Emile Zola was born at Paris on 2nd April, 1840. His father, Francois
Zola, was a man whose career up to that time had not been a success,
though this was not due to any lack of energy or ability. Zola _pere_
was of mixed nationality, his father being an Italian and his mother a
Greek, and it is not unlikely that his unrest and want of concentration
were due to the accident of his parentage. When quite a young man,
Francois fought under the great Napoleon, after whose fall he became a
civil engineer. He spent some time in Germany, where he was engaged
in the construction of the first tramway line in Europe, afterwards
visiting Holland and possibly England. Failure seems to have accompanied
him, for in 1831 he applied for and obtained an appointment, as
lieutenant in the Foreign Legion in Algeria. His career in Africa was,
however, of short duration; some irregularities were discovered, and he
disappeared for a time, though ultimately he came forward and made
up his accounts, paying the balance that was due. No prosecution took
place, and resignation of his commission was accepted. Nothing more was
heard of the matter till 1898, when his son Emile identified himself
with the cause of Dreyfus, and in the campaign of calumny that followed
had to submit to the vilest charges against the memory of his father.
The old dossier was produced by the French Ministry of War, the
officials of which did not hesitate to strengthen their case by the
forgery of some documents and the suppression of others. In view
of these proved facts, and of the circumstance that Francois Zola,
immediately after his resignation from the Foreign Legion, established
himself as a civil engineer at Marseilles and prepared a scheme for new
maritime docks there, and that in connection with this scheme he
visited Paris repeatedly, obtaining private audiences with the King and
interviewing statesmen, it must be held that the charges against him
were of a venial nature, in no way warranting the accusations brought
forward by the War Office nearly seventy years later to cast discredit
on his son. Nothing came of the Marseilles harbour scheme, and the same
fate attended subsequent plans for the fortification of Paris. Zola
_pere_, who by this time had married, then turned his attention to a
proposal to supply water to the town of Aix, in Provence, by means of
a reservoir and canal. He removed thither with his wife and child, and
after many delays and disappointments ultimately signed an agreement for
the construction of the works. Even then further delays took place, and
it was not till three years later that the work could be commenced. But
the engineer’s ill fortune still attended him, for one morning while he
was superintending his workmen the treacherous mistral began to blow,
and he took a chill, from the effects of which he died a few days
afterwards.
The young widow, with her son Emile, then a child of seven, was left
in poor circumstances, her only fortune being a claim against the
municipality of Aix. Fortunately her parents had some means, and came to
her assistance during the years of fruitless struggle to establish the
rights of her dead husband. Emile had up to this time been allowed
to run wild, and he had spent most of his time out of doors, where he
acquired a love of the country which he retained in later years. Even
when he was sent to school he was backward, only learning his letters
with difficulty and showing little inclination for study. It was not
till 1852, when he was twelve years sold, that his education really
began. By this time he was able to realize his mother’s financial
position, and to see the sacrifices which were being made to send him
as a boarder to the _lycee_ at Aix. His progress then became rapid, and
during the next five years he gained many prizes. Throughout all these
years the struggle between Madame Zola and the municipality had gone
on, each year diminishing her chance of success. In the end her position
became desperate, and finding it impossible to continue to reside at
Aix, the little family removed to Paris in 1858. Fortunately Emile was
enabled by the intervention of certain friends of his late father to
continue his studies, and became a day pupil at the Lycee St. Louis,
on the Boulevard St. Michael. For some reason he made little progress
there, and when he presented himself for his _baccalaureat_ degree he
failed to pass the examination. A later attempt at the University of
Marseilles had the same result. As this examination is in France the
passport to all the learned professions, Zola’s failure to pass it
placed him in a serious position. His mother’s resources were by this
time entirely exhausted, and some means of support had to be sought
without delay. After many attempts, he got a place as clerk in a
business house at a salary of twenty-six pounds a year, but the work
proved so distasteful that after two months of drudgery he threw it
up. Then followed a period of deep misery, but a period which must
have greatly influenced the work of the future novelist. Wandering the
streets by day and, when he could find money to buy a candle, writing
poems and short stories by night, he was gaining that experience in the
school of life of which he was later to make such splendid use. Meantime
his wretchedness was deep. A miserable lodging in a garret, insufficient
food, inadequate clothing, and complete absence of fire may be an
incentive to high endeavour, but do not render easy the pathway of
fame. The position had become all but untenable when Zola received
an appointment in the publishing house of M. Hachette, of Paris, at
a salary beginning at a pound a week, but soon afterwards increased.
