Montaigne’s Essays – Part One

Oh, Montaigne!  What a character!  I’m reading a series of recommended essays, and my plan is to split them into three posts.  So far my introduction to Montaigne has been pleasurable, but taxing to the brain.  His language and progression of ideas, examples and testimonies are not for the faint of heart.  In hindsight, it was wise to take him in measured doses.


On Sadness:  I felt that Montaigne was saying that the deepest sorrows often could not be expressed with outward emotions.  But then he ended by saying that he is little bothered by such violent passions;  I then wonder what gives him the authority to speak on sorrow if he knows nothing of it.  Hmmmm ……..

Our Fortune Must Not Be Judged Until After Death:  Well, this was not an uplifting little essay.  Montaigne believes, drawing from the tale of Croseus and Solon in the stories of Herodotus, that a man cannot be judged as fortunate until his death, because various calamities and suffering can plague him until the end.  Your final day tells all.  Nice.  Fortunately he appears to have amended his views on this subject later in life.

The Death of Socrates
Jacques-Louis David
source Wikipedia

To Think As A Philosopher Is To Learn To Die: Yikes!  Another death essay.  Montaigne emphasizes the need to learn to lose the fear of death.  Death is inescapable and it is a piteous error to try to avoid it by any means, as the hour is determined for everyone.  He tosses in Socrates rather wise and pithy remark:  to the man who said “The thirty tyrants have sentence you to death,” Socrates replied, “And Nature to them.”

Of The Powers of Imagination:  I’m somewhat perplexed as to where to begin with this one.  This essay is supposed to (I believe) explore the relationship of imagination to the mind and body, but Montaigne rather vividly gets into a discussion of the “male member” and “passing wind”.  I was laughing so hard I was crying at the end of the “passing wind” section.  I don’t think hilarity was intended by the author.  😉  Apparently though, people in Montaigne’s time wouldn’t have blinked an eye at these references, showing that they were much more mature and less sensitive than modern people. And since I was very surprised by his frankness given the era, it also demonstrates that our preconceived ideas can be less than accurate.

On Educating Children:  I have an interest in education, so this essay was perhaps the most interesting for me, if not the most amusing (see above).  Montaigne felt that an instructor of good moral character and sound understanding was much more valuable than one with founts of knowledge.  He emphasized the value of knowledge for its own sake, and was repelled by the thought that learning should be used to earn profit. The ancient Greeks would understand his dismay; only slaves were schooled to work, not free men.  Montaigne proceeds to say that he does not wish for an educational system that makes children parrot back what they have learned but rather that they are taught to make ideas their own.  He then expands his argument to suggest tossing out the classical education model in place of simply teaching children to philosophize.  He seems to forget that the classical model contains the building blocks that give the student the tools to be able to discuss topics philosophically, not to mention that young minds have to mature to be able to understand the abstract concepts which are required in philosophy.  He supports, as well, exercise and entertainment, but suggests training peculiarities and eccentricities out of people, as they are “a foe to intercourse and companionship of others”. Well, okay …….  I do understand Montaigne’s main point though.  He is advocating for the teaching of a virtuous character over that of intellectual learning.  In fact, this should be the goal of every teacher, however I believe that there should be a balance between the two, whereas Montaigne seems to want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

The Return of the Prodigal Son
Bartolome Esteban Murillo
source Wikiart

On the Affection of Fathers for Their Children:  In this case, Montaigne means male children but he does share some good advice. A man should not marry too early and responsible thought should be given to the purpose of having children, realizing that they will owe you much more than they can ever pay back.  Instead of forcing the son to be dependent on him when he comes of age, the father should share his wealth and guide him in the use of it, teaching the son to run the estate.  Now Montaigne claims if this is not done, the sons have no other recourse than to become thieves, a habit that will be nearly impossible to break.  I’m not sure I follow his rationale in this case, and cannot agree with it as an excuse, but hey, it’s Montaigne, right?  It just doesn’t feel normal if he doesn’t hit you with some sort of idiosyncratic reasoning.

In spite of some peculiarities, Montaigne has a charm that cannot be denied.  Perhaps Madame de Sévigné characterizes best what his readers experience:  “I have found entertainment in a volume of Montaigne that I did not think I had brought with me.  Ah, the charming man!  What good company he is!  He is an old friend of mine, but by dint of being old, he is new to me. …….. Mon Dieu!  how full this book is of good sense!”

The Man Who Was Thursday, A Nightmare by G.K. Chesterton

“The suburb of Saffron Park lay on the sunset side of London, as red and ragged as a cloud of sunset.”

