenon is different.

As the most consistent form of the psychology of the petty bourgeoisie, numerous truth-seekers are given in Zola's novels. All of them are striving somewhere, embraced by some hopes. But it immediately turns out that their hopes are vain, and their aspirations are blind. The harried Florent from the novel The Belly of Paris (Le ventre de Paris, ), or the unfortunate Claude from Creativity (L'œuvre, ), or the vegetating romantic revolutionary from the novel Money (L'argent, ), or the restless Lazarus from The Joy of Living - all these seekers are equally groundless and wingless. None of them can achieve, none of them rises to victory.

In the novel "Lady's Happiness" a clash of two essences is given - petty-bourgeois and capitalist. On the bones of the ruined small shopkeepers, a huge capitalist enterprise arises - the whole course of the conflict is presented in such a way that "justice" remains on the side of the oppressed. They are defeated in the struggle, destroyed in fact, but morally they triumph. This resolution of the contradiction in the novel "Lady's Happiness" is very characteristic of Zola. Here the artist bifurcates between the past and the present: on the one hand, he is deeply connected with the collapsing being, on the other, he already thinks of himself in unity with the new way of life, he is already free enough to imagine the world in its actual connections, in the fullness of its content.

Zola's work is scientific, he is distinguished by the desire to raise literary "production" to the level of scientific knowledge of his time. His creative method was substantiated in a special work - "Experimental Novel" (Le roman expérimental,). Here you can see how consistently the artist pursues the principle of unity of scientific and artistic thinking. “The 'experimental novel' is the logical consequence of the scientific evolution of our century,” says Zola, summing up his theory of the creative method, which is the transfer of the methods of scientific research into literature (in particular, Zola relies on the work of the famous physiologist Claude Bernard). The whole series of "Rougon-Macquart" was carried out in terms of scientific research carried out in accordance with the principles of the "Experimental Novel". The scientific nature of Zola is evidence of the artist's close connection with the main trends of his era.

The grandiose series of "Rougon-Macquart" is oversaturated with elements of planning, the scheme of the scientific organization of this work seemed to Zola an essential necessity. The plan of scientific organization, the scientific method of thinking - these are the main provisions that can be considered the starting points for Zola's style.

Moreover, he was a fetishist for the scientific organization of the work. His art constantly violates the boundaries of his theory, but the very nature of Zola's planned and organizational fetishism is quite specific. This is where the characteristic mode of presentation that distinguishes the ideologists of the technical intelligentsia comes into play. The organizational shell of reality is constantly taken by them for the whole of reality, the form replaces the content. Zola expressed in his hypertrophies of plan and organization the typical consciousness of the ideologist of the technical intelligentsia. Approximation to the era was carried out through a kind of "technization" of the bourgeois, who realized his inability to organize and plan (for this inability he is always castigated by Zola - "Happiness of the Ladies"); Zola's knowledge of the era of the capitalist upsurge is realized through planned, organizational and technical fetishism. The theory of the creative method developed by Zola, the specificity of his style, which is exposed in the moments turned to the capitalist era, goes back to this fetishism.

The novel Doctor Pascal (Docteur Pascal,), which completes the Rougon-Macquart series, can serve as an example of such fetishism - the issues of organization, systematics, and construction of the novel stand out in the first place here. This novel also reveals a new human image. Dr. Pascal is something new in relation to both the falling philistines and the victorious capitalist predators. The engineer Gamelin in "Money", the capitalist reformer in the novel "Trud" (Travail,) - all these are varieties of a new image. It is not developed enough in Zola, it is only outlined, only becoming, but its essence is already quite clear.

The typical features of the consciousness of the technical intelligentsia, above all the fetishism of the plan, system and organization, are transferred to a number of images of the capitalist world. Such, for example, is Octave Mouret from The Happiness of the Ladies, not only a great predator, but also a great innovator. Reality, which until recently was assessed as a hostile world, is now perceived in terms of some kind of "organizational" illusion. The chaotic world, the brutal cruelty of which was only recently proved, is now beginning to be presented in pink clothes of the “plan”, not only the novel, but also social reality is planned on scientific foundations.

The unfinished series of "Gospels" ("Fecundity" - "Fécondité", "Labour", "Justice" - "Vérité",) expresses this new stage in Zola's work. Moments of organizational fetishism, always characteristic of Zola, here receive a particularly consistent development. Reformism is becoming an ever more exciting, dominating element here. Fertility creates a utopia about the planned reproduction of mankind, this gospel turns into a pathetic demonstration against the fall in the birth rate in France.

