La Bete Humaine (Penguin Classics) - Softcover

Zola, �mile

4.04

11,506 ratings by Goodreads

9780140443271: La Bete Humaine (Penguin Classics)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140443274 ISBN 13: 9780140443271

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 1977

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

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.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

From the Back Cover:

Did possessing and killing amount to the same thing deep within the dark recesses of the human beast? 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.

About the Author:

Emile Zola, born in 1840, was the founder of the Naturalist movement in French literature. His novel Th�r�se Raquin caused a scandal on publication and was followed by his brilliant Rougon-Macquart cycle (1871-1893), a series of twenty novels focussed on one family. Zola died in mysterious circumstances in 1902, the victim of an accident or murder.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.