Showing results by author "Emile Zola" in All Categories

Zola’s Money (L’Argent, 1891) shows the corrupting effect of untrammelled stock-market speculation. While some seek redemption through philanthropic and evangelical ventures, others–such as the main protagonist, Saccard–embrace their own avarice. Speculators illegally push up share prices so that ordinary citizens are feverishly swept up in an epidemic of small-scale investment.

Once upon a time, a teenaged Kate Winslet (The Reader, Titanic, Revolutionary Road) received a gift that would leave a lasting impression: a copy of Emile Zola’s classic Thérèse Raquin. Six Academy Award nominations and one Best Actress award later, she steps behind the microphone to perform this haunting classic of passion and disaster.

First published between 1870 and 1893, Émile Zola’s 20-book cycle chronicling four generations of the Rougon-Macquarts was a shocking exposé of the decadence, degradation and moral decay of 19th-century France. It included some of his greatest novels, among them his masterpiece, Germinal. These innovative, ambitious dramas, first broadcast on Radio 4 over 24 hours in 2015-16, are a radical reimagining of Zola’s classic series, introducing us to 104-year-old matriarch, Dide, imprisoned in an asylum in southern France. 

Emile Zola, along with fellow novelists Honoré de Balzac and Gustave Flaubert, was an early realist in French literature. In novels such as Flaubert's Madame Bovary and Zola's Nana, sex and violence were examined with vivid clarity. These realists soon adopted the word naturalism to describe their writings.

Two-part dramatisation by Diana Griffiths of the novel by Emile Zola, set in mid-19th century Paris. Therese is forced by her aunt to marry her sickly son, Camille. However, upon moving to Paris, she and her lover Laurent conspire to murder Camille so that they may love freely. Part 2: Therese and Laurent have murdered Camille and are free to marry. Their wedding night is not joyous - it is a night of terror, and each night is the same as they feel the ghost of Camille infiltrate their every thought and action.

Sex, betrayal, murder and corruption form the basis of this sensational novel by one of the leading French authors of the 19th century. Jacques Lantier is a man with a hereditary homicidal lust. When he sees Roubaud and his wife Severine slit the throat of a wealthy nobleman, it is the catalyst for a string of murders in a convoluted plot full of horror and suspense.

Zola’s La Terre (The Earth) proved highly controversial on publication in 1887 and still retains the power to shock. It follows the fortunes of the Fouan family in the years leading up to the Franco-Prussian War. Old Fouan, the patriarch, draws up a legal contract to divide his farmland between his three children in exchange for an allowance that will support him and his wife through a comfortable retirement.

Considered by André Gide to be one of the 10 greatest novels in the French language, Germinal is a brutal depiction of the poverty and wretchedness of a mining community in Northern France under the second empire. At the centre of the novel is Etienne Lantier, a handsome 21-year-old mechanic, intelligent but with little education and a dangerous predisposition to murderous, alcoholic rage.

Faut-il manger pour vivre, ou vivre pour manger ? La madeleine de Proust est-elle vraiment celle que l'on croit ? La trompe d'éléphant est-elle comestible ? Vous trouverez réponse à ces épineuses questions, et à bien d'autres, dans notre sélection de 19 textes cultes commentés Une balade littéraire divertissante et instructive à travers les textes de Brillat-Savarin, La Bruyère, Théophile Gauthier, Proust, Zola, Rabelais, Flaubert, Balzac, Maupassant, Molière, Hugo, Huysmans, Pétrone, Daudet, Madame de Sévigné et des Frères Goncourt. Bon appétit ! Textes commentés par Sylvain Trias.

Germinal is one of the most striking novels in the French tradition. Widely regarded as Zola's masterpiece, the novel describes the working conditions of French coalminers in the 1860s in harsh and realistic terms. It is visceral, graphic, and unrelenting. Its strong socialist principles and vivid accounts of the miners' strikes meant that the novel became a key symbol in the workers' fight against oppression, with chants of "Germinal! Germinal!" resonating high above the author's funeral.

Klassikern bakom succéserien! Följ den spännande vardagen i 1800-talets Paris på ett av de då splitternya varuhusen. "Damernas paradis" är ett varuhus som ägs av monsieur Mouret och det är där den unga Denise tar anställning när hon flyttar till Paris från den franska landsbygden. Snart är hon en del av det stora varuhusets maskineri där rykten färdas snabbt och kärlek spirar bland spetsar och presentpapper. Damernas paradis gjordes 2012 till tv-serien The Paradise, som visats på BBC och SVT. I originalöversättning av Ernst Lundquist Émile Zola (1840-1902) var författare och journalist.