During the next two years he wrote a number of short stories which were
published later under the title _Contes a Ninon_. The book did not prove
a great success, though its undoubted ability attracted attention to the
writer and opened the way to some journalistic work. About this time he
appears to have been studying Balzac, and the recently published _Madame
Bovary_ of Flaubert, which was opening up a new world not only in French
fiction, but in the literature of Europe. He had also read the _Germinie
Lacerteux_ of Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, on which he wrote an
appreciative article, and this remarkable book cannot have been without
its influence on his work. The effect was indeed immediate, for in
1865 he published his next book, _La Confession de Claud_, which showed
strong traces of that departure from conventional fiction which he
was afterwards to make more pronounced. The book was not a financial
success, though it attracted attention, and produced many reviews,
some favourable, others merciless. Influenced by the latter, the
Public Prosecutor caused inquiries regarding the author to be made at
Hachette’s, but nothing more was done, and it is indeed doubtful if any
successful prosecution could have been raised, even at a period when it
was thought necessary to indict the author of _Madame Bovary_.
Zola’s employers had, however, begun to look askance at his literary
work; they may have considered that it was occupying too much of the
time for which they paid, or, more probably, they were becoming alarmed
at their clerk’s advanced views both on politics and literary art. As
Zola afterwards explained the matter, one of the partners said to him,
“You are earning two hundred francs a month here, which is ridiculous.
You have plenty of talent, and would do better to take up literature
altogether. You would find glory and profit there.” The hint was a
direct one, and it was taken. The young author was again thrown upon
his own resources, but was no longer entirely unknown, for the not
unfavourable reception of his first book and the violent attacks on
his second had given him a certain position, even though it may to some
extent have partaken of the nature of a _succes de scandale_. As
he wrote at the time, he did not mean to pander to the likes or the
dislikes of the crowd; he intended to force the public to caress or
insult him.
Journalism was the avenue which now appeared most open, and Zola got an
appointment on the staff of a newspaper called _L’Evenement_, in which
he wrote articles on literary and artistic subjects. His views were
not tempered by moderation, and when he depreciated the members of the
_Salon_ in order to exalt Manet, afterwards an artist of distinction,
but then regarded as a dangerous revolutionary, the public outcry was
such that he was forced to discontinue publication of the articles.
He then began a second story called _Le Vaeu d’une Morte_ in the same
newspaper. It was intended to please the readers of _L’Evenement_, but
from the first failed to do so, and its publication was stopped before
it was half completed. Soon afterwards _L’Evenement_ was incorporated
with the _Figaro_, and Zola’s connection with it terminated. A time of
hardship again began, and during the year 1867 the wolf was only kept
from the door by unremitting toil of the least agreeable kind. In the
midst of his difficulties Zola wrote two books simultaneously, one
supremely good and the other unquestionably bad. The one was _Therese
Raquin_, and the other _Les Mysteres de Marseille_. The latter, which
was pure hack-work, was written to the order of the publisher of a
Marseillaise newspaper, who supplied historical material from researches
made by himself at the Marseilles and Aix law courts, about the various
_causes celebres_ which during the previous fifty years had attracted
the most public attention. These were to be strung together, and by an
effort of legerdemain combined into a coherent whole in the form of a
novel. Zola, desiring bread, undertook the task, with results that might
have been anticipated.
_Therese Raquin_ is a work of another kind, for into it Zola put the
best that was in him, and elaborated the story with the greatest care.
It is a tale of Divine Justice, wherein a husband is murdered by his
wife and her lover, who, though safe from earthly consequence, are yet
separated by the horror of their deed, and come to hate each other for
the thing they have done. The book is one of remarkable power, and it is
interesting to note that in the preface to it Zola first made use of
the word _naturalisme_ as describing that form of fiction which he
was afterwards to uphold in and out of season. A violent attack in the
_Figaro_ gave opportunity for a vigorous reply, and the advertisement
so obtained assisted the sales of the book, which from the first was a
success. It was followed by _Madeleine Ferat_, which, however, was less
fortunate. The subject is unpleasant, and its treatment lacks the force
which made _Therese Raquin_ convincing.
