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Available
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Series
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Publication
Oxford University Press (2018), Edition: Translation, 368 pages
Description
"Neither spoke another word, they were gripped by a shared, unthinking madness as they plunged headlong together into vertiginous rapture."Orphaned with a substantial inheritance at the age of ten, Pauline Quenu is taken from Paris to live with her relatives, Monsieur and Madame Chanteau and their son Lazare, in the village of Bonneville on the wild Normandy coast. Her presence enlivens the household and Pauline is the only one who canease Chanteau's gout-ridden agony. Her love of life contrasts with the insularity and pessimism that infects the family, especially Lazare, for whom she develops a devoted passion. Gradually Madame Chanteau starts to take advantage of Pauline's generous nature, and jealousy and resentment threatento blight all their lives. The arrival of a pretty family friend, Louise, brings tensions to a head.The twelfth novel in the Rougon Macquart series, The Bright Side of Life is remarkable for its depiction of intense emotions and physical and mental suffering. The precarious location of Bonneville and the changing moods of the sea mirror the turbulent relations of the characters, and as the storyunfolds its title comes to seem ever more ironic.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member arubabookwoman
The Joy of Life by Emile Zola
This is one of the less well-known of the Rougon-Macquart novels. While not among the top tier of the series, it is one that deserves to be more widely read.
The Rougon-Macquart connection is Pauline Quenu, the protagonist. She is the daughter of the owners of the
Pauline forms an immediate bond with Lazare, and idolizes him. He is a dilettante, and is unable to decide what to do with his life. When Pauline first meets him, he is composing a "masterpiece" symphony. When he gets bored with this, he goes to Paris to study medicine. When he fails his exams, he studies science. He does not complete these studies, but returns home confident that he can start a successful business involving seaweed extractions. Lazare's various enterprises are expensive, and one after the other they fail. The Chanteaus begin using Pauline's inheritance to finance Lazare's continuing unsuccessful enterprises. Soon, they are also relying on Pauline's money to fund their everyday living expenses (above and beyond the expenses of her keep they have been legitimately paid). When Pauline comes of age, and they face an audit, they arrive at a convenient way to settle matters: Pauline and Lazare will become engaged. Pauline is amenable, since she has always adored Lazare, and he in his own way also loves her. As her fiancé, neither he nor his parents will have to repay Pauline, and it will furthermore be all to Pauline's advantage, since Lazare is so brilliant. It will be no surprise that none of Lazare's enterprises are successful, and that the Pauline and Lazare's relationship is not smooth. Pauline is at times a "too good to be true" character, but within the context of a 19th century novel she is believable and steadfast. She remains loyal to Madame Chanteau, even when Madame Chanteau has turned on her, perhaps out of shame from having depleted Pauline's fortune. She serves as an uncomplaining nurse to Monsieur Chanteau, who suffers from crippling gout. And despite all the trials and tribulations, she loves and remains true to Lazare.
All the characters in this book are well-drawn. One thing that I have not before noticed in Zola is the prominent role played by the family pets, Matthew the dog and Minouche the cat, whose characters are also well-developed. In fact, the death of Matthew is portrayed in a manner worthy of Dickens, and goes on for pages--certainly it is featured more prominently than the death of Madame Chanteau.
The other factor I particularly enjoyed in this novel is the setting on the northern coast. The fishing village itself is being slowing eaten by the encroaching sea. In winter, there are violent storms, yet Pauline and Lazare spend idyllic summer days on the beach. All of this is very atmospheric, and the feel of an ocean shore permeates the novel.
This is one of the less well-known of the Rougon-Macquart novels. While not among the top tier of the series, it is one that deserves to be more widely read.