Why, oh why, does Chesterton confuse me so?  At first this book appeared to start as a mystery.  Two poets meet in Saffron Park, one, Lucian Gregory, a creative anarchist, the other, Gabriel Syme, a conservative poet and undercover police detective.  By his wit and resources, Syme infiltrates the anarchist’s group called the Central Anarchist Council, getting himself named one of its seven members, christened “Thursday”.  Yet can he stop the assassination attempt the group is planning and expose this dastardly anarchical organization?

The book is much more than a mystery, which readily becomes apparent as the reader makes his way through the entertaining yet confusing prose. There was an initial discussion about anarchy and art, yet I soon realized that the two poets were comparing anarchy and law.  As I read my way through, various questions arose.  Why were the council members named after the days of the week?  Does this point towards some sort of creation story?  Why do all the members who appear evil are not as they seem? What are they really fighting against?  Why is the subtitle “A Nightmare”?  And what was the point of Syme’s promise to Gregory? It is mentioned numerous times so it should have some importance.

Yet the big question that hangs over the characters and the reader alike is: Who is the leader of the group, Sunday?  The Professor, named Friday, reveals:

“I confess that I should feel a bit afraid of asking Sunday who he really is.” 

“Why,” asked the Secretary, “for fear of bombs?” 

“No,” said the Professor, “for fear that he might tell me.”

In one review, the reviewer claimed that Sunday represents Nature.  Well, perhaps.  He is both benign and frightening, as this description shows:

“You would not know [his name] ……  That is his greatness.  Caesar and Napoleon put all their genius into being heard of, and they were heard of.  He puts all his genius into not being heard of, and his is not heard of.  But you cannot be for five minutes in the room with him without feeling that Caesar and Napoleon would have been children in his hands.”

Sunday’s words about himself are even more chilling:

“Since the beginning of the world all men have hunted me like a wolf —- kings and sages, and poets and law-givers, all the churches, and all the philosophers.  But I have never been caught yet, and the skies will fall in the time I turn to bay.  I have given them a good run for their money ……….  There’s one thing I’ll tell you though about who I am.  I am the man in the dark room, who made you all policemen.”

After its publication in 1908, The Man Who Was Thursday came under a storm of critical approval.  Frighteningly complex, it has been  hailed as “amazingly clever”,  “shamelessly beautiful prose”, “a remarkable acrobatic performance” and “a scurrying, door-slamming farce that ends like a chapter in the Apocalypse.”  One reader declared himself “dazed” at the end of it, which perfectly described my puzzled demeanor as I closed the last page.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1909)
source Wikipedia

As you see, reading the book brought about more questions than answers, so instead I will leave you with a taste of what others have said about this novel:

“Roughly speaking, it’s about anarchists …… And roughly speaking, it’s a mystery story.  It can be guaranteed that you will never, never guess the solution until you get to the end —- it is even feared that you may not guess it then.  You may never guess what The Man Who Was Thursday is about.  But definitely, if you don’t, you’ll ask. “ 

                                                                     ~  Orson Welles  ~

“…… mystery and allegory take their turn in the scene.  Life, huge, shapeless, cruel and loving, killing and saving, full of antitheses, appearing to each one under a different aspect, measuring each man according to the strength of his soul, turns its strange face upon us.  Life, whose soul is law, nature, whose expression is law, confront the frantic lawlessness of struggling man —- and behold, those very struggles prove to be based on law again.  And when at the last you sit on the thrones with the Council of Days, you see the mad, miraculous world dance by, moving to a harmony none the less invincible because only half heard.”
                                                ~  Hildegarde Hawthorne  ~

I highly recommend this book to ……….. well, to anyone!  Read it as a mystery, read it as a commentary, read it as philosophy,  read it as a fantasy, read it as theology —- it has something for everyone. Perhaps it should be described as a mystery without end, a true symphony of brilliance by Chesterton, in which nothing is ever how it seems!

If you’ve read The Man Who Was Thursday, what do you think the story was about?

Further Reading:

La Parure (The Necklace) par Guy de Maupassant

“C’etait une de ces jolies et charmantes filles, nées, comme par une erreur du destin, dans une famille d’employés.”

Yes, she certainly was a pretty and charming girl who was born by a mistake of destiny into a family of office workers.  Mathilde would dream of riches and fame and jewels, covering her life of drudgery in a tapestry of fantasies and longings.  Finally, one day, her husband arrives with an invitation to a party.  Mathilde manipulates this honest, hard-working man into purchasing a new elegant dress for her, but when she complains of a lack of jewels, he has the answer: borrow some from her wealthy friend Madame Forestier!  A lovely diamond necklace of Madame’s catches Mathilde’s eye and she must have it.  Her friend, generous to the end, gladly loans it and the evening of her dreams begins.  She is admired, she is catered to, she is wrapped in a heavenly realm of blissful wealth and prestige.  Late do she and her husband return home, reluctant to leave the party until the end but, oh no!  The necklace has disappeared and she is sure that she left it in the taxi.  Days of searching yield nothing and finally there is only one thing to do.  Withdrawing their life savings and taking out a loan, they replace the necklace, hoping that Madame will not notice.  But this painful action causes them ten years of needless toil and suffering.  Why is it needless?  Well, you will have to read the tale to find out!