Up to this time Zola’s life had been a steady struggle against poverty.
He was terribly in earnest, and was determined to create for himself
a place in literature; to accomplish this end he counted no labour
too arduous, no sacrifice too great. His habits were Spartan in their
simplicity; he was a slave to work and method, good equipment for the
vast task he was next to undertake. He had long been an earnest student
of Balzac, and there is no doubt that it was the example of the great
_Comedie Humaine_ which inspired his scheme for a series of novels
dealing with the life history of a family during a particular period;
as he described it himself, “the history natural and social of a family
under the Second Empire.” It is possible that he was also influenced
by the financial success of the series of historical novels written by
Erckmann-Chatrian, known as the _Romans Nationaux_. It was not, however,
the past about which he proposed to write; no period was more suitable
for his purpose than that in which he lived, that Second Empire whose
regime began in blood and continued in corruption. He had there,
under his own eyes and within his personal knowledge, a suitable
_mise-en-scene_ wherein to further develop those theories of hereditary
influence which had already attracted his attention while he was writing
_Madeleine Ferat_. The scheme was further attractive in as much as it
lent itself readily to the system of treatment to which he had applied
the term _naturalisme_, to distinguish it from the crudities of the
realistic school. The scientific tendency of the period was to rely not
on previously accepted propositions, but on observation and experience,
or on facts and documents. To Zola the voice of science conveyed the
word of ultimate truth, and with desperate earnestness he set out to
apply its methods to literary production. His position was that the
novelist is, like the scientist, an observer and an experimentalist
combined. The observer, he says, gives the facts as he has observed
them, fixes the starting-point, lays the solid ground on which
his characters are to walk and his phenomena to develop. Then the
experimentalist appears and starts the experiment, that is to say, he
makes the personages in a particular story move, in order to show that
the succession of events will be just what the determinism of phenomena
together with study demand that they should be. The author must abstain
from comment, never show his own personality, and never turn to the
reader for sympathy; he must, as Mr. Andrew Lang has observed, be as
cold as a vivisectionist at a lecture. Zola thought the application
of this method would raise the position of the novel to the level of
a science, and that it would become a medium for the expression of
established truths. The fallacy of the argument has been exposed by
more than one critic. It is self-evident that the “experiments” by the
novelist cannot be made on subjects apart from himself, but are made by
him and in him; so that they prove more regarding his own temperament
than about what he professes to regard as the inevitable actions of
his characters. The conclusion drawn by a writer from such actions must
always be open to the retort that he invented the whole himself and
that fiction is only fiction. But to Zola in the late sixties the theory
seemed unassailable and it was upon it that he founded the whole edifice
of _Les Rougon-Macquart_. The considerations then that influenced Zola
in beginning a series of novels connected by subject into one gigantic
whole were somewhat various. There was the example of Balzac’s great
_Comedie Humaine_; there was the desire of working out the theories of
heredity in which he had become interested; there was the opportunity of
putting into operation the system which he had termed _naturalisme_;
and there was also the consideration that if he could get a publisher to
agree to his proposals he would secure a certain income for a number of
years. His original scheme was a series of twelve novels to be written
at the rate of two a year, and he entered into a contract with a
publisher named Lacroix, who was to pay him five hundred francs a month
as an advance. M. Lacroix would, however, only bind himself to publish
four out of the twelve novels. The arrangement could not be carried out,
and at the end of three years only two volumes of the Rougon-Macquart
series had been published, while Zola found that he had become indebted
to the publisher for a very considerable sum.
The first novel of the series was begun in 1869, but was not published
till the winter of 1871, delay having occurred on account of the war
with Germany. Zola was never a rapid writer, and seems to have regulated
his literary production with machinelike uniformity. As his friend and
biographer Paul Alexis writes: “Only four pages, but four pages every
day, every day without exception, the action of the drop of water always
falling on the same place, and in the end wearing out the hardest
stone. It seems nothing, but in course of time chapters follow chapters,
volumes follow upon volumes, and a whole life’s work sprouts, multiplies
its branches, extends its foliage like a lofty oak, destined to
rise high into the air and to remain standing in the forest of human
productions.”