The Rougon-Macquart connection is Pauline Quenu, the protagonist. She is the daughter of the owners of the
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butcher shop featured in The Belly of Paris. As the novel opens she is 9 years old and has been orphaned. She, along with her ample inheritance, is sent to live with distant relatives, an older couple, the Chanteaus, and their 19 year old son, Lazare. The Chanteaus are retired "gentry", and live in reduced circumstances in a fishing village on the North Coast of France.Pauline forms an immediate bond with Lazare, and idolizes him. He is a dilettante, and is unable to decide what to do with his life. When Pauline first meets him, he is composing a "masterpiece" symphony. When he gets bored with this, he goes to Paris to study medicine. When he fails his exams, he studies science. He does not complete these studies, but returns home confident that he can start a successful business involving seaweed extractions. Lazare's various enterprises are expensive, and one after the other they fail. The Chanteaus begin using Pauline's inheritance to finance Lazare's continuing unsuccessful enterprises. Soon, they are also relying on Pauline's money to fund their everyday living expenses (above and beyond the expenses of her keep they have been legitimately paid). When Pauline comes of age, and they face an audit, they arrive at a convenient way to settle matters: Pauline and Lazare will become engaged. Pauline is amenable, since she has always adored Lazare, and he in his own way also loves her. As her fiancé, neither he nor his parents will have to repay Pauline, and it will furthermore be all to Pauline's advantage, since Lazare is so brilliant. It will be no surprise that none of Lazare's enterprises are successful, and that the Pauline and Lazare's relationship is not smooth. Pauline is at times a "too good to be true" character, but within the context of a 19th century novel she is believable and steadfast. She remains loyal to Madame Chanteau, even when Madame Chanteau has turned on her, perhaps out of shame from having depleted Pauline's fortune. She serves as an uncomplaining nurse to Monsieur Chanteau, who suffers from crippling gout. And despite all the trials and tribulations, she loves and remains true to Lazare.
All the characters in this book are well-drawn. One thing that I have not before noticed in Zola is the prominent role played by the family pets, Matthew the dog and Minouche the cat, whose characters are also well-developed. In fact, the death of Matthew is portrayed in a manner worthy of Dickens, and goes on for pages--certainly it is featured more prominently than the death of Madame Chanteau.
The other factor I particularly enjoyed in this novel is the setting on the northern coast. The fishing village itself is being slowing eaten by the encroaching sea. In winter, there are violent storms, yet Pauline and Lazare spend idyllic summer days on the beach. All of this is very atmospheric, and the feel of an ocean shore permeates the novel.
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LibraryThing member thorold
So, after the sex-and-shopping of Au bonheur des dames, Zola comes up with an indisputable beach novel. No-one can say he wasn't ready for the airport-bookstall era...
The basic scenario of this novel is very simple: little Pauline comes to live with her aunt and uncle in a remote village on the
Having discovered the value of obstetrics as a way of building a climactic scene in Pot-bouille, Zola goes one better here, with what Yves Berger claims in the preface of my edition must be the longest and most gruesomely-detailed childbirth scene in French literature. If it isn't, by any chance, I'm pretty sure I don't want to read the book that outdoes it. But again, it's not gratuitous, it's there to remind us of the absolute horror that the most normal event in life can turn into, the pain women are expected to go through, and the rather inadequate resources of the medical profession of the time for dealing with it ("...I can save either your wife or your baby...").
He also scores what must surely be another first here by bringing in menstruation as a major symbolic element. Being Zola, it is not delicately and indirectly alluded to: we get all the gory details we would like. And of course there is a social point to make here as well as a symbolic one: Zola shows us the imbecility of Mme Chanteau's reluctance to explain to her ward what's happening to her body when she bleeds for the first time. Fortunately, Pauline happens to be in a position to deal with the question by reading it up in her cousin's medical books, and copes in a very enlightened modern way. She continues to alarm other characters throughout the book with how clued-up she is about sex and unembarrassed talking about it: obviously Zola wants us to see how much better life would be for young women if they all acted like that.
Other than the ob/gyn element of the book, we get some hardline rural poverty (including domestic abuse, alcohol abuse, and all the rest), seaweed chemistry, coastal defence (four years before Der Schimmelreiter), veterinary problems of dogs and cats, and the usual financial/inheritance/dowry shenanigans. And quite a bit of Schopenhauer — obviously Zola felt things were at risk of becoming too cheerful if he didn't deploy some heavy weapons...
A relatively minor work in the sequence, but still with some interesting ideas and subject-matter.
The basic scenario of this novel is very simple: little Pauline comes to live with her aunt and uncle in a remote village on the
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Normandy coast after the death of her parents. One horror after another strikes the family, in the gratuitous kind of way only Hardy and Zola can get away with, and Pauline herself has to cope with some pretty nasty stuff in her life, but (without resort to religion) she somehow manages to retain almost Ann-of-Green-Gables levels of optimism whilst all around her are dying in excruciating pain, losing their homes to floods, failing in business, etc. And by some miracle, Zola manages to make her a likeable and sympathetic central character despite this. Having discovered the value of obstetrics as a way of building a climactic scene in Pot-bouille, Zola goes one better here, with what Yves Berger claims in the preface of my edition must be the longest and most gruesomely-detailed childbirth scene in French literature. If it isn't, by any chance, I'm pretty sure I don't want to read the book that outdoes it. But again, it's not gratuitous, it's there to remind us of the absolute horror that the most normal event in life can turn into, the pain women are expected to go through, and the rather inadequate resources of the medical profession of the time for dealing with it ("...I can save either your wife or your baby...").