This short story was really a gem and, in spite of having an inkling of the final twist, it still held my attention to end.  In fact, I had expected to get fatigued by reading such a long (for me) story in French and I had planned to take a break, but instead, I was held rapt until the end.

I did wonder at the title of this story.  In the tale, the necklace is mostly referred to as “la rivière“, yet the title is “la parure“.  When I looked up “la rivière” in my French dictionary it says “river“, and “la parure“means “finery” or “jewelry“.  So then I looked up necklace and it had “le collier“.  What?  Do any of you Francophiles understand the distinction between these terms? Help!

In any case, this story has definitely been a huge incentive to read more of Maupassant.  His short stories are very readable and a good way to keep improving my French.  I certainly struggled here and there in parts of it and learned a number of new words, yet I was also pleased with my progress.

This will probably be the last book for my Summer Freak Language Challenge, unless I can squeak in a short children’s book before the end. Thanks Ekaterina, for holding this wonderful challenge.  It’s given me a chance to practice languages that I wouldn’t normally read in.  I’m already looking forward to next year’s challenge!

Defence Speeches by Cicero

“I imagine you must be wondering, members of the jury, why it is that, when there are so many leading orators and men of the highest rank present here in court, I of all people should have stood up to address you; for neither in age, nor in ability, nor in authority do I bear comparison with these men who have remained seated.”

So begins, Cicero’s first speech, Pro Roscio Amerino, his first speech delivered in a criminal court when he was a young 26-year-old defence advocate.  While Defence Speeches contains five speeches that Cicero gave during the years 80 B.C. to 52 B.C., this speech is my favourite.  It shows Cicero as a fresh, young advocate, willing to take chances, yet also using his wiles to sway listeners to his point of view.  His rhetoric is at once firm and decisive, yet also almost self-effacing at times, but in an astute and cunning manner that only serves to increase his power.  His client, Sextus Roscius, was, in the end, acquitted of patricide, and this case helped begin Cicero’s journey to rhetorical fame.

The defence speech, Pro Milone, is one of Cicero’s most famous, as he defended Titus Annius Milo against the charge of murdering the tyrant, Publius Clodius Pulcher.  It was an unusual defeat for him, but it is one speech for which we have an independent account from a 1st century scholar, Quintus Asconius Pedianus.  Because of the secondary source, we can target possible inconsistencies in Cicero’s presentation of the facts, which are backed by other evidence.  It is said that because the trial was so politically volatile and emotions so unstable, Cicero had to perform under unusual circumstances.  Ancient sources disagree as to the cause of Cicero’s less than stellar performance (some say threats from Clodian supporters, some say the soldiers stationed around the forum made him uneasy) but the end result was a vote of 38 to 13 of “guilty” and Milo was sent into exile.

In spite of the defeat, Milo did not seem to hold a grudge.  When Cicero sent a copy of this defence speech, written at a later date, to Milo, Milo joking replied that it was fortunate that a speech in that form had never been heard in court because he would then not be enjoying the wonderful mullets in Massalia (Marseilles – his place of exile).

Cicero denounces Cataline (1882-88)
fresco by Caesare Maccari
source Wikipedia

If one is familiar with the history of Clodius, one can only conclude that Milo did the empire a favour by getting rid of him.  Suspected of committing incest with his sister, Clodius employed gangs to terrorize the citizens of Rome and the surrounding country, for his own political and monetary benefit.  In 63 B.C., he was able to exile Cicero for his involvement in the illegal execution of five Catlinarian conspirators, and while Cicero was away, proceeded to demolish his elegant house, attempting to have the ground consecrated to deny any further right to build upon the site.  Upon Cicero’s return, Clodius’ gangster tactics continued, as he regularly had his gangs harass Cicero’s workmen as they attempted to re-build his home.

Also included in this book are the speeches, Pro Murena, Pro Archia, and Pro Caelio, where he defends against electoral malpractice, illegal exercise of citizen rights, and civil disturbance, respectively.