His literary creed at the time he began the Rougon-Macquart series may
be conveniently summed up in a few words from an article which he had
only a month before written in the _Gaulois_: “If I kept a school of
morals,” he says, “I would hasten to place in the hands of my pupils
_Madame Bovary_ or _Germinie Lacerteux_, persuaded that truth alone can
instruct and fortify generous souls.”
In _La Fortune des Rougon_, then, Zola set out to plant the roots of
the great family tree which was to occupy his attention during the next
twenty years of his life. His object was to describe the origin of
the family which he had selected for dissection in his series, and to
outline the various principal characters, members of that family. Mr.
Andrew Lang, writing on this subject in the _Fortnightly Review_, points
out that certain Arab tribes trace their descent from a female Dog, and
suggests that the Rougon-Macquart family might have claimed the same
ancestry. Adelaide Fouque came of a race of peasants who had long lived
at Plassans, a name invented by Zola to conceal the identity of Aix,
the town in Provence where his youth had been spent. She was highly
neurotic, with a tendency to epilepsy, but from the point of view of the
naturalistic novelist she offered many advantages. When a mere girl she
married a man named Rougon, who died soon afterwards, leaving her with
a son named Pierre, from whom descended the legitimate branch of the
family. Then followed a liaison with a drunken smuggler named Macquart,
as a result of which two children were born, the Macquarts. Adelaide’s
original neurosis had by this time become more pronounced, and she
ultimately became insane. Pierre married and had five children, but his
financial affairs had not prospered, though by underhand methods he had
contrived to get possession of his mother’s property, to the exclusion
of her other children. Then came the _Coup d’Etat_ of 1851, and
Pierre, quick to seize his opportunity, rendered such services to the
Bonapartist party as to lay the foundation of the family fortune, a
foundation which was, however, cemented with treachery and blood. It was
with these two families, then, both descended from a common ancestress,
and sometimes subsequently united by intermarriage, that the whole
series of novels was to deal. They do not form an edifying group,
these Rougon-Macquarts, but Zola, who had based his whole theory of the
experimental novel upon the analogy of medical research, was not on the
outlook for healthy subjects; he wanted social sores to probe. This is
a fact much too often overlooked by readers of detached parts of the
series, for it should always be kept in mind that the whole was written
with the express purpose of laying bare all the social evils of one of
the most corrupt periods in recent history, in the belief that through
publicity might come regeneration. Zola was all along a reformer as
well as a novelist, and his zeal was shown in many a bitter newspaper
controversy. It has been urged against him that there were plenty of
virtuous people about whom he could have written, but these critics
appear to forget that he was in a sense a propagandist, and that it was
not his _metier_ to convert persons already in the odour of sanctity.
_La Fortune des Rougon_ was not particularly successful on its
publication, but in view of the fact that the war with Germany was
barely concluded no surprise need be experienced. Zola’s financial
position was, however, by the arrangement with his publisher now more
secure, and he felt justified in marrying. This he did, and settled down
into the quiet bourgeois existence in which his life was spent.
The next book was _La Curee_, a study of the mushroom society of the
Second Empire. The subject--the story of Phaedra adapted to modern
environment--is unpleasant and the treatment is daring; but despite a
slight _succes de scandale_, its reception by the public was no more
favorable than that of _La Fortune des Rougon_.
_La Curee_ was followed by _Le Ventre de Paris_, which reached a second
edition. It contained some excellent descriptive writing, but was
severely attacked by certain critics, who denounced it as the apotheosis
of gluttony, while they resented the transference of a pork butcher’s
shop to literature and took particular exceptions to a certain “symphony
of cheeses.”
Next came _La Conquete de Plassans_, an excellent story, to be followed
by _La Faute de l’Abbe Mouret_, one of Zola’s most romantic books,
and the first to attain any considerable success. He next wrote _Son
Excellence Eugene Rougon_, in which he dealt with the political side
of the Second Empire and sketched the life of the Imperial Court at
Compiegne. For this task he was not particularly well equipped, and the
book was only moderately successful. Then came _L’Assommoir_, and
with it fame and fortune for the writer. It is a terrible story of
working-class life in Paris, a study of the ravages wrought by drink.
