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CAMP had been set up two kilometres from Mulhouse, nearer the Rhine, in the middle of the fertile plain. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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If you are new to Zola, I recommend you start with Germinal, the most accessible book in the series and widely acknowledged to be Zola's masterpiece. The Debacle ranks as one of the great war stories of all time. Set in the Franco-Prussian War and its aftermath, the days of the Paris Commune, it is also that rarest of things, a successful political novel.
In this book, Zola demonstrates his characteristic understanding of human nature. In particular, he gives a compelling depiction of the profound intimacy that can develop between comrades-in-arms in time of war.
Although it is marred by Zola's tendency to repeat himself - in all his books, he tends to light on a word or phrase which he flogs to death through the course of the story - and some episodes are slow-paced, it is nonetheless a fine piece of writing. Full of humane wisdom and keen insight, it is a moving and memorable masterpiece.
France declared war in 1870 but was ill prepared to fight the ensuing Franco-Prussian War. Poorly equipped and incompetently led, the French soldiers were badly used. The result, from the French point of view was a catastrophe. At the battle of Sedan the Prussians captured over 100,000 French troops and Napoleon III himself. France was forced to cede Alsace-Lorraine to the Germans. In the immediate aftermath of the war, a left-wing rebellion erupted in Paris. It was suppressed with brutal rigor.
Like Tolstoy's War and Peace, Zola's The Debacle is a historical novel in which the facts of the war are very accurately described, and then well-drawn fictional characters are inserted. The story is told with verve through the eyes of two soldiers. The events of the Franco-Prussian War are extremely complex, yet Zola never lets the reader get lost. The story is engrossing and compelling. This is one of the great books of French literature.
To the reader who comes to this review by way of my history of the Tour de France, this book is related to the Tour rather obliquely. Tour founder Henri Desgrange wrote extensively in the sports newspaper L'Auto, which also owned the Tour de France. Desgrange tried to model his own writing style on Zola's.
-Bill McGann, author of "The Story of the Tour de France"
The Debacle follows the daily life, joy and sufferings of two french infantry soldiers caught in the midst of the 1870 war (from its beginning to the Paris Commune). Zola depicts the very moving tale of an unlikely friendship between a well-educated, middle-class private and its corporal, a veteran of Napoleon I wars and former farmer. This fiction story is set in the middle of the historic events of the 1870 war, which Zola describes with historian-like precision. The combat scenes are extremely vivid and graphic and you really go from one page to the other fearing for the lifes of the two heroes. The military hospital scene after the battle of Sedan is one of the best descriptions of the absurdity of war. Some may find the numerous descriptions made by Zola a bit too long, but these descriptions help to give this story its specific "authentic" feel. This book is not a funny tale but it is not without humour, as the portraits of the French officers are quite funny.
All in all it is a very good Zola, more difficult than Germinal or la Bete Humaine, but a great book nonetheless.
Zolas novels in the Rougon-Macquart series are seminal works of art and La Debacle is the best I`ve read in that series so far. Read more
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