From some of these speeches, the reader is given a window into Rome during its more turbulent times, and one realizes, among the grandeur, learning and sophistication, there is continual political unrest and moral decay, boiling in a cesspool of men grasping wildly for prestige and power. It’s a book that probably should be read in “doses”, but the value of the historical import and the insight into human ambition cannot be underestimated.

Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope

“In the latter days of July in the year 185–, a most important question was for ten days hourly asked in the cathedral city of Barchester, and answered every hour in various ways —- Who was to be the new bishop?”

War has broken out in the city of Barchester.  The different factions are preparing by arming themselves with disingenuous weapons.  Tongues are being exercised, rapier wit is being sharpened, and soon a victor will be declared.

The new chaplain, Mr. Obadiah Slope has arrived in Barchester with the new bishop Proudie and his termagant wife .  Whilst Mr. Slope shows the high opinion he holds of himself, the clergy and certain townspeople take a strong dislike to his oily sycophancy and the fight is on.  Will Archdeacon Grantly be able to run Mr. Slope out of Barchester? Or will Mr. Slope become the new Dean?  Yet his marriage to the widow Eleanor Bold, Mr. Septimus Harding’s daughter, is a certainty.  Or is it?  Bertie Stanhope, the indolent son of Dr. Vessey Stanhope, is a contender for her affections but, oops ….. into the picture strides Mr. Arabin, vicar of St. Ewold and Grantly’s ally, to further muddy the marital waters.  And, as for the battle over the appointment of the new warden of Hiram’s Hospital, will Mr. Harding recover this honoured position, or will Mr. Quiverful triumph over his competitor, effectively providing his wife and children with the support they had heretofore been lacking?

In a town amongst characters, where black can seem white, and up suddenly down, the romping hilarity of the story firmly keeps the reader engaged and attentive.   Trollope, himself had a personal love for his masterpiece:  “In the writing of Barchester Towers I took great delight.  The bishop and Mrs. Proudie were very real to me, as were also the troubles of the archdeacon and the loves of Mr. Slope.”  Sadly his publishers were not initially in accord, claiming the novel to be full of “vulgarity and exaggeration.”  How fortunate, in spite of this initial critique, that this novel has captured the imagination and humour of readers worldwide for nearly 160 years, and has given the people of Barchester an immorality that was originally in jeopardy.

The Barsetshire Chronicles

The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis

“I seemed to be standing in a busy queue by the side of a long, mean street.”

If you found yourself in Hell and then were offered a chance to leave and spend an eternity in Heaven, you’d jump at it, wouldn’t you? …….. Or would you …….??

The Great Divorce tells of a journey of souls from the grey town, which we soon see represents Hell, to a wide open space of meadows, rivers and mountains.  Yet when the people disembark they are dismayed.  They now appears as Ghosts and all the vegetation is dense and tough in a way that makes movement difficult and, at times, dangerous.  And who are these shining Solid People coming towards them, and what do they want?  Full of joy and laughter, it appears that they only wish for the “Ghosts” to shed their prejudices and grudges and self-absorption and “rights”, to accept help and rescue from their troubles.  ‘Come to the mountain’, they say, yet most are unable to, so firmly have these detrimental traits taken root within them, to the exclusion of anything good.

The Assumption of the Virgin by Francesco Botticini
shows three hierarchies and nine orders of angels
source Wikipedia

The Great Divorce is Lewis’ The Divine Comedy.  As Dante is the narrator of The Divine Comedy, so too, the narrator in The Great Divorce is Lewis himself. George MacDonald, the well-known author of The Princess and the Goblin, Phantastes, and At The Back of the North Wind, a man whose writings had a profound affect on Lewis, serves as his Virgil, a guide to bring him understanding of Heaven and similarly, the grey town of Hell.

Yet while analogous in structure, the Hell of The Great Divorce is very different than that of Dante’s Hell.  It is not a world of men trapped in flaming tombs, immersed in rivers of blood and fire, whipped by demons or eaten by foul creatures.  In The Great Divorce, Hell looks surprisingly like Earth, but a corruption of earth, holding only the negative components of greed, envy, self-worship, revenge, jealously, grudges, etc.  The setting mirrors the emotions, being bleak, desolate and lacking any human goodness.  Rain and dingy twilight permeate the town, and a perpetual feeling of hopelessness is ever-present.  Yet while the souls of this dreary place, recognize intellectually what they live in, and practically understand their actions, they have become drowned in them through excuses, trends, weakness of character, reliance on intellect only, and have become blind to their effects.  In life, they allowed their choices and actions to carry them in the wrong direction and now have little desire to escape.  They have chosen Hell and are unable to conceive of anything outside of it.  Similar to the dwarves in the The Last Battle, ignorance has overcome them and they cannot escape it.

