Read La Bete Humaine French Edition Emile Zola 9781535058551 Books

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La Bête humaine est un roman d'Émile Zola publié en 1890, dix-septième volume de la série Les Rougon-Macquart. Ce roman est le résultat de la fusion d'un roman sur la Justice et d'un roman sur le monde ferroviaire, ce qui n'était pas dans le dessein initial de l'auteur. L'histoire évoque le monde du chemin de fer et se déroule tout au long de la ligne Paris-Saint-Lazare - Le Havre. Entre les deux gares, décrites avec une grande précision, les héros ne cessent d'osciller, dans un trajet pendulaire, jouets des passions qui les dominent. De grands drames arriveront à mi-chemin du parcours, au croisement des destins, dans un tunnel, et au carrefour (lieu-dit imaginaire à consonance négative) de la Croix de Maufras. On a coutume de dire que cette histoire comporte deux héros d'une part le mécanicien Jacques Lantier et de l'autre sa locomotive, la Lison, que Lantier aime plus qu'une femme. Outre son aspect documentaire, La Bête humaine est un roman noir, sorte de thriller du XIXe siècle qui a choqué les contemporains de Zola. On ne décompte pas moins de deux viols, plusieurs meurtres, au moins deux suicides, et deux catastrophes, dont beaucoup sont inspirés de faits divers réels. On a même soutenu que cette sombre et terrible avalanche, digne du grand Guignol, a nui à Zola dans son éventuelle élection à l'Académie française. C'est aussi un roman sur l'hérédité, comme tout le cycle des Rougon-Macquart, Jacques souffrant d'une folie homicide que Zola rattache à l'alcoolisme des Macquart. Il est en effet le fils de Gervaise Macquart et d'Auguste Lantier (voir L'Assommoir). Il éprouve depuis l'enfance des douleurs qui lui traversent le crâne. Ces douleurs continuent à la puberté, s'accompagnant de pulsions meurtrières auxquelles il n'arrivera jamais à échapper vraiment le désir physique d'une femme s'accompagne chez lui d'un irrésistible besoin de la tuer. Sur le point de posséder sa cousine Flore, il préfère fuir, car il s'apprêtait à la tuer. Plus tard, il parvient néanmoins à devenir l'amant de Séverine Roubaud et se croit guéri. Mais un jour, la bête reprend le dessus sur lui et il finit par massacrer sa maîtresse. Le roman fourmille d'intrigues et de personnages secondaires, entremêlés, se déchirant les uns, les autres. Zola se défend pourtant d'utiliser les recettes des feuilletonistes de son époque auxquels il s'opposait. Dans l'adaptation cinématographique qui en sera faite par Renoir, l'intrigue sera fortement épurée, voire partiellement réécrite. Enfin, La Bête humaine est un roman à charge sur la période de décadence bien caractéristique de la fin du Second Empire, aboutissement voulu du cycle des Rougon-Macquart.

Read La Bete Humaine French Edition Emile Zola 9781535058551 Books

"No matter what time period we are in, this book holds ttruths about mankind in general. It is a very cynical way to see humanity but it is a PART of who we are. Well written, and even better in French. It's a great read that leaves you thinking. Try it out."

Product details Paperback 184 pages Publisher CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (July 4, 2016) Language French ISBN-10 1535058552

Tags : La Bete Humaine (French Edition) [Emile Zola] on . La Bête humaine est un roman d'Émile Zola publié en 1890, dix-septième volume de la série Les Rougon-Macquart. Ce roman est le résultat de la fusion d'un roman sur la Justice et d'un roman sur le monde ferroviaire,Emile Zola,La Bete Humaine (French Edition),CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform,1535058552,FICTION / Classics

La Bete Humaine French Edition Emile Zola 9781535058551 Books Reviews :

La Bete Humaine French Edition Emile Zola 9781535058551 Books Reviews

• Let's get over the slight failings, if failings they be, in this lush, noirish novel. The plot, such as it is, is rickety and the coincidences absolutely Dickensian. The characters, moreover, do not comport with Zola's so-called "Realism," for which he is taken much to task. But thank the devil they don't! Jacques, especially, is driven by atavistic forces beyond his control, reminiscent of Conrad's characters in his better novels. - To my mind, there is nothing more unreal than what is termed "Realism." I could quote an entire page from Proust on why this is so, but I shall be an urbane reviewer and forbear.
  