He also scores what must surely be another first here by bringing in menstruation as a major symbolic element. Being Zola, it is not delicately and indirectly alluded to: we get all the gory details we would like. And of course there is a social point to make here as well as a symbolic one: Zola shows us the imbecility of Mme Chanteau's reluctance to explain to her ward what's happening to her body when she bleeds for the first time. Fortunately, Pauline happens to be in a position to deal with the question by reading it up in her cousin's medical books, and copes in a very enlightened modern way. She continues to alarm other characters throughout the book with how clued-up she is about sex and unembarrassed talking about it: obviously Zola wants us to see how much better life would be for young women if they all acted like that.
Other than the ob/gyn element of the book, we get some hardline rural poverty (including domestic abuse, alcohol abuse, and all the rest), seaweed chemistry, coastal defence (four years before Der Schimmelreiter), veterinary problems of dogs and cats, and the usual financial/inheritance/dowry shenanigans. And quite a bit of Schopenhauer — obviously Zola felt things were at risk of becoming too cheerful if he didn't deploy some heavy weapons...
A relatively minor work in the sequence, but still with some interesting ideas and subject-matter.
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LibraryThing member burritapal
Zola's story is about a middle class Normandy family that is set in the last part of the 19th century. Here is a quote from the preface:
"Lazare, on the other hand, is one of those wretched beings whose number seem to be constantly increasing in our midst, the product of our corrupt civilization,
Written by the translator, Ernest Alfred Vizetelly, I thought this was a modern commentary, written in a modern printing. Noooo, he lived at the end of the 19th century, as Zola did.
I cried when the family dog, Mathew, grown old and suffering from cancer of the kidneys, died.
"'oh! My poor old dog!' cried Lazare, bursting into sobs. Matthew was dead. A little bloody foam Frothed round his Jaws. As Lazare laid him down on the floor he looked as though he were asleep. Then once more the young man felt that all was over. His dog was dead now, and this filled him with unreasonable grief and seemed to cast a gloom over his whole life."
If you have read"The Belly of Paris," you know that Pauline was the darling daughter of the Quenus, who had a"meat" shop by the Public Market in Paris. Her parents have died, and she is sent to live with her father's brother in a coastal village in Normandy. She has a nice little inheritance that no doubt makes her welcome in this family. But little by little, the aunt digs into Pauline's inheritance.
If you have ever known someone who lives to be a martyr, you will recognize them in Pauline, and you will feel like strangling Pauline as you read this tale.
Awesome characterization.
"Lazare, on the other hand, is one of those wretched beings whose number seem to be constantly increasing in our midst, the product of our corrupt civilization,
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our grotesque educational systems, our restlessness and thirst for wealth, our thousand vices and our blatant hypocrisy." Written by the translator, Ernest Alfred Vizetelly, I thought this was a modern commentary, written in a modern printing. Noooo, he lived at the end of the 19th century, as Zola did.
I cried when the family dog, Mathew, grown old and suffering from cancer of the kidneys, died.
"'oh! My poor old dog!' cried Lazare, bursting into sobs. Matthew was dead. A little bloody foam Frothed round his Jaws. As Lazare laid him down on the floor he looked as though he were asleep. Then once more the young man felt that all was over. His dog was dead now, and this filled him with unreasonable grief and seemed to cast a gloom over his whole life."
If you have read"The Belly of Paris," you know that Pauline was the darling daughter of the Quenus, who had a"meat" shop by the Public Market in Paris. Her parents have died, and she is sent to live with her father's brother in a coastal village in Normandy. She has a nice little inheritance that no doubt makes her welcome in this family. But little by little, the aunt digs into Pauline's inheritance.
If you have ever known someone who lives to be a martyr, you will recognize them in Pauline, and you will feel like strangling Pauline as you read this tale.
Awesome characterization.
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Language
Original language
French
Original publication date
1884
Physical description
368 p.; 7.7 inches
ISBN
0198753616 / 9780198753612
Local notes
French title: La joie de vivre (1884). Other English titles: The Joy of Living. Zest for Life. How Jolly Life Is!