- Mass Market Paperback: 368 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd; Reprint edition (28 April 1977)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0140443274
- ISBN-13: 978-0140443271
- Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.7 x 1.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 331,285 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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see record 3842
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
La Bete humaine (1890), the seventeenth novel in the Rougon-Macquart series, is one of Zola's most violent and explicit works. On one level a tale of murder, passion, and possession, it is also a compassionate study of individuals derailed by atavistic forces beyond their control. Zola considered this his 'most finely worked' novel, and in it he powerfully evokes life at the end of the Second Empire in France, where society seemed to be hurtling into the future like the new locomotives and railways it was building. While expressing the hope that human nature evolves through education and gradually frees itself of the burden of inherited evil, he is constantly reminding us that under the veneer of technological progress there remains, always, the beast within. This new translation captures Zola's fast-paced yet deliberately dispassionate style, while the introduction and detailed notes place the novel in its social, historical, and literary context.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A gripping story of murder and lust, of the dark side of human nature -- of the beast within. The most brilliant aspects of the novel are Zola's descriptions of trains and railways on the Paris-Le Havre line, around which all action from murder to love to jealousy to a magnificently described train wreck commences. The protagonist is a young engine driver Jacques Lantier in the 1870s, son of Gervaise (depicted in _L'Assommoir_) and half-brother of Nana. Jacques is never mentioned in the earlier novels as Zola only invented him later for a clear purpose in _La Bete Humaine_.
Jacques unfortunately is the most flagrant blemish of this novel. He is an obvious literary invention, an over-simplification, and perhaps some of the other characters too are simplified to a slightly lesser extent, but Jacques' tormented character is clearly psychologically unsustainable and more of a theoretical strawman than a fully developed individual. In contrast with _Germinal_, _Nana_, and _L'Assommoir_, this sacrifice of reality for tendency is also why _La Bete Humaine_ ends up lacking in the realistic depth of the mentioned novels. Some plot twists only add to the sense of lessened realism, especially when everything takes place in about a year's time, and it all takes away some of the sting of Zola's criticism of the powers that be. Nonetheless, _La Bete Humaine_, in its depiction of primeval murderous traits hiding underneath the educated sheen of modern 19th century society, buried deep in the thunderous rumble of railways, resonates in the recesses of human mind with its sinister tragedy.
Oxford World's Classics series version is the latest English translation of the novel. Zola's colloquialisms are rendered here well in a suitably colloquial English tone, although there are a couple of "blimeys", which are English enough to appear bizarre in a French novel, translation or not. 3 stars for the meat of the book: trains and railways.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is my first Zola, and in a moment it dispelled all the cliches about Zola - bogged down in realism, slow going, stylistically impenetrable. I haven't been so taken over by a book since I read William Golding's Sea Trilogy To the Ends of the Earth: A Sea Trilogy. Everything else in life seemed a distraction to getting back to it and find out what happened next.
There's an awful lot of crime and violence in the book - murders, attempted murders, wife-beating, contemplated murders - because this is the book in Zola's great cycle about criminality and the law. It's set against a background of the early railways, which are not only densely researched but also beautifully realised for the reader in their dirt, energy, and inventiveness.
The characters are uniformly believable, but the central female character of Severine is a particular triumph, a shallow and selfish woman whose mind we still understand and with whom we can sympathise throughout. Zola is very modern in feel, particularly in his sense of the way relationships change, and that the pivotal points often happen when we aren't aware of it, and nothing is spoken. He's also modern in his use of sexuality, and particularly female sexuality. Dickens had only been dead for 20 years, and Hardy was still writing, but they both seem like dinosaurs compared with Zola.
As well as dealing with the psychology of criminality and being very advanced in seeing the connection with mental illness, the book is a detective story, not a whodunnit but a willtheybefoundout. Zola is scathing about the politicisation of the Justice system, and the temptation for a weak magistrate to deliver the verdict a government wants.
There are also three wonderful action scenes - a train ride through a blizzard, a train crash and the last few pages - which will have you on the edge of your seat. As the book came to a close, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up at the power and brilliance of the writing.
I can't wait for the next Zola.
There's an awful lot of crime and violence in the book - murders, attempted murders, wife-beating, contemplated murders - because this is the book in Zola's great cycle about criminality and the law. It's set against a background of the early railways, which are not only densely researched but also beautifully realised for the reader in their dirt, energy, and inventiveness.
The characters are uniformly believable, but the central female character of Severine is a particular triumph, a shallow and selfish woman whose mind we still understand and with whom we can sympathise throughout. Zola is very modern in feel, particularly in his sense of the way relationships change, and that the pivotal points often happen when we aren't aware of it, and nothing is spoken. He's also modern in his use of sexuality, and particularly female sexuality. Dickens had only been dead for 20 years, and Hardy was still writing, but they both seem like dinosaurs compared with Zola.
As well as dealing with the psychology of criminality and being very advanced in seeing the connection with mental illness, the book is a detective story, not a whodunnit but a willtheybefoundout. Zola is scathing about the politicisation of the Justice system, and the temptation for a weak magistrate to deliver the verdict a government wants.
There are also three wonderful action scenes - a train ride through a blizzard, a train crash and the last few pages - which will have you on the edge of your seat. As the book came to a close, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up at the power and brilliance of the writing.
I can't wait for the next Zola.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
This book was written nearly 150 years ago yet feels utterly contemporary. In this book, Zola turns his attention to those members of his fictional disfuntional family who work in or around the railway. Unlike some of his other books, Zola sets aside his fixation with the social injustices of the day to create a thriller about a murder on a train and the culprits' disintegrating lives as they attempt to conceal their crime. It may be far-fetched, but the story moves at a cracking pace. The atmosphere is enhanced by the evocative descriptions of the engine drivers battling to control their steam trains. "Germinal" may be Zola's masterpiece, but nothing else he wrote matches this gripping effort for excitement.A great read.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Liked it but......
Although the book kept my interest,I am glad it wasnt the first book of Zolas that Id read.If it had of been I very much doubt that I would have continued with Zola. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Douglas G. Baxter
chuff chuffs
I greatly enjoyed this novel - if you like murder, railways, steam engines and long tunnels, read on. I read the translation by Leonard Tancock. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Timothy John Myall
god good devil evil
man loves girl. girl abused as child. man finds out. man kills abuser. someone sees him. man tries to get him to like her. they fall in love. him homicidal.he jealous. Read more
Published on 31 May 2001
one-track mind?
I stumbled upon this book for 15p in a charity shop and now it holds pride of place in my second-hand book collection. Read more
Published on 30 May 2001
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