In the interval between the series - "Rougon-Macquarts" and "Gospels" - Zola wrote his anti-clerical trilogy "Cities": "Lourdes" (Lourdes,), "Rome" (Rome,), "Paris" (Paris,). The drama of Abbé Pierre Froment, seeking justice, is given as a moment of criticism of the capitalist world, opening up the possibility of reconciliation with it. The sons of the restless abbot, who has taken off his cassock, act as evangelists of reformist renewal.

Emile Zola in Russia

Zola gained popularity in Russia several years earlier than in France. Already "Contes à Ninon" was marked by a sympathetic review ("Notes of the Fatherland", vol. 158, pp. 226-227). With the advent of translations of the first two volumes of "Rougon-Maccarov" ("Bulletin of Europe", books 7 and 8), its assimilation by a wide readership began.

The novel Le ventre de Paris, translated simultaneously by Del, Vestnik Evropy, Otechestvennye Zapiski, Russkiy Vestnik, Iskra, and Bibl. desh and public." and published in two separate editions, finally established Zola's reputation in Russia.

Zola's latest novels were published in Russian translations in 10 or more editions at the same time. In the 1900s, especially after, interest in Zola noticeably subsided, only to revive again after. Even earlier, Zola’s novels received the function of propaganda material (“Labor and Capital”, a story based on Zola’s novel “In the Mines” (“Germinal”), Simbirsk,) (V. M. Fritsche, Emil Zola (To whom the proletariat erects monuments), M. , ).

Bibliography

Complete works of E. Zola with illustrations, Bibliothèque-Charpentier, P.,
L'Acrienne,
Tales of Ninon,
Dedication to Claude
Therese Raquin,
Madeleine Fera,
Rougeon-Macquart, social history of a family living in the time of the second empire, 20 vv., - Lourdes, ; Rome, ; Paris, ; Fertility, ; Job, ; Is it true,
An Experimental Novel, Naturalism in the Theatre, s. a.
Temlinsky S., Zolaism, Critical. study, ed. 2nd, rev. and add., M., .
Boborykin, P.D.
Arseniev K. (in Vestnik Evropy, , VIII; , VI; , XI; , VI; , IV, and in Critical Etudes, vol. II, St. Petersburg.,)
Andreevich V. (in Vestnik Evropy, , VII)
Slonimsky L. Zola (in Vestnik Evropy, , IX)
Mikhailovsky N. K. (in the Complete collected works, vol. VI)
Brandes G. (in Vestnik Evropy, , X, to in Collected Works.)
Barro, E. Zola, his life and literary activity, St. Petersburg.,
Pelissier J., French literature XIX century, M.,
Kudrin N. E. (Rusanov). E. Zola, Literary and biographical essay, " Russian wealth”, , X (and in the Gallery of Contemporary French Celebrities”, )
Anichkov Evg., E. Zola, "The World of God", , V (and in the book "Forerunners and Contemporaries")
Vengerova Zola, E. Zola, Critical and biographical essay, "Herald of Europe", , IX (and in "Lit. characteristics", book II, St. Petersburg.,)
Lozinsky Evg., Pedagogical ideas in the works of E. Zola, "Russian Thought", XII
Veselovsky Yu., E. Zola as a poet and humanist, "Bulletin of Education", , I, II
Friche V. M., E. Zola, M.,
His own, Essay on the development of Western European literature, Guise, M.,
Eikhengolts M., E. Zola (-), “Pech. and rev.", , I
Rod E., A propos de l'Assomoir,
Ferdas B., La physiologie expérimentale et le roman expérimental. Claude Bernard et E. Zola, P.,
Alexis P., Emile Zola, notes d'un ami, P.,
Maupassant G., de, Emile Zola,
Hubert, Le roman naturaliste,
Wolf E., Zola und die Grenzen von Poesie und Wissenschaft, Kiel,
Sherard R. H, Zola: biographical and critical study,
Engwer Th., Zola als Kunstkritiker, Berlin,
Lotsch F., Uber Zolas Sprachgebrauch, Greifswald,
Gaufiner, Étude syntaxique sur la langue de Zola, Bonne,
Lotsch F., Wörterbuch zu den Werken Zolas und einiger anderen modernen Schriftsteller, Greifswald,
A. Laporte, Zola vs. Zola, P.,
J.L. Moneste, Real Rome: Zola's replica,
Rauber A. A., Die Lehren von V. Hugo, L. Tolstoy und Zola,
A. Laporte, Naturalism or the Eternity of Literature. E. Zola, The Man and the Work, P.,
Bourgeois, work of Zola, P.,
F. Brunetier, After the process,
Bürger E., E. Zola, A. Daudet und andere Naturalisten Frankreichs, Dresden,
Macdonald A., Emil Zola, a study of his personality,
Vizetelly E.A., With Zola in England,
Ramond F. C., Characters of Rougeon-Macquart,
Conrad M. G., Von Emil Zola bis G. Hauptmann. Erinnerungen zur Geschichte der Moderne, Lpz.,
Bouvier, L'œuvre de Zola, P.,
Vizetelly E. A., Zola, novellist and reformer,
Lepelletier E., Emile Zola, sa vie, son œuvre, P.,
Patterson J. G., Zola: characters of the Rougon-Macquarts novels, with biography,
Martino R., Le roman realiste sous le second Empire, P.,
Lemm S., Zur Entstehungsgeschichte von Emil Zolas "Rugon-Macquarts" und den "Quatre Evangiles", Halle a. S.,
Mann H., Macht und Mensch, München,
Oehlert R., Emil Zola als Theaterdichter, Berlin,
Rostand E., Deux romanciers de Provence: H. d'Urfe et E. Zola,
Martino P., Le naturalisme français,
Seillère E. A. A. L., Emile Zola, : Bailot A., Emile Zola, l'homme, le penseur, le critique,
France A., La vie litteraire, v. I (pp. 225–239),
France A., La vie litteraire, v. II (La pureté d'E. Zola, pp. 284–292),
Deffoux L. et Zavie E., Le Groupe de Médan, P.,
Josephson Matthew, Zola and his time, N.-Y.,
Doucet F., L'esthétique de Zola et son application à la critique, La Haye, s. a.
Bainville J., Au seuil du siècle, études critiques, E. Zola, P.,
Les soirées de Médan, 17/IV-17/IV , avec une préface inédite de Léon Hennique, P., .
Piksanov N.K., Two centuries of Russian literature, ed. 2nd, Guise, M.,
Mandelstam R. S., Fiction in the assessment of Russian Marxist criticism, ed. 4th, Guise, M.,
Laporte A., Emile Zola, l'homme et l'œuvre, avec bibliographie (pp. 247–294), .