Again to quote Mr. Andrew Lang, “It is a dreadful but not an immoral
book. It is the most powerful temperance tract that ever was written. As
M. Zola saw much of the life of the poor in his early years, as he once
lived, when a boy, in one of the huge lodging-houses he describes, one
may fear that _L’Assommoir_ is a not untruthful picture of the lives of
many men and women in Paris.”
In order to heighten the effect, Zola deliberately wrote the whole
of _L’Assommoir_ in the argot of the streets, sparing nothing of its
coarseness and nothing of its force. For this alone he was attacked by
many critics, and from its publication onwards an unexampled controversy
arose regarding the author and his methods. Looking backwards it is
difficult to see why such an outcry should have arisen about such a
masterpiece of literature, but water has flowed beneath many bridges
since 1877, and, largely by the influence of Zola’s own work, the limits
of convention have been widely extended. At the time, however, the
work was savagely attacked, and to the author the basest motives
were assigned, while libels on his own personal character were freely
circulated. Zola replied to these attacks in a manner so calm and so
convincing that quotation may be permitted. “It would be well,” he said,
“to read my novels, to understand them, to see them clearly in their
entirety, before bringing forward the ready-made opinions, ridiculous
and odious, which are circulated concerning myself and my works. Ah!
if people only knew how my friends laugh at the appalling legend which
amuses the crowd! If they only knew how the blood-thirsty wretch, the
formidable novelist, is simply a respectable bourgeois, a man devoted to
study and to art, living quietly in his corner, whose sole ambition is
to leave as large and living a work as he can. I contradict no reports,
I work on, and I rely on time, and on the good faith of the public, to
discover me at last under the accumulation of nonsense that has been
heaped upon me.” This statement is absolutely in accordance with fact,
and when it is realized that the writer of the Rougon-Macquart novels
was merely a hard-working, earnest man, filled with a determination to
complete the vast task which he had planned, and not to be turned
from his ideas by praise or blame, it will go far to promote a better
understanding of his aims and methods. It is necessary too, as has
already been said, that the various novels forming the Rougon-Macquart
series be considered not as separate entities, but as chapters of one
vast whole.
_L’Assommoir_ was an immediate success with the public, and the sales
were unusually large for the time, while now (1912) they amount to one
hundred and sixty-two thousand copies in the original French alone.
In 1878 Zola published _Une Page d’Amour_, the next volume of the
series, a simple love story containing some very beautiful and romantic
descriptions of Paris. Then followed _Nana_, to which _L’Assommoir_ was
the prelude. _Nana_ dealt with the vast demimonde of Paris, and while it
was his greatest popular success, was in every sense his worst book. Of
no subject on which he wrote was Zola more ignorant than of this, and
the result is a laboured collection of scandals acquired at second-hand.
Mr. Arthur Symons, in his _Studies in Prose and Verse_, recounts how an
English paper once reported an interview in which the author of _Nana_,
indiscreetly questioned as to the amount of personal observation he had
put into the book, replied that he had once lunched with an actress
of the Varietes. “The reply was generally taken for a joke,” says
Mr. Symons, “but the lunch was a reality, and it was assuredly a rare
experience in the life of a solitary diligence to which we owe so
many impersonal studies in life.” The sales of the book were, however,
enormous, and Zola’s financial position was now assured.
Publication of the Rougon-Macquart series went steadily on.