  This book, as many others have pointed out, owes its dark heart not so much to Darwin as to Poe. In point of fact, I have never read a novel that is so stamped with Poe's influence, from the money and pelf taken from the murdered President hidden under the Roubauds' floorboard until it eats into their hearts - "The Tell-Tale Heart" - to the dark atmospherics that permeate the work. But the work of Poe's to which Zola is most indebted is Poe's essay, "The Imp of The Perverse." In one part of the essay, Poe describes it as that urge (sometimes faint, sometimes profound) that comes on one at the top of a precipice or at the edge of a chasm to let oneself go and plunge into it. And who of us has not stood looking down with our hands glued to a guardrail and not felt this inner tug? This is how Jacques feels when sexually aroused. Is this all so alien and "unreal," or do we simply not like to admit these things to ourselves? The question is, ahem, rhetorical.
  
  This novel, despite its dark content, is so swimmingly delightful to read that one almost forgets the plot and the murders. And, much of this delight, mirabile dictu, is due to the steam locomotive
  
  "The express engine stood motionless, letting off from its safety valve a great jet of steam up into all this blackness, and there it flaked off into little wisps, bedewing with white tears the limitless funereal hangings of the heavens."
  
  I had to stop several times during the novel and re-read passages like the above, so as to savour every word.
  
  Yes, the courts are corrupt, the characters are more than a touch Gothic and murders most foul abound. The odd thing is that not one of these things seems to matter at all in the great scheme of things. Unlike Zola's other novels that I have read, this novel is forward-looking, away from the Nineteenth Century strait jacket of "Realism" towards the deeper novels of Conrad and others, who delve into the inner dream that is life.
  
  I can't recall such a horrific novel that I've both enjoyed and appreciated so much!
• Since my French is "schoolboy", I'm going way out on a limb criticizing a translation, but I have the French original and I have the Oxford Classics version of La Bete Humaine translated by Roger Pearson, and comparing all three, it seems to me that Tannock doesn't do as well as Pearson. I, therefore, recommend Pearson's version to interested readers--and I certainly recommend Bete as one of the more interesting and enjoyable novels in the R-M cycle. It isn't the equal of La Terre, L'Assommoir, La Debacle, or Germinal, but it's a better read than a lot of minor and overpraised Victorian and 19th century Russian novels (at least half of Trollope, say, or the minor works of Dostoevsky).
• This is one of Zola's most violent and disturbing novels, but it possesses a kind of "tragic grandeur," to quote the translator, which makes it story and its characters live on in the mind long after the reader has turned the last page. Part crime thriller and partly a novel of railway life, it tells the story of a group of people who are slaves to their passions and whose ultimate doom is preordained by their backgrounds and temperaments. There are marvellous passages of descriptive writing and if you think that a novel about the railways is bound to be dull you will find yourself happily mistaken. The depiction of Jacques, genetically doomed to be a murderer, is more frightening than any Hannibal Lecter. Some modern readers may have difficulty empathising with Zola's ideological beliefs, but in the end the novel carries all before it. A shattering, truly memorable work of art, very well translated.
• Much more intensely focussed than the more sprawling Zola. Centered around the world of trains...and the murderous impulses of human beings.
• No matter what time period we are in, this book holds ttruths about mankind in general. It is a very cynical way to see humanity but it is a PART of who we are. Well written, and even better in French. It's a great read that leaves you thinking. Try it out.
• I purchased this book for my girlfriend and she really enjoyed reading it. It was price right and arrived at the said time.
• IT'S VERY USEFUL TO COMPARE HOW ONE PHRASE CHANGES IN OTHER LANGUAGE, AND TO LEARN TO WRITE A TEXT WITHOUT LOOSE THE CONTEXT OF THE PHRASE.