Screen adaptations

Beast Man (La bête humaine), 1938
Therese Raquin (Thérèse Raquin), 1953
Alien Wives (Pot-Bouille), 1957
Zandali, 1991 (based on "Thérèse Raquin")

Links

One of the most significant representatives of realism in the second half of the 19th century - the leader and theorist of the so-called naturalistic movement, Zola stood at the center of the literary life of France in the last thirty years of the 19th century and was associated with the largest writers of this time ("Dinners of Five" (1874) - with the participation of Flaubert , Turgenev, Daudet and Edmond Goncourt, Medan Evenings (1880) - a famous collection that included works by Zola himself, Huysmans, Maupassant and a number of minor naturalists, like Sear, Ennik and Alexis).

The son of an engineer of Italian origin who took French citizenship (in Italian, the surname is read as Zola), who built a canal in Aix. Zola began his literary career as a journalist (collaboration with L'Evénement, Le Figaro, Le Rappel, Tribune); many of his first novels are typical "feuilleton novels" ("The Secrets of Marseille" - "Les mystères de Marseille", 1867). Throughout the subsequent course of his career, Zola retains contact with journalism (collections of articles: "Mes haines", 1866, "Une campagne", 1881, "Nouvelle campagne", 1886). These performances carry out the active participation of the artist in the political life of his time.

The political biography of Zola is not rich in events. This is a biography of a liberal speaking during the period of capitalist upsurge. In the last period of his life, Zola gravitated towards the socialist worldview, without going beyond the framework of radicalism.

As the high point of Zola's political biography, his participation in the Dreyfus affair, which exposed the contradictions of France in the 1890s, should be noted - the famous "J'accuse" ("I accuse"), which cost the writer exile in England (1898).

Zola died in Paris from carbon monoxide poisoning, according to the official version - due to a chimney malfunction. Contemporaries suspected that it could be a murder, but they could not find irrefutable evidence for this theory.

Creation

Zola's first literary appearances date back to the 1860s. - “Tales to Ninon” (Contes à Ninon, 1864), “Confession of Claude” (La confession de Claude, 1865), “The Testament of the Dead” (Le vœu d’une morte, 1866), “Marseille Secrets”.

The rapidly young Zola approaches his main works, the central node of his creative activity - the twenty-volume series "Rougon-Macquarts" (Les Rougon-Macquarts). Already the novel "Thérèse Raquin" (Thérèse Raquin, 1867) contained the main elements of the content of the grandiose "Natural and social history of a family in the era of the Second Empire."