_Pot-Bouille_ a story of middle-class life, was followed by its sequel
_Au Bonheur des Dames_, a study of life in one of the great emporiums
which were beginning to crush out the small shopkeepers of Paris. _La
Joie de Vivre_, that drab story of hypochondria and self-sacrifice, was
succeeded by _Germinal_, the greatest, if not the only really great,
novel of labour that has ever been written in any language. After
_Germinal_ came _L’Oeuvre_, which deals with art life in Paris, and is
in part an autobiography of the author. We now come to _La Terre_
around which the greatest controversy has raged. In parts the book is
Shakespearian in its strength and insight, but it has to be admitted at
once that the artistic quality of the work has been destroyed in large
measure by the gratuitous coarseness which the author has thought
necessary to put into it. Even allowing for the fact that the subject is
the brutishness and animality of French peasant life, and admitting that
the picture drawn may be a true one, the effect had been lessened by the
fact that nothing has been left to the imagination. On the other hand
there has, since Shakespeare, been nothing so fine as the treatment of
Pere Fouan, that peasant King Lear, by his ungrateful family. It has
been urged that Zola overdid the horrors of the situation and that no
parent would have been so treated by his children. By a singular chance
a complete answer to this objection may be found in a paragraph which
appeared in the _Daily Mail_ of 18th April, 1911. A few days before, a
peasant woman in France had entered her father’s bedroom and struck him
nine times on the head with an axe, afterwards going home to bed. The
reason for the crime was that the old man two years previously had
divided his property between his two daughters on condition that they
paid him a monthly allowance. His elder daughter was always in arrear
with her share of the pension, and, after constant altercations between
father and daughter, the latter extinguished her liability in the manner
indicated. Now this tragedy in real life is the actual plot of _La
Terre_, which was written twenty-four years before it occurred.
In accordance with the author’s usual plan, whereby a heavy book was
followed by a light one, _La Terre_ was succeeded by _Le Reve_, a work
at the other extreme of the literary gamut. As _La Terre_ is of the
earth, earthy, so is _Le Reve_ spiritual and idyllic, the work of a man
enamoured of the refined and the beautiful. It has indeed been described
as the most beautiful work written in France during the whole of the
nineteenth century.
_La Bete Humaine_, the next of the series, is a work of a different
class, and is to the English reader the most fascinating of all Zola’s
novels. It deals with human passions in their elemental forms, with a
background of constant interest in the railway life of Western France.
The motives are always obvious and strong, a criticism which can by no
means be invariably applied to French fiction.
Next appeared _L’Argent_, which is the sequel to _La Curee_ and deals
with financial scandals. It was inspired by the failure of the Union
Generale Bank a few years before, and is a powerful indictment of the
law affecting joint-stock companies. To _L’Argent_ there succeeded _La
Debacle_, that prose epic of modern war, more complete and coherent
than even the best of Tolstoi. And to end all came _Le Docteur Pascal_,
winding up the series on a note of pure romance.
Regarded as a literary tour de force the work is only comparable to
the _Comedie Humaine_. It occupied nearly twenty-five years in writing,
consists of twenty volumes containing over twelve hundred characters,
and a number of words estimated by Mr. E. A. Vizetelly at two million
five hundred thousand.
There can be little doubt that Zola’s best work was expended on the
Rougon-Macquart series. With its conclusion his zeal as a reformer began
to outrun his judgment as an artist, and his later books partake more of
the nature of active propaganda than of works of fiction. They comprise
two series: _Les Trois Villes_ (Lourdes, Paris, Rome) and _Les Quatre
Evangiles_, of which only three (Fecondite, Travail, and Verite) were
written before the author’s death. Politics had begun to occupy his
attention, and from 1896 onwards he increasingly interested himself in
the Jewish question which culminated in the Dreyfus case. His sense of
justice, always keen, was outraged by the action of the authorities and
on 13th January, 1898, he published his famous letter, beginning with
the words _J’accuse_, a letter which altered the whole course of events
in France. It is difficult now to realize the effect of Zola’s action
in this matter; he was attacked with a virulence almost unexampled, a
virulence which followed him beyond the grave. Four years later, on the
day after his death, the Paris correspondent of _The Times_ wrote: “It
is evident the passions of two or three years ago are still alive. Many
persons expressed their joy with such boisterous gestures as men indulge
in on learning of a victory, and some exclaimed savagely, ‘It is none
too soon.’ The unseemliness of this extraordinary spectacle evoked no
retort from the passers-by.” The feeling of resentment is still alive in
France, and it is necessary to take it into account in the consideration
of any estimates of his literary work by his own countrymen. It is a
mistake to attribute Zola’s campaign for the rehabilitation of Dreyfus
to mere lust of fame, as has been freely done. He certainly was
ambitious, but had he wished to gain the plaudits of the crowd he
would not have adopted a cause which was opposed by the majority of the
nation. As a result of the agitation, he was obliged to leave France
and take refuge in England, till such time as a change of circumstances
enabled him to return.
