- The Sin of Abbe Mouret

by Emile Zola

Other authorsValerie Pearson Minogue (Editor)
Paperback, 2017

Status

Available

Call number

843.8

Collection

Publication

Oxford University Press (2017), Edition: 1, 336 pages

Description

Serge Mouret, the younger son of Francois Mouret (see La Conquete de Plassans), was ordained to the priesthood and appointed Cure of Les Artaud, a squalid village in Provence, to whose degenerate inhabitants he ministered with small encouragement. He had inherited the family taint of the Rougon-Macquarts, which in him took the same form as in the case of his mother-a morbid religious enthusiasm bordering on hysteria. Brain fever followed, and bodily recovery left the priest without a mental past. Dr. Pascal Rougon, his uncle, hoping to save his reason, removed him from his accustomed surroundings and left him at the Paradou, the neglected demesne of a ruined mansion-house near Les Artaud, where he was nursed by Albine, niece of the caretaker. The Abb fell in love with Albine, and, oblivious of his vows, broke them... (J. G. Patterson)… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member arubabookwoman
The fifth novel in the Rougon-Macquart series features Serge Mouret, son of Francois and Marthe Mouret who were featured in the previous novel. He has become a priest, and is serving his first congregation in a poor village. When he becomes very ill, his uncle, a doctor, takes him to recuperate
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with the caretaker of an abandoned mansion and surrounding gardens. While there, Serge is tended by Albine, the unconventional young niece of the caretaker. As he recovers, Albine entices him to explore the magical gardens surrounding the mansion, with consequences you can imagine given the title of the book.

This novel was very different from the other Rougon-Macquart novels I have read. Serge's stay with Albine is surreal. The gardens they explore are impossibly beautiful, go on forever, and seemingly contain every variety of flower, bush and tree known to man. (And Zola describes them for page after page.) Once in the gardens, there is no way out, although Serge and Albine can return to the pavillion in which they are staying.

This was a worthwhile read, but as I said it seems to be something of an anomaly. I found it to be such a contrast to the absolute realism of the other Zola novels.
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LibraryThing member Upthealbion
Zola's novel of passion tasted and repressed. Although some of the writing is sublime there are also times when it gets a little tedious.
LibraryThing member Smiler69
When we meet Serge Mouret at the beginning of the novel, he has just recently been ordained as a priest after spending many years, from adolescence until now at the age of twenty-five, on his religious studies. So enraptured is he with his religion and the many rites that his Catholic faith demands
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of him, that we soon learn that he was very pleased with being sent to this tiny village, Artaud, where the locals are all related by blood and scorn religion, because he sees this as an opportunity to demonstrate his undying devotion to the church, against all odds. But when we learn that he is most passionate about the Virgin Mary and the extent to which he is obsessed with her, we are made aware of two things: that he has inherited the mental instability of his grandmother Tante Dide, and that he's being set up for a fall. His uncle, the doctor Pascal invites him to accompany him to Le Paradou, and old domain which has been left practically abandoned, save for the old man who looks after the place. The old man's niece Albine is a beautiful and wild girl of sixteen, and soon after his visit, Serge has a complete mental breakdown when he realizes he is attracted to her. Suffering from amnesia following his meltdown, his uncle Pascal decides the best cure for him is to send him to Le Paradou, where he believes daily contact with nature will restore the young man to his health. Albine and Serge spend their days roaming the vast gardens, fields and orchards of the property and over time fall deeply in love with each other, though of course that state of affairs cannot last.

So far, this fifth book in the series is my least favourite. The theme of religion and of Catholic rites is one that doesn't particularly interest me, and I knew before reading the novel that there would be extensive descriptions of those rites and of Serge's battle with temptation. The romantic meanderings of the two young people in what seems like the Garden of Eden (Zola obviously intended to make that comparison by naming the place Le Paradou, a name so close to Paradis, or Paradise) was probably my favourite part, but there were many sections where the only thing keeping me going was the goal I've set myself of reading the whole series. The ending was predictable to a certain degree, though in all fairness, it was probably considered original in Zola's time. I would definitely NOT recommend to make this your first book by Zola, unless you happen to have a great interest in the themes explored here.
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LibraryThing member kathythereader
One of my favourite all time books about passion and the damage caused by religion. The descriptions of nature are breathtakingly beautiful
LibraryThing member Dreesie
My least favorite of the Rougon-Macquart series so far (including of the later ones I have already read).