Zola's style is contradictory in its essence. First of all, it is a petty-bourgeois style in an extremely bright, consistent and complete expression. - "Rougon-Macquarts" is not by chance a "family novel" - Zola gives here a very complete, direct, very organic, in all its elements vital disclosure of the being of the petty bourgeoisie. The artist's vision is distinguished by exceptional integrity, capacity, but it is precisely the petty-bourgeois content that he interprets with the deepest penetration.

Here we enter the area of the intimate - from the portrait, which occupies a prominent place, to the characteristics of the objective environment (remember the magnificent interiors of Zola), to those psychological complexes that arise before us - everything is given in exceptionally soft lines, everything is sentimentalized. This is a kind of "pink period". The novel The Joy of Living (La joie de vivre, 1884) can be seen as the most holistic expression of this moment in Zola's style.

It is planned in the novels of Zola and the desire to turn to the idyll - from real life images to a kind of philistine fantasy. In the novel "Page of Love" (Une page d'amour, 1878), an idyllic image of a petty-bourgeois environment is given, while maintaining real everyday proportions. In The Dream (Le Rêve, 1888), the real motivation has already been eliminated, the idyll is given in a naked fantastic form.

We also encounter something similar in the novel The Crime of Abbé Mouret (La faute de l'abbé Mouret, 1875) with its fantastic Parade and fantastic Albina. “Petty-bourgeois happiness” is given in the style of Zola as something falling, being repressed, fading into non-existence. All this stands under the sign of damage, crisis, has a "fatal" character. In the titled novel The Joy of Living, along with a holistic, complete, deep disclosure of petty-bourgeois being, which is poetized, the problem of tragic doom, the impending death of this being, is given. The novel is structured in a peculiar way: the melting of money determines the development of the drama of the virtuous Shanto, the economic catastrophe that destroys “petty-bourgeois happiness” seems to be the main content of the drama.

This is expressed even more fully in the novel The Conquest of Plassans (La conquête de Plassans, 1874), where the collapse of petty-bourgeois well-being, an economic disaster is interpreted as a tragedy of a monumental nature. We meet with a whole series of such "falls" - constantly recognized as events of cosmic importance (a family entangled in insoluble contradictions in the novel "The Beast Man" (La bête humaine, 1890), old Baudu, Burra in the novel "Lady's happiness" (Au bonheur des dames, 1883)). When his economic well-being collapses, the tradesman is convinced that the whole world is collapsing - economic catastrophes in Zola's novels are marked by such specific hyperbolization.

The petty bourgeois, experiencing his decline, receives from Zola a complete and complete expression. It is shown from different sides, revealing its essence in an era of crisis, it is given as a unity of versatile manifestations. First of all, he is a petty bourgeois who is going through the drama of economic disintegration. Such is Mouret in The Conquest of Plassant, this new petty-bourgeois Job, such are the virtuous rentiers of Chanteau in the novel The Joy of Living, such are the heroic shopkeepers, swept away by capitalist development, in the novel The Happiness of the Ladies.

Saints, martyrs and sufferers, like the touching Pauline in The Joy of Living, or the unfortunate René in La curée (1872), or the gentle Angelica in The Dream, which Albina so closely resembles in The Crime of the Abbé Mouret, - here is a new form of the social essence of the "heroes" of Zola. These people are characterized by passivity, lack of will, Christian humility, humility. All of them are distinguished by idyllic good-heartedness, but they are all crushed by cruel reality. The tragic doom of these people, their death, despite all the attractiveness, the beauty of these "wonderful creatures", the fatal inevitability of their gloomy fate - all this is an expression of the same conflict that determined the drama of Mouret, whose economy was collapsing, in the pathetic novel "The Conquest of Plassant ". The essence here is one, - only the form of the phenomenon is different.

As the most consistent form of the psychology of the petty bourgeoisie, numerous truth-seekers are given in Zola's novels. All of them are striving somewhere, embraced by some hopes. But it immediately turns out that their hopes are vain, and their aspirations are blind. The harried Florent from The Belly of Paris (Le ventre de Paris, 1873), or the unfortunate Claude from Creativity (L'œuvre, 1886), or the vegetative romantic revolutionary from the novel Money (L'argent, 1891), or the restless Lazarus from The Joy of Living - all these seekers are equally groundless and wingless. None of them can achieve, none of them rises to victory.

Two novels about the working class - "The Trap" (L'assomoir, 1877) and "Germinal" (Germinal, 1885) - seem to be characteristic works in the sense that here the problem of the proletariat is refracted in the petty-bourgeois worldview. These novels can be called "class neighborhood" novels. Zola himself warned that his novels about workers were aimed at streamlining, improving the system of relations of bourgeois society and were by no means "seditious". In these works there is much that is objectively true in the sense of Zola's depiction of the modern proletariat.