A vision of Hell
from Dante’s Divine Comedy
source Wikipedia

Lewis’ presentation of Hell is not only easily understandable, it is quite fascinating.  Lewis’ Hell is not a Hell for people.  Each “person” there, is there of their own choice, and their descent into it has been a gradual process, and not because of one big sin.  Each of their choices has progressively dehumanized them; it is not that they are beyond salvation, rather that there is no shred of humanness left to save.  Lewis also emphasizes the smallness of Hell by having the bus, not actually travel but grow, sprouting from a small crack in the soil to emerge in Heaven.  Hell, to Lewis is a tiny place and anything that lives there is already withered away.

On the other hand, the Bright or Solid People of Heaven did not get there through moral perfection.  One had been a murderer and confessed to doing worse than that, while another was hardly known on Earth but the people and animals that came into her presence were enriched by her love and charity.  And again, we have another echo from The Last Battle, that Heaven is much more real than earth, exemplified by the tough grass, the hard rivers and terrain that the Ghosts experience and would only have a change of perception if they chose to accept the invitation to become more real.

While Lewis states in his preface that this book is an answer to William Blakes’ The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, he makes if very clear that it is not a story that is meant to be taken in a literal sense; like his Narnia Chronicles, it is a supposition.  More, it is a work that explores human biases, perceptions and attitudes that either allow us to or prevent us from getting closer to God.

C.S. Lewis Project 2014

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

“You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings.”

Gaining a passionate, yet unguided knowledge for science, young Victor Frankenstein arrives at university with an unquenchable thirst for learning and advancement.  When he involves himself in an isolated solitary experiment to create life, the resulting creature so appalls and revolts him, that he cannot contain his revulsion.  The consequent rejection of his creation culminates in a series of tragedies that could not even have entered Frankenstein’s imagination.

Theodor von Holst
from 1831 edition
source Wikipedia

Initially, the book begins with an introductory sub-plot of Robert Walton, a scientific adventurer who is on a naval quest to find a northern passage or discover the secret of the magnetic poles.  Walton is portrayed as a man intoxicated with the desire for knowledge, a clear indication that his character mirrors that of Victor Frankenstein, and his idealistic dreams parallel those of the friend he rescues (Frankenstein).  At the beginning of Frankenstein’s story, we see how he immerses himself in science and, by doing so, isolates himself from the friends and acquaintances around him, and remains housebound, separated from the outdoors. Without companionship and nature, the very things that feed our souls, he is blind to the spiritual aspects of humanity, seeing only the physiological perspective of a scientific creation.  In effect, he rejects his own Creator to put himself in His place.

In fact, the first sentence of the book, the beginning of a letter from Robert Walton to his sister, gives the reader a clue as to the lack of awareness the scientist can develop to the world around him:  “You will rejoice to hear that that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings.”  In a frenzied quest for new discovery, the scientist can often lose any objectivity and will marginalize the prudent advice given by others, who have perhaps more objective insight.

In Frankenstein’s story, we get a cautionary tale of the consequences of unexamined and incautious actions based on a deification of science, yet therein also lies a theme of abandoned responsibility.  If Frankenstein had attempted to communicate with the creature and valiantly hid his disgust of it, would the outcome have been different?  Could he have humanized his creation with sympathy and nurturing?  I have my doubts. Upon the creature’s flight and escape to the woods, he discovers a family living there and, by observing them, he learns to read and write and is exposed to profound literature, which reveals both goodness and evil to him. The creature learns what it means to be human and, in fact, admires the goodness of the family.  However he ultimately chooses evil, using his rejection by humans as an excuse for his deviant actions.  Victor Frankenstein was another unsympathetic character.  Numerous times he had a chance to attempt to stop the evil he had created, yet each time he did nothing, often at the expense of a human life.  I was actually quite disgusted with him.  His inaction was almost on a level with the creature’s atrocities.

Boris Karloff
as Frankenstein’s monster
source Wikipedia

While I found the plot of this novel in some senses exaggerated, in a general sense it brought up a number of important issues for reflection.  Are we responsible for what we create and, if so, to what degree?  Is knowledge something to be pursued with unlimited passion, or should we approach it with a healthy respect, and should restrictions be put on our pursuit of it?  Does the development of character, values and morality depend on genetics or environment? Shelley brought attention to these universal and timeless issues which segued into more specific questions related to the story.  Should the creature be pitied?  Does his abandonment, rejection and isolation justify his actions of revenge?  Was Frankenstein’s rejection directly responsible for the tragic circumstances, and therefore, was he completely to blame for his own fate?  Is the creature evil, or simply a misunderstood creation, who, if loved and nurtured, would have developed love and empathy and a conscience, like most other human beings?