Naisten aarreaitta -tavaratalon omistaja on herra Octave Mouret. Hän sai tavaratalon omistukseensa naimalla aikaisemman omistajan lesken rouva Hédouinin. Hédouinin kuoleman jälkeen Mouret ihastuu 20-vuotiaaseen myymäläapulaiseen Denise Bauduun, joka ei erityisemmin välitä hänen lähentelyistään. Naisten aarreaitta ei ole vain rakkauskertomus, hurjaa vauhtia kasvavaa tavarataloa Émile Zola pitää raa‘an, kasvukipuisen kapitalismin symbolina. Työntekijöitä käytetään hyväksi ja heille teetetään joka päivä 13-tuntisia työpäiviä.

Nana on entinen prostituoitu, joka luo loistavan uran pariisilaisessa teatterissa. Näyttelijänlahjoja hänellä ei ole, mutta hänen eroottinen säteilynsä lumoaa. Hän nousee yhteiskunnan huipulle miespuolisten hyväntekijöidensä avulla, jotka rahoittavat hänen tempauksensa samalla, kun he tuhoavat oman elämänsä. Samanaikaisesti miehet yrittävät ylläpitää kauniita kulisseja. Nanassa teatterimaailmasta tulee yhteiskunnan sosiaalisen roolipelin vertauskuva, joka paljastetaan häikäilemättömästi. Kirjan alussa teatterijohtaja Bordenave vaatii, että ihmiset kutsuvat hänen teatteriaan bordelliksi.

After her lover abandons her and their two children, Gervaise marries a tin worker, Coupeau, who helps her rebuild her life. She starts her own business, and the two have a daughter, Anna (the protagonist of Zola's later novel Nana). But their happiness is short-lived as a freak accident leaves Coupeau seriously injured, beginning the family's fall into alcohol, desperation, and violence.

In a dingy apartment on the Passage du Pont-Neuf in Paris, Thérèse Raquin is trapped in a loveless marriage to her sickly cousin, Camille. The numbing tedium of her life is suddenly shattered when she embarks on a turbulent affair with her husband's earthy friend, Laurent. But their passion for each other soon compels the lovers to commit a crime that will haunt them forever.

Zola’nın “Quatre Evangiles” (Dört İncil) dizisinin üçüncü kitabı olan yapıt, doğrudan doğruya Dreyfus olayına bağlıdır; Simon-Dreyfus kahramanlarından Gorgias-Esterhazy kahramanlarına kadar bu olayın serbest uyarlamasıdır. Yapıttaki temel karşıtlık hiç kuşkusuz geleceğin güçleriyle karanlıkçılığın çatışmasıdır... Sürekli mücadeleye mahkûm cesur eğitimciler ya da kurbanlar, aynı zamanda kurnaz, entrikacı, güç ve paraya susamış açgözlü, sapık insanlar dikkat çeker.

Il volume è il risultato di due viaggi che lo scrittore compì a Lourdes nel 1891-92, dove annotò tutto ciò che vedeva. Il resoconto della descrizione puntuale dei malati, dei luoghi, alternati alla storia del luogo insieme allo sfruttamento economico della fede dei pellegrini si unisce alla lotta interiore del protagonista, Pietro, diventato sacerdote senza convinzione, che vorrebbe credere ma resta tormentato dai dubbi. Inevitabile pensare che il suo conflitto interiore sia stato lo stesso dell'autore.

"Roma" è il secondo volume del ciclo delle Tre città iniziato con "Lourdes" e conclusosi con "Parigi", nel 1898. L'abate Froment continua la sua ricerca spirituale, fra il desiderio di credere, e lo scontro con la realtà della Chiesa e della sua vocazione al potere politico. Al di là delle vicende del protagonista, che è a Roma per difendere un suo libro messo all'Indice, il libro è un lungo racconto di Roma, della sue vie, delle sue chiese, della miseria dovuta alla speculazione edilizia, dell'orgoglio, della volontà di sfoggio, di dominio che si sono trasmessi con lo stesso terreno su cui sorge.

L'abate Froment, in questo ultimo volume della serie delle Tre città, iniziata con "Lourdes" e continuata con "Roma", è giunto alla fine della sua ricerca spirituale, che comporterà una vera e propria rinascita, sullo sfondo di una Parigi in preda alle mene politiche e alla corruzione, alle sperequazioni sociali che vedono da una parte aristocratici e borghesi arricchiti corrotti e degenerati, e dall'altra la miseria di operai e nullatenenti. 

Zola’s The Ladies’ Paradise (Au Bonheur des Dames, 1883) plays out in a colossal and opulent Parisian department store of the same name. Its owner, Octave Mouret, builds his innovative, upmarket women’s fashion empire at the expense of the city’s smaller, traditional shops.