The Kill (1871)

The Kill is the second novel in Émile Zola's Rougon-Macquart series, but it stands perfectly well on its own. It's French title, which doesn't translate directly into English, is La Curée, which means the portion of a hunter's kill given as a reward to his dogs. It is a novel about materialism, vanity, sensuality and unprincipled ambition--all of which were characteristics, according to Zola, of Parisian society during the Second Empire (1852-70).

Aristide Rougon comes to Paris with no particular talent but a consuming desire for easy money and penchant for scheming and risk-taking. Under the tutelage of his brother--a government minister--Rougon enters the world of land speculation, buying up properties that are in the way of the new boulevards being planned for Paris. But first his brother insists that Aristide change his surname so that the fall of one doesn't bring down the other by association. Taking a variant of his wife's name, Aristide Rougon becomes Aristide Saccard. The wife soon dies, and Saccard uses his marriageability to raise more cash. He becomes engaged, sight unseen, to a teenage girl who is "in trouble." In return for a tidy sum provided surreptitiously by the girl's aunt, Saccard agrees to take responsibility for the unborn child, which soon miscarries anyway.

Saccard's bride, Renée, becomes the central character of the novel. She has a craving for sensual experiences that matches her husband's lust for wealth. As they become wealthier, Renée becomes ever more extravagant, spending a fortune on gowns and jewelry and displaying her beautiful body more daringly on each occasion. Both husband and wife are openly promiscuous, even to the point of advising each other on their sexual affairs.

Meanwhile Saccard's son by his first wife comes into the picture. Maxime is attractive in a girlish way. He is as dissolute as Aristide, but has none of his father's drive to success. Renée, in her thirst for ever more lascivious entertainments, falls in love with her stepson. The question becomes which house of cards will come crashing down first: Aristide's shaky investments or Renée's incestuous affair.

Zola defines his approach to literature, which he called Naturalism, as a scientific approach to the study of human behavior which looks at a character's heredity and upbringing in a non-judgmental way. In this case, however, he see's Aristide, Renée and Maxime not so much as the products of their individual heritage as the instant creations of a dysfunctional society in general. "In the maddened world in which they lived, their sin had sprouted as on a dunghill oozing with strange juices; it had developed with strange refinements amid special conditions of perversion."

For all his condemnation of the trio's "sins," "crimes," and "monstrous perversions," Zola's prose itself is so erotically charged that it would be easy to accuse the author of hypocrisy. While there is nothing explicit, Zola describes Renée and everything around her with remarkable sensuality. His description of the plants in a hothouse, for example, becomes an analogue for Renée's body with its curves, textures, scents and secretions. Nor does he steer away from references to homosexuality, both male and female. There are even hints that Renée's passion for the effeminate Maxime is evidence of a repressed lesbianism.

Zola's remarkable descriptive powers are the chief attraction in The Kill. He is too savage in his condemnation of the corruption and decadence of the Second Empire to give us a balanced or especially insightful look at the psychology of his characters. Saccard's financial machinations are usually too confusing to follow, and there are long narratives of background information that could have been woven into plot and dialogue. This is not Zola's best work, but it is still well worth reading as an experience in sensory overload. ( )

A trashy story masterfully told. ( )

The kill, the title of this second novel of Zola's Rougon-Macquart cycle, refers to the spoils of hunting that are given to the dogs both to reward them and to spur them on to greater efforts. It is a chillingly appropriate image of the chase after wealth and sexual pleasure ("gold and flesh") that rules the lives of the characters in this horrifying work. It takes place as Paris is being transformed through the efforts of Baron Haussmann into the Paris we know today, with broad boulevards replacing rabbit warrens of back streets, in an effort not just to "beautify" but also to eliminate good locations for barricades and to provide routes the police and army could follow to put down rebellions. Then as now, such "urban renewal" involves uprooting the poor and creating ample opportunities for real estate speculation.

Zola tells the tale of speculator par excellence Saccard (formerly Rougon) and his love for scheming, corruption, and prostitutes; his sister Sidonie who profits from other people's secrets and troubles; his second wife Renée who, despite constant purchases of dresses that almost completely display her breasts and life in a mansion decorated to excess, is sufficiently bored to slip into a completely inappropriate sexual relationship; and his son Maxime, devoted only to pleasure, sly and corrupt. It is difficult for the reader to decide which of these characters is most despicable. Their lives are frenetic; Zola describes doors constantly opening and closing, people constantly coming and going, husband and wife and stepson living their own lives while living in the same house. Even as they live in luxury -- and the decor of each of the rooms of the house, and especially the plant-filled hot house are described in infinite, and at times stifling, sensual detail -- both husband and wife owe lots of money, and Saccard, especially, is constantly scheming how to juggle the real money and the money that only exists on paper.