The story of Frankenstein was birthed during a trip to Geneva in 1816. Together with her husband, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley spent the summer there with their companion, Lord Byron.  After Byron proposed that they each write a ghost story, Shelley found herself at a loss for inspiration.  It was only after a conversation about the “re-animation of a corpse,” that Shelley had a waking dream:

I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together.  I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion.  Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world.

And so Frankenstein was born.

Portrait of Mary Shelley (1840)
Richard Rothwell
source Wikipedia

Mary Shelley was the daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstoncraft Godwin, the former a philosopher, novelist and journalist, the latter also a philosopher as well as a writer.  With such notable antecedents, Shelley’s exposure to books was unusually vast for a female of her era.  Here is a chronological list of the works of literature which she read during the years of 1814 to 1821.

Here, also, are two other excellent reviews of Frankenstein by M. Landers and Majoring in Literature for your reading pleasure!  Enjoy!

La Curée by Émile Zola

“On the drive home, the barouche was reduced to a crawl by the long line of carriages returning by the side of the lake.”

The title of Émile Zola’s third novel (in Zola’s recommended reading order) of the Rougon-Marquart series, La Curée, or The Kill, refers to the spoils of meat thrown to the dogs at the completion of a hunt, and so is a reflection of the wild and uncontrolled speculation in Paris of the 1850s and 1860s, where monetary greed runs rampant, spewing the biproducts of immorality, licentiousness, fraud and hypocrisy.

Aristide Rougon, has arrived in Paris from Plassans with his first wife, Angèle. Poor and provincial, Aristide dreams of wealth and a life of luxury and notoriety.  Ignited by his near fanatical desire for money, he manages through dishonest dealings to cheat and finagle his way into property speculation in this city, that is expanding at a near-combustible rate.

As usual, Zola grabs you and pulls you into the story with his lush and vibrant prose, and vivid descriptions:

“This was the time when the rush for spoils filled a corner of the forest with the yelping of hounds, the cracking of whips, the flaring of torches.  The appetites let loose were satisfied at last, shamelessly, amid the sound of crumbling neighbourhoods and fortunes made in six months.  The city had become an orgy of gold and women.  Vice, coming from on high, flowed through the gutters, spread out over the ornamental waters, shot up in the fountains of the public gardens, and fell on the roofs as fine rain.  At night, when people crossed the bridges, it seemed as if the Seine drew along with it, through the sleeping city, all the refuse of the streets, crumbs fallen from tables, bows of lace left on couches, false hair forgotten in cabs, banknotes that had slipped out of bodices, everything thrown out of the window by the brutality of desire and the immediate satisfaction of appetites.  Then, amid the troubled sleep of Paris, and even more clearly than during its feverish quest in broad daylight, one felt a growing sense of madness, the voluptuous nightmare of a city obsessed with gold and flesh.  The violins played until midnight; then the windows became dark and shadows descended over the city.  It was like a giant alcove in which the last candle had been blown out, the last remnant of shame extinguished.  There was nothing left in the darkness except a great rattle of furious and wearied lovemaking; while the Tuileries, by the riverside, stretched out its arms, as if for a huge embrace.”

Aristide changes his name to Saccard and, as his wealth grows, after the death of his wife he marries the young Renée Béraud du Châtel and later brings his son, Maxime, to live with them in Paris.  Renée, perpetually bored, is delighted at the thought of someone to pet and coddle and use as a tool to gain attention, and so becomes highly involved in Maxime’s moral development (or perhaps I should say, amoral development).  When we meet him in the novel as a twenty-year-old young man, he is happily aping his parents’ generation, as money flows through his fingers like water and unlimited pleasure is sought as nourishment, with little regard for the consequences.

As Saccard’s insatiable lust for money drives his every action, and he balances on the wire between wealth and ruin, Renée and Maxime fall into a comfortable and close relationship, which becomes the catalyst for a semi-incestuous affair driven by Renée’s boredom and lust for a new inventive perversion.  Yet instead of being entertained and satisfied by their liaison, through different circumstances, Renée finds herself debased and abandoned.  There are no loyalties in the new Paris, except with the reward of monetary gain, and true human feeling has all but been extinguished by obsessive desires for money and decadence.  Renée is a casualty of little importance.