Too much romance. Too much religion. Too much of a cliché.

Summary: young priest loves his job and parish, mostly. Gets very sick, bad fever. Is sent to to convalesce and recover nearby, at the
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home/park of an old man and his niece. He recovers, but does not know who he is or of his job. Falls in love with the niece. Recovers his strength and health. Wen he does remember, he goes back to his parish. He misses her, but is over it. Maybe--or maybe he will run away with her. He doesn't. She commits suicide (by flowers????). The end.
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LibraryThing member thorold
Serge Mouret, whom we met as a child in the previous book, is now in his early twenties and an ordained priest in his first parish. Les Artaud is a tiny and impoverished village not far from Plassans, where Serge's refined, highly mystical and visionary religious ecstasy bumps into the solid,
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earthy realities of peasant life. The conflict between his ideals and the raw fecundity of his surroundings prompts a nervous collapse, after which he's transferred almost magically to an untouched, paradisiacal garden (Le Paradou) where Serge's supposedly sensible uncle, Dr Pascal, has given the lovely, semi-savage, teenager Albine the task of nursing him back to health.

If you thought the agricultural and ecclesiastical sound-track was too loud in Part One, you will be absolutely deafened by the botanical and zoological crescendos of Part Two, as our two innocents roam through the garden mystically drawn to One Particular Tree, with inevitable results that work themselves out to a tragic conclusion in the even louder Part Three. This is Tristan und Isolde with the dial turned up to eleven. At least. Even Wagner wasn't bold enough to attempt Death by Sensory Overload, but for Zola it's all in a day's work...

It's surprisingly hard to pin down what's going on here, partly because Zola for once chooses to blur the distinctions between realism, symbolism and the dream-life of his characters, and partly because it's not the simple struggle between nature and religious faith that it at first appears. Serge and Albine both seem to be doomed to destruction because their lives revolve around a romantic belief in some ideal beyond the physical world - Albine in her love for Serge, Serge in his Catholic faith; only the cynical (Frère Archangios and the peasants) and the truly naive (Serge's "simple" sister Désirée) are able to shrug off the tragedy and keep following the cycle of nature. But we also see the terrible way Serge's seminary training helps to push him into hypocrisy whilst Albine follows her convictions to their logical conclusion - for Zola there's definitely a fundamental difference between priests and wood-nymphs, and it's not to the advantage of the priests.

The book does have its realistic interests as well, of course - there are some fascinating and plausible little glimpses into what real parish life must have been like in the backwoods of Provence in the mid-19th century. And lots of animal and plant life if you happen to have a botanical dictionary to hand. But not really one of the most rewarding Zolas - the unrelentingly high emotional pitch makes it a very trying book to read.
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LibraryThing member cindywho
This was a great one for vocabulary in flowers and trees. Serge comes from La Conquête de Plassans to a small village as abbe Mouret where his obsession with the virgin Marie is contrasted to to misogyny of the church. An amnesiac trip to Eden pulls him away - but it didn't seem to me that he was
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the one who fell the furthest.
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LibraryThing member therebelprince
A high three stars; this is a gorgeous tone poem in some ways, and certainly a literary achievement - but not for me one of Zola's most powerful works of social commentary. Unlike the other Rougon-Macquart novels I have thus far read (#1-4, 6 and 7), Sin is the most self-contained, a more direct
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commentary on human nature and less on its relationship to society at a broad level.

Having said that, if you have the patience required for Zola's extended literary symphonies, there's some fantastic writing, even if some of it (the rhapsodies on Mouret's relationship with Christianity especially) feels like it would have been stronger in theory than practice.

Interested to see what themes I can tie from this book to later volumes in the series.
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Language

Original language

French

Original publication date

1875

Physical description

336 p.

ISBN

0198736630 / 9780198736639

Local notes

French title: La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret (1875)
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