The existence of this social group in the works of Zola is full of the greatest tragedy. Everything here is engulfed in confusion, everything stands under the sign of the inevitability of fate. The pessimism of Zola's novels finds expression in their peculiar, "catastrophic" structure. The contradiction is always resolved in such a way that a tragic death is a necessity. All these Zola novels have the same development - from shock to shock, from one paroxysm to another, the action unfolds in order to come to a catastrophe that blows everything up.

This tragic realization of reality is very specific to Zola - here lies the characteristic feature of his style. Along with this, an attitude towards the petty-bourgeois world arises, which can be called sentimentalizing.

In the novel "Lady's Happiness" a clash of two essences is given - petty-bourgeois and capitalist. On the bones of the ruined small shopkeepers, a huge capitalist enterprise arises - the whole course of the conflict is presented in such a way that "justice" remains on the side of the oppressed. They are defeated in the struggle, destroyed in fact, but morally they triumph. This resolution of the contradiction in the novel "Lady's Happiness" is very characteristic of Zola. Here the artist bifurcates between the past and the present: on the one hand, he is deeply connected with the collapsing being, on the other, he already thinks of himself in unity with the new way of life, he is already free enough to imagine the world in its actual connections, in the fullness of its content.

Zola's work is scientific, he is distinguished by the desire to raise literary "production" to the level of scientific knowledge of his time. His creative method was substantiated in a special work - "Experimental Novel" (Le roman expérimental, 1880). Here you can see how consistently the artist pursues the principle of unity of scientific and artistic thinking. “The 'experimental novel' is the logical consequence of the scientific evolution of our century,” says Zola, summing up his theory of the creative method, which is the transfer of the methods of scientific research into literature (in particular, Zola relies on the work of the famous physiologist Claude Bernard). The whole series of "Rougon-Macquart" was carried out in terms of scientific research carried out in accordance with the principles of the "Experimental Novel". The scientific nature of Zola is evidence of the artist's close connection with the main trends of his era.

The novel "Docteur Pascal" (Docteur Pascal, 1893), which completes the Rougon-Macquart series, can serve as an example of such fetishism - the issues of organization, systematics, and construction of the novel stand out in the first place here. This novel also reveals a new human image. Dr. Pascal is something new in relation to both the falling philistines and the victorious capitalist predators. The engineer Gamelin in Money, the capitalist reformer in Travail (1901) are all varieties of the new image. It is not developed enough in Zola, it is only outlined, only becoming, but its essence is already quite clear.

The unfinished series of "Gospels" ("Fecundity" - "Fécondité", 1899, "Labor", "Justice" - "Vérité", 1902) expresses this new stage in Zola's work. Moments of organizational fetishism, always characteristic of Zola, here receive a particularly consistent development. Reformism is becoming an ever more exciting, dominating element here. Fertility creates a utopia about the planned reproduction of mankind, this gospel turns into a pathetic demonstration against the fall in the birth rate in France.

Zola in Russia

The novel Le ventre de Paris, translated simultaneously by Del, Vestnik Evropy, Otechestvennye Zapiski, Russkiy Vestnik, Iskra, and Bibl. desh and public." and published in two separate editions, finally established Zola's reputation in Russia.

In the 1870s Zola was assimilated mainly by two groups of readers - the radical raznochintsy and the liberal bourgeoisie. The first were attracted by sketches of the predatory mores of the bourgeoisie, which we used in our struggle against the fascination with the possibilities of Russia's capitalist development. The latter found in Zola material that clarified their own situation. Both groups showed great interest in the theory of the scientific novel, seeing in it a solution to the problem of constructing tendentious fiction (P. Boborykin, Real Romance in France, Otech. Zap., 1876, books 6 and 7).

The Russkiy Vestnik took advantage of the pallid portrayal of the Republicans in La fortune de Rougon and Le ventre de Paris to combat the hostile ideology of the radicals. From March 1875 to December 1880, Zola collaborated on Vestnik Evropy. The 64 "Paris Letters" published here were composed of social and everyday essays, stories, literary-critical correspondence, art and theater criticism, and set forth for the first time the foundations of "naturalism". Although successful, Zola's correspondence caused disillusionment among radical circles in the theory of the experimental novel. This entailed, with the small success in Russia of such works by Zola as "L'assomoir", "Une page d'amour", and the scandalous fame of "Nana", the fall in Zola's authority (V. Basardin, Newest Nana-turalism, "Delo" , 1880, books 3 and 5; S. Temlinsky, Zolaism in Russia, Moscow, 1880).