Le Forhu à la fin de la curée
1746

Zola’s novels have an air of tragedy about them that is not necessarily brought on only by the actions of the characters or the plot of the story.  In Zola’s eyes, each character is trapped by their inherent nature in a cycle from which they cannot escape.  They are helpless and we get the sense of a drowning man who cannot be rescued, or a figure who cannot be pulled from in front of a speeding train.  This echoes the ideas of fate supported by the ancient Greeks, in that there is nothing you can do to change your destiny.  I’m not certain that I agree with his presentation.  We all have the ability to choose in each situation and, while each choice may entail a different degree of difficulty, our decisions do shape our fate to a greater or lesser degree.  Choice is what separates man from animal, and Zola’s portrayal of man trapped in an hereditary cycle exemplifies the destructive consequences when man follows only his instincts without an ethical or moral base.

This was the only Zola I was able to finish for Fanda Classiclit’s Zola Addiction, but I was happy to finish only one.  Zola is not an author I want to rush through; he makes you want to sink into his settings, try his prose out on your tongue and learn more about the historical content.  Money is the next Zola on my list and I’m looking forward to it!

Other Rougon-Macquart Series Reviews (Zola’s recommended order):

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

 

“We were in Study Hall, when the Headmaster entered, followed by a new boy dressed in regular clothes and a school servant carrying a large desk.”

Emma Roualt has been raised in a convent but during her formative years and religious education, she has somehow managed to get sentimental romance novels smuggled in to her.  When she leaves the convent, the sisters are relieved to see her go as there is some indication that Emma is not the pious, compliant young woman that they were hoping to produce.  Does Emma come by her stubborn and idealistic outlook naturally, or are the novels responsible for corrupting her character?

Soon after Emma returns to her father’s house, she meets the doctor, Charles Bovary, and imagines the feelings of emotion she experiences under his regard, love.  When the first wife of Charles passes away, Emma is happy to become his wife, yet almost immediately begins to wonder why the passionate, overwhelming feelings of a romantic love seem to elude her.  Quite soon she seeks admiration and passion outside her marital relationship, first with Leon Dupuis, a law clerk, and then with the sophisticated Rodolphe Boulanger. Drawn into a web of deceit by her need for a story-like romance, Emma begins an affair, first with Rodolphe and later with a more worldly Leon, who has now spent years in the city and knows how to conduct himself like a truly indulged and hardened man-about-town.  Neither man truly cares for her.  Each is attracted by her beauty and her passionate regard for him, yet soon these shallow emotions begin to unravel and the men tire of their paramour.  Emma, now heavily in debt and still lacking the love and desire that she equates with a meaningful life, decides to take poison and her death culminates in the tragic death of Charles and the sentencing of her daughter to a life of poverty and toil.

The Death of Bovary
Charles Léandre (1931)
source Wikimedia Commons

And so, what can we say about Emma?  She is certainly not a sympathetic character and it seems rather apparent that Flaubert didn’t mean to make her one.  How is responsible is she for her fate?  Does she perpetrate her own demise or is she an unwilling victim of circumstances?

One could certainly make excuses for Emma and say that she was trapped, not only in a simple, colourless and rigid society, but in a loveless marriage (on her part), and in a situation where she had little opportunity for following anything other than the status-quo.  However, Emma had been given an education of a type through the nuns, and though it might not have been wide in its scope, it certainly should have taught her the importance of honesty and virtue and goodness.  Emma chooses to sneak sentimental romances into the abbey to read, just as she chooses to believe what she reads should be the way of life, in spite of the evidence in front of her face against it, and she chooses to have adulterous affairs at the risk of the ruin of her reputation and that of her husband’s.  She also chooses to borrow money, placing her family heavily in debt and, the means of borrowing the money are brought about with deceit on her part to keep her actions hidden.  So I don’t really buy the “poor Emma Bovary, she is a victim of circumstance” excuse.  She keeps her illicit relationships secret, as well as the fact that she is borrowing money, and by the very fact that she does these things covertly, she MUST know that these actions are wrong.  Instead she chooses to do them anyway, for her own selfish emotional gratification and, as we see, she reaps consequences that were perhaps beyond her scope of imagining.

I didn’t dislike this book, but when I read I like to find something that stirs an emotional or an intellectual response, which is part of the conversation with the author.  With Flaubert, while there were certainly moments that sparkled, overall I was left a little flat.  The whole plot was built around a shallow, vain, deluded young girl who was supposedly corrupted early in life by her choice of reading.  No one noticed and, judging by the manner in which Flaubert portrays the setting and characters, even if they did, they perhaps would have done nothing to enlighten her.  While I wanted to pity Emma and make excuses for her, there was something fundamentally wrong with her thinking and the mechanisms she used to process life and the world around her.  Was it due to her reading material, or was she already a damaged person and the books only served to increase the self-serving, emotional fantasy-life that was already expanding within her?  I don’t think we can know.  For me it would have been infinitely more interesting if Flaubert chose to investigate this issue but instead we only see the effect of her delusions without being able to truly surmise the cause.  And that is a tragedy because Emma Bovary deserved a story that generated compassion for her and not distaste and impatience at her emotionally bankrupt behaviour and dramatic actions.  In spite of some spots of brilliance, I feel Flaubert missed a great opportunity and, once again, Emma seems to be the one that pays for it.