As in his other novels I've read, Zola is a perceptive observer of character and place, and includes a wonderful set piece of a costume ball held in the Saccards' mansion. The deception of the costumes mirror the deceptions of speculative finance, official corruption, sexuality, and adultery that fill the novel. He peoples the ball, and the book, with a variety of vivid secondary characters who, in combination, depict the excesses and corruption of the Second Empire. All in all, he is a consummate story-teller, and I could barely put this book down as I waited for the inevitable train wreck.

I've read several of Zola's well-known classics, some of which constitute part of his 20 volume Rougon-Macquart series. Each novel in the series is stand-alone, and they do not have to be read chronologically. However, I decided to read/reread the entire series in order. I read the first volume last December and found it only so so. The Kill is the second volume in the series, and it is magnificent.

The Kill (La Curee in French, which means something like 'the division of the spoils') focuses on Aristide Rougon, although his brother Eugene and sister Sidonie play prominent roles as well. Aristide has assumed the surname of his first wife, Saccard, and has come to Paris to make his fortune. Through his brother, he obtains a bureaucratic position as the assistant surveyor of roads for Paris. While initially disheartened by his nominal salary, he soon realizes that his position could enable him to make a fortune in real estate, as the boulevards and throughfares of Paris are just being platted and the property through which they will run is being acquired by the city at grossly inflated prices. However, he can't use his insider information, because he has no capital to invest.

This problem is solved when he is offered the opportunity to marry a rich heiress (she is 'damaged goods'), even as his first wife is still on her deathbed. The Kill chronicles the rise and fall of Aristide as an unscrupulous, dishonest real estate wheeler dealer with his second wife Renee, an extravagant, selfish socialite. They flaunt their wealth in their obscenely opulent mansion, Renee's exquisite wardrobe (300,000 F dressmaker bills are not uncommon) and the lavish galas they host. Still, Renee is bored, and seeks something more to make her feel alive. She begins a love affair with her stepson, Aristide's son from his first marriage.

This book ran afoul of the censors when it began appearing in serial form in 1871, for its outrage to 'public morals' and 'gross materialism.' Today, I think it is particularly relevant as we continue to feel the after-effects of our own real estate bubble and rampant over-consumption. Although not as comprehensive and wide-ranging as some of Zola's other books, this is also a great one. ( )

The second book of Zola's Rougon-Macquart series deals with Aristide Rougon's vertiginous rise to wealth and prestige during the 1860s. Aristide, the son of Pierre Rougon and his wife Félicité was introduced in the first novel as a bumbling journalist intent on siding with the doomed cause of the republicans until the very last moment, when he realized that he'd been supporting the wrong camp and quickly switched allegiances, just as the Emperor Napoleon III came into power. Here, with his wife and one of two children, he leaves behind his young son Maxime in Plassans with the boy's grandparents and move to Paris to seek his fortune, where he expects to be helped by his brother Eugène Rougon, who, having played an important role in the Emperor's rise to power, has become a prominent figure in politics. Eugène is willing to help him secure a small job working for the city on the condition that Aristide change his family name to avoid any connection to himself, should the latter be involved in a scandal.

Paris is just about to embark on important reconstruction work, building the great boulevards planned by Baron Haussmann, and the newly re-named Aristide Saccard, having obtained valuable information through his work, feels confident he can make his fortune by prospecting on real-estate. The only thing he lacks is capital, and when his wife falls gravely ill, an opportunity arises which he cannot pass up, and as his wife lays dying, agrees to wed a young woman for the huge dowry her family is willing to put up to prevent as scandal. Shortly after marrying Renée, he sends for his son Maxime to join them in their luxurious Parisian mansion, since in no time at all, Saccard has become one of the city's wealthiest men. The novel's main protagonist is young Renée, celebrated in Paris society for her great beauty, her scandalous affairs, and her priceless and highly original fashions. As the Second Empire sinks into increasing decadence, we see Renée seeking greater and greater thrills, until she ultimately begins a torrid semi-incestuous affair with her dissolute stepson Maxime, which will ultimately prove her undoing.

Filled with descriptions of sickening wealth and luxury of the worst nouveau riche variety, and peopled with a cast of characters behaving very badly indeed, this great work of literature felt like a guilty pleasure and was hard to put down. ( )