Thérèse Raquin (Petits Classiques Larousse Texte Integral, #96) (Oberon Classics) (Classics)

by Emile Zola

Robin Buss (Translator)

Perhaps his most famous work, Émile Zola's Thérèse Raquin is a dark and gripping story of lust, violence and guilt, set in the gloomy back streets of Paris. This Penguin Classics edition is translated with notes and an introduction by Robin Buss.

In the claustrophobic atmosphere of a dingy haberdasher's shop 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 animal passion for each other soon compels the lovers to commit a crime that will haunt them forever. Thérèse Raquin caused a scandal when it appeared in 1867 and borught its twenty-seven-year-old author a notoriety that followed him throughout his life. Zola's novel is not only an uninhibited portrayal of adultery, madness and ghostly revenge, but also a devastating exploration of the darkest aspects of human existence.

Robin Buss's translation superbly conveys Zola's fearlessly honest and matter-of-fact style. In his introduction, he discusses Zola's life and literary career, and the influence of art, literature and science on his writing. This edition also includes the preface to the second edition of 1868, a chronology, further reading and notes.

Emile Zola (1840-1902) was the leading figure in the French school of naturalistic fiction. His principal work, Les Rougon-Macquart, is a panorama of mid-19th century French life, in a cycle of 20 novels which Zola wrote over a period of 22 years, including Au Bonheur des Dames (1883), The Beast Within (1890), Nana (1880), and The Drinking Den (1877).

If you enjoyed Thérèse Raquin, you might like Zola's Germinal, also available in Penguin Classics.

• ISBN10: 0140449442
• ISBN13: 9780140449440
• Publish Date: 29 July 2004 (first published 1 October 1970)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
• Imprint: Penguin Classics
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 240
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780140449440

Reviews

[celinenyx]

If you were to believe Zola, Thérèse Raquin is not so much a novel as it is a scientific study of what happens when two personality types meet up in certain circumstances. One of his earlier novels, Thérèse Raquin is not so much the narrative of a class of people (such as factory workers or prostitutes), but a more personal small-scale subject.

Thérèse is raised alongside her cousin Camille. A sickly child, Camille is bed-bound for most of his childhood, and Thérèse learns to keep her passions within herself in this languid and silent environment. Under the guidance of her aunt, Mrs Raquin, the two marry when they reach adulthood. Thérèse’s passions are awakened when she meets a sturdy farmer’s son, who is the opposite of Camille, whom she hates.

The plot of Thérèse Raquin could have come straight from a contemporary romantic novel, but it is anything but. It is a story of how passions can destroy the lives of anyone who comes into touch with them. Every scene is pervaded by gloom, melancholy, depression, and ultimately cruelty. If anything, I would call this novel decidedly Gothic. It is the tempers that make the characters monstrous, that leads them to revel in each other’s destruction. They are haunted by their past, by their actions.

While I think Zola does not have the psychological insight as some of his contemporaries had, there are bits of truthfulness in his dark narrative that I appreciated. One scene describes how crowds of people would flock to the Morgue, an institution open to the public, where recent corpses were showcased for several days. Zola describes, among other things, how groups of young boys would ogle the naked breasts thus displayed, chattering. Zola has a talent for showing the darkest, most deprived impulses people have – something which has caused him to be called amoral by most of his critics – which is interesting, but also skews the total portrait. Yes, people are selfish, greedy, and wilfully ignorant. Yes, they might live in squalor. Perhaps I am an optimist, but I believe that most people also form genuine connections despite or because of these.

I liked Thérèse Raquin better than Nana, which is a novel about the destructive quality of female sexuality. This theme is also incorporated in Thérèse Raquin, but perhaps less obnoxiously so. Ultimately, I think Zola has too low an appreciation for humanity, and his “scientific” and “objective” descriptions favour that which he knows would shock, offend, and cause a backlash.

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Trigger warnings: sexual assault, murder, severe physical abuse in a romantic relationship, miscarriage due to physical abuse. A character is fully paralysed and emotionally abused by her carers. Graphic descriptions of decomposing corpses abound.