Translated by Lydia Davis

The Warden by Anthony Trollope

“The Revd Septimus Harding was, a few years since, a beneficed clergyman residing in the cathedral town of ______, let us call it Barchester.”

The Honest Gossip Newspaper


In many a town in England there are given charitable bequests to church dioceses, and the honest public assumes that the monies are distributed in a fair and equitable way, in a manner that benefits all who have need of them.  Yet this learned reporter has discovered that in a small holding in Barsetshire, there has been a shocking exploitation of this practice, resulting in twelve respectable old gentlemen being cheated out of their livelihood.  And who is the avaricious fiend to be so bold as to expropriate funds which are not solely meant for him?

The Revd Septimus Harding, the warden of Hiram’s Hospital in Barsetshire, it has been discovered, earns 800 pounds per annum for his position as warden and overseer of the legacy left by the philanthropic John Hiram, namesake of Hiram’s Hospital, yet the gentlemen who were meant to benefit from his legacy, receive housing and a paltry one shilling four pence per day to meet all their needs in their tender and uncertain later years of life.


Ask yourself, can you as a common man remain indifferent to the plight of others?   Can you remain indifferent to the misappropriation of funds by a man who not only takes bread out of the mouths of his brothers, but whose actions leaves a stain on the offices of the sacred and respected agents of mother Church?  Oh, for shame you vainglorious men who have no respect for what is sacred, yet greedily engorge yourselves with money to line your already comfortable existence!  Is it to be borne?  No!  Mr. Harding must be revealed as the avaricious culprit he is, and the money given to the rightful recipients, who deserve it far more than a warden who presently lives comfortably on this legacy while doing nothing to earn its bestowal.  Who will see that justice is served in such a uncomfortable yet critical situation?  This reporter knows just the man!


Our young and zealous reformer, Mr. John Bold, has been working industriously to illuminate this unfortunate circumstance and expose the corruption that has so carefully been concealed .  Can we trust this gentleman in his noble purpose?  Certainly!  Not only does his estimable reputation speak volumes, but in spite of his relationship to the aforementioned’s lovely daughter, Eleanor, he will not let possible future familial ties stand in the way of serving justice.  We have learned that he has wisely consulted a respectable and reputable law firm to deal with this perplexing and delicate matter and that, once begun, nothing will stand in his way.  The bishop and his pretentious son, the archdeacon Theophilus Grantly (also son-in-law to the accused), can puff and blow all they like, but we all know which side is valiantly trumpeting the truth.  It will be heard, and the Reverend Harding will be made to choke on it.



——————————————————-

Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows
John Constable 1831
(Trollope said his first vision for The Warden came while walking in
the cathedral close of Salisbury Cathedral)
source Wikipedia

This is a sample of what poor Septimus Harding, warden of Hiram’s Hospital had to withstand: an unfair accusation, judgement, an attack on his character and the possible loss of his livelihood.  His son-in-law, the archdeacon, attempts to defend his father-in-law, yet in a worldly, materialistic, dictatorial manner, which his father-in-law cannot respect or accept.  Harding’s simple, gentle, sacrificial nature, while at first bends under the pressure of his contemporaries, eventually asserts itself in his determination to act in an honourable manner.  In a case where people’s good intentions do more harm than good, we realize that law and justice followed blindly, can have unexpected negative repercussions.  Love and friendship hold a human value that money can never equal, and the loss of the former can create an emotional deprivation that is felt long after the incident is over.

What others said:

Behold the Stars:  “I love it, though – it’s a gentle novel, with real, ‘whole’ characters (George Orwell described it as one of his best works), and Septimus Harding is one of my favourite characters of all time.”

Avid Reader’s Musings:  “Bold sees his purpose as noble and right even though he’s hurting the people he loves.  It makes the reader question his decision, is it truly motivated by his beliefs or by his pride?”

Fig and Thistle:  “Each character is vividly unique and the dialogue is engaging.  This book certainly has a heavy dose of wit and shrewd society skewering, but without cynicism.”

This first book in the Barsetshire Chronicles read-along, hosted by Avid Reader’s Musings and Fig & Thistle, proved to be an excellent introduction to Anthony Trollope and I have already cracked open the next book, Barchester Towers, to continue my visits with the characters and happenings of Barsetshire.

The Barsetshire Chronicles