March 2025 Money Chapters 1-3

Chapters 1-3 thoughts/discussions!

I decided to listen to Money on Audio this time. I'm not sure that's a good idea--but we shall see! The biggest problem I see will be posting by chapter sections. When listening, I usually don't even know when I've finished a chapter. There is an announcement, Chapter 2, etc. But I listen when I'm driving, cleaning house, and today as I'm canning 40 pounds of potatoes. There is no way I'm going to remember what happened in what chapter. That being said, I will probably just leave my comments until the end.

What I have gleaned thus far:
Aristide is now up to founding a bank and he needs investors. The purpose of the bank is to fund railroads and transportation in the Mideast. He befriends his neighbor and the neighbor's sister, Caroline. They seem to be decent and kind, which in dealing with Saccard may put them at a disadvantage. Antisemitism rears its very ugly head.

I'm not sure I'm going to enjoy this novel as well as the others. The intense banking, stock market, and financial seems to go on and on and on...........

Yes, as I recall there is loads of all that moneymaking and -dealing stuff. Very dry.

Hey, you’re way ahead! My copy has been waiting patiently for March 1! Will start today.

I'll be starting soon as well.

I read the book early as I'm going on a cruise later in the month and wanted to finish it before I left.

Reading L’Argent in French but looked at the Vizetelly translation available at Project Gutenberg https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/56987/pg56987-images.html
as I was not entirely clear about the injury Rosalie Chavaille sustained during her sexual encounter with “Sicardot.” Unfortunately for me and for Victorian readers who had no other English translation available this incident was omitted in Vizetelly’s version!

A very detailed close-up chapter 1, where amid many walk-on characters scarcely more than names and tiny observations we learn of an event in Saccard’s past that I suspect will lead to his downfall many chapters hence. Then chapter 2, with detailed character studies and large philosophical statements about the role of money in civilisation and human happiness. Haven’t read chapter 3 yet. Looking forward.

Have now finished chapter 3.

I had a hard time with the first chapter - too many characters introduced and ideas and I didn't know what to focus on. But chapter two has grabbed me and I'm pretty interested in where this all is going.

It's interesting that this book comes very out of order. I think the original publication date puts it at 18 out of 20 and here we are reading it at #4.

>10 japaul22: Yes, I would be interested in finding out more about his thinking on the project. Presumably his “recommended reading order” follows the chronological order of the narrative. So did he decide late on that the financial speculation which was everywhere evident in the Second Empire hadn’t been adequately dealt with in the series and decide to insert this account? I will be interested to see if there is any reference in novels written earlier to the fact that Saccard, living in the lap of luxury in La Curée, subsequently went broke, or whether this was a late inspiration.

>11 booksaplenty1949: We will have to all try to pay attention as we read subsequent novels. It's an interesting question!

>12 japaul22: This interesting book chapter https://books.google.ca/books?id=xwhnDAAAQBAJ&dq=%22Saccard%22+-wikipedia&am... tells us that the inspiration for the specific details of Saccard’s scheme were suggested to Zola by events in 1882, more than ten years after he wrote La Curée.

I fell way behind, but hope to still glean some info from the threads. I've been swept up in the story, but in Chapter 3 there is such an antisemitic diatribe that I'm a bit repulsed. I hope this doesn't become a thread throughout the whole book.

>14 labfs39:
It goes on throughout the whole book.

>14 labfs39: It’s there for sure. Unexamined clichés. Console yourself that Zola ultimately woke up and rejected them. “J’accuse.”

>15 lilisin: Sigh. That's unfortunate.

>16 booksaplenty1949: This particular section goes far beyond the cliché to a rant by Saccard about how much he hates Jews, is repulsed if he brushes against one, etc. I guess there's nothing for it but to continue reading...

>17 labfs39: It’s not as though Saccard is being held up as a model. He’s a complete crook. Wait till you see him with his pants down in an apartment another man has rented for his mistress.

>18 booksaplenty1949: True. I had to laugh at the image of this scene. I look forward to it.

>14 labfs39: Zola wrote this book in 1891. He supported Alfred Dreyfuss in 1894 and then in 1898 he wrote "J'Accuse, for which he was tried for libel and found guilty. Zola was sentenced to one year in prison, but he fled and spent a year in England, instead.