January 2025 The Kill Preface, Notes, Introduction, Chapter 1

There seems to be a lot of intro in this book. I have the Kindle version of the Oxford Classics Edition. I did notice at the end there was a cast of characters, also.

I'm going to start this later today, or maybe tomorrow. I have checked it out from the library and the jacket says it's "the first modern translation", by Arthur Goldhammer. If others are reading in English, is this the translation you're reading? I think it was done in 2007, after the only previous English translation had been out of print since the 1950s. But then it looks like there were several English translations put out right after this, including the Oxford World Edition by Brian Nelson, whose translations I've read in the past.

I'm always curious about translations and how they affect our reading experience.

>2 japaul22: Oh wow, I haven't heard of this translation, but I purchased the first 3 in the Oxford Edition............

>3 Tess_W: I'm liking the translation so far. It reads very smoothly.

And I'm also enjoying the start of this very much. After the last two we read, this finally feels like Zola to me - the lush descriptions and the characters that you just know are going to cause trouble. Excited to see where it goes.

I do like having the background from the first two books about the family and Eugene Rougon. I don't really know where in Eugene Rougon's timeline this book fits in, though. Completely after the last book, or during his first reign of power?

Have started La Curée.

>2 japaul22: The scholars of Wikipedia state that Goldhammer’s and Nelson’s translations were both done in 2004. The previous English translation, by Alexander Texiera de Mattos, was published in 1895 and reissued in 1954. It can be read for free on Internet Archive.

>4 japaul22: Nothing definitive (that I can go back and find quickly), but I think that Eugene is mentioned as a rising star, so I think that would be his first ascendency?

Bits & Pieces:
I have completed the intro and chapter 1.

I have read in my intro (no name attributed, but one would assume Nelson-the translator) that this novel, as well as most of Zola's work in this series, was published serially in the newspapers. Zola pulled this novel from the newspaper publication because he interpreted that people did not understand it.

>7 Tess_W: I think you may be thinking of Clorinde Balbi, not Clotilde Saccard, who would be nine years old when Son Excellence, Eugène Rougon opens.

>8 booksaplenty1949: You are correct! I'm going to delete the above.........I gave the first two books to my friend. I'm going to have to stop doing that because then when I go back to check on something, I don't have it.

>9 Tess_W: I admit I just looked at Wikipedia rather than flipping through the text.

The opening chapter of La Curée is an intoxicating immersion in nouveau riche Empire society. I gather that Zola, an impecunious journalist at the time, had to approach writing the novel like an anthropologist doing research, but I found the ambience entirely convincing. Perhaps the check-list of plants in the hothouse is a bit over-the-top, but the effect, framing the chapter with the opening in the Bois, is masterful.

>11 booksaplenty1949: I have a hard copy but also got it on Kindle this time, to compare, because I heard from some that even though it said Oxford, it it wasn't. Mine was! While reading one chapter on Kindle I found sections or paragraphs that people had highlighted and I would definitely agree with the highlighters that there is some beautiful prose descriptions in chapter 1.

>12 Tess_W: The stunning descriptions of the changing sky over the Bois impressed me. And once again Zola gives us a lingering head-to-toe description of a beautiful woman, with special emphasis on her breasts. The Saccard’s mansion seems to be an exercise in excess rather than good taste.