Thérèse Raquin (1867)

The shortest and most readable books from the 20-vol Rougon-Macquart cycle but perhaps not the best one to start with. 'Germinal' more gives the full heavy, 19th C saga-with-issues flavour of Zola. ( )

Therese Raquin is Madame Bovary on steroids. The young Zola was impressed by Bovary, and its influence is clear throughout Raquin - but he ratchets every aspect of the story up, for better and...well, really for worse; this isn't as good as Bovary.

Mainly that's because Zola is no match at all for Flaubert psychologically. Bovary is as trenchant a view inside the human brain as I've read outside Tolstoy; laser-focused and brilliant. Zola, by contrast, is muddling about with some almost Medieval notions of sanguine (that means optimistic) vs. nervous temperaments. It's all a mess, and unfortunately Zola hammers the shit out of it, and it all feels sophomoric.

On the other hand, once you get past the psychological mumbo-jumbo, it's a fiercely intense book - straining at its sleeves with dread and tension. You thought Bovary had some unlikable characters? You ain't seen nothin'. Raquin's two leads are despicable, irredeemable cesspools of humanity.



Zola is a visual writer. Manet's Olympia, above, isn't crucial to the story, but my footnotes pointed it out several times and I was glad I went and found it, so as a public service, here it is. Note the cat on the right.

More importantly, he describes the alleys of mid-19th century Paris in wonderful sludgy detail, particularly the oozing Seine.

Raquin is shockingly gruesome, especially for its time but even now. Edgar Allen Poe sought consciously to shock his audience, because he thought it would bring him attention: "But whether [the horrific shit] of which I speak are, or are not in bad taste is little to the purpose. To be appreciated you must be read, and these things are invariably sought after with avidity." (Edgar Allan Poe to Thomas W. White — April 30, 1835) The same strategy is at play here. (And it's clear from a shoutout to Poe's obsession with being buried alive that Zola's aware of this lesson.) In the last half of the book, the horror ratchets up to a Grand Guignol level: Therese invites a beating to her stomach in order to miscarry; a cat is murdered; and most of all, there's the awful spectacle of Mme. Raquin, paralyzed (Noirtier-style!) and forced to watch her two surrogate children confess savagely to her biological son's murder night after night.

I know some perfectly smart readers who just choose not to handle books about terrible people. Those friends of mine don't like Madame Bovary. (Or Wuthering Heights, for another example.) If you're one of those people, holy shit, do not read this book. But if you like what's in the shadows...here are the things that ooze in them. ( )

Therese Raquin is a harrowing story of lust, murder, terror, and madness.

A French officer brings his black-haired love child, the daughter of his North African mistress, to his sister in France, a Mme Raquin. He returns to Africa where he is soon reported killed. Mme Raquin, a widow, is only too happy to raise her orphaned niece as a companion to her sickly son Camille. Young Thérèse, full of healthful vitality, is forced to endure the claustrophobic life of her sick cousin. Seeing nothing of the world, she becomes a silent introvert, suppressing her natural desires. When she reaches adulthood, Thérèse apathetically complies when Mme Raquin insists that she marry Camille so she can continue to be his caretaker.

Thérèse gradually comes to loathe her banal, sickly husband, but continues to repress her feelings and desires. This comes to an end when she meets Laurent, Camille's virile, self-indulgent friend. The two begin a passionate affair behind the backs of the unsuspecting mother and husband. When circumstances make it impossible for them to continue their clandestine meetings, sexual frustration drives them to plot to murder Camille so they can eventually marry. The plot is successful, but each is tormented by the fear of detection, and instead of the bliss they expected, their lives become a living hell.

The novel created a sensation when it was first published in 1867, for its violence, its sexual candor, and most of all for its amorality. This is a tale devoid of religious content or social message. Zola's defended his novel, saying his purpose was "to study temperament, not character." He contrasts the sanguine nature of Laurent with the nervous constitution of Thérèse, and treats their romance and its tragic end as something as inevitable as a chemical reaction. Zola's psychological analysis may seem primitive and simplistic, but it was a bold venture for its time. The characters and their mental states are always believable even though modern psychologists would explain them in more sophisticated terms.

Therese Raquin has none of the social criticism for which Zola's later novels are known. Instead it bears a strong resemblance to some of the short stories of Edgar Allan Poe, whose writings probably influenced Zola. It does, however, convey a sense of the lives, institutions, and surroundings of mid-19th century Paris. It is an intense and memorable novel, highly recommended. ( )

Another "reread classic". I adore Zola's work. A way to learn French history, the French way of life and such believable characters. Real and enlightening at the same time. ( )

An absorbing novel, an early version of a noir. It is a naturalistic "study" of a loveless couple, an affair, a murder, and a descent into madness that, as you might guess, ends badly.

The novel generally has a very tight economy, with four main characters, four supporting characters, very few other walk-on parts, and the majority set in one location. It was considered shocking at the time due to its relatively open depictions of sexuality, crime, and punishment. It still is somewhat "shocking," to the degree that anything is, most notably as the lovers taunt the stroke-ridden mother of their victim--who is unable to communicate their confession to her visitors.

Zola's preface describes the book in quasi-scientific terms, as a scientific observation that takes an inevitable course that he did not decide. He places himself at odds with the romantics, but the novel itself shares many of the same dramas and conventions--and is thus considerably more interesting than the naturalistic description it claims to be. ( )