On 29th September, 1902, the world was startled to learn that Emile Zola
had been found dead in his bedroom, suffocated by the fumes of a
stove, and that his wife had narrowly escaped dying with him. A life of
incessant literary labour had been quenched.
The reputation of Zola has suffered, it is to be feared, in no small
degree from the indiscretions of his friends. In England he was
introduced to the notice of the reading public by Mr. Henry Vizetelly,
who between 1884 and 1889 published a number of translations of his
novels. The last of these was _The Soil_, a translation of _La Terre_,
which aroused such an outcry that a prosecution followed, and Mr.
Vizetelly was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment. Without raising
any question as to the propriety of this prosecution, it is difficult to
avoid pointing out that Mr. Vizetelly was singularly ill advised not to
have taken into account the essential differences between English
and French literature, and not have seen that the publication of this
particular book in its entirety was an impossibility under existing
conditions. It is regrettable also that Mr. Vizetelly, who though a
gentleman of the highest character, was no doubt anxious to make the
most possible out of his venture, did not duly appreciate that the
word “Realistic,” which was blazoned on the covers of the various books
issued by him, was in the early eighties invariably interpreted
as meaning pornographic. Presumably nothing was further from Mr.
Vizetelly’s wish--his defence at the trial was that the books were
literature of the highest kind--but it is unquestionable that the format
was such as to give the impression indicated, an impression deepened by
the extremely Gallic freedom of the illustrations. There can be little
doubt that had the works been issued in an unobtrusive form, without
illustrations, they would have attracted less attention of the
undesirable kind which they afterwards received. The use of the term
“Realistic” was the more remarkable as Zola had previously invented the
word _Naturalisme_ to distinguish his work from that of the Realistic
school. But if Zola’s reputation in England suffered in this way, it
is right to refer here to the debt of gratitude to Mr. E. A. Vizetelly
under which the English public now lies. Some time after the prosecution
of his father, Mr. Vizetelly began to publish, through Messrs. Chatto
& Windus, a series of versions of Zola’s works. The translations
were admirably done, and while it was found necessary to make certain
omissions, the task was so skilfully accomplished that in many cases
actual improvement has resulted. These versions are at present the chief
translations of Zola’s works in circulation in this country; but while
their number has been added to from time to time, it has not been found
possible to include the whole of the Rougon-Macquart series. In 1894-5,
however, the Lutetian Society issued to its members a literal and
unabridged translation of six of the novels, made by writers of such
eminence as Havelock Ellis, Arthur Symons, and Ernest Dowson. These
are the only translations of these works which are of any value to the
student, but they are unfortunately almost unobtainable, as the entire
edition was restricted to three hundred copies on hand-made paper and
ten on Japanese vellum.
A charge not unfrequently brought against Zola is that he was a somewhat
ignorant person, who required to get up from textbooks every subject
upon which he wrote. Now there seems to be little doubt that it was in
the first instance due to the indiscretion of his biographer, M. Paul
Alexis, that this charge has arisen. Impressed by the vast industry of
his friend, M. Alexis said so much about “research” and “documents”
that less friendly critics seized the opportunity of exaggerating the
importance of these. Every novelist of any consequence has found it
necessary to “cram” his subjects, but says little about the fact. James
Payn, for instance, could not have written his admirable descriptions of
China in _By Proxy_ without much reading of many books, and Mr.
Rudyard Kipling has not been blamed for studying the technicalities of
engineering before he wrote _The Ship that found Herself_. It is open to
question even whether Mr. Robert Hichens acquired his intimate knowledge
of the conditions of life in Southern Europe and Northern Africa
entirely without the assistance of Herr Baedeker. Zola undoubtedly
studied his subjects, but far too much has been made of the necessity
for his doing so. His equipment for the task he undertook was not less
complete than that of many another novelist, and, like Dickens, he
studied life in that school of a “stony-hearted stepmother,” the streets
of a great city.
Zola’s literary method may be described as a piling up of detail upon
detail till there is attained an effect portentous, overwhelming. He
lacked, however, a sense of proportion; he became so carried away by
his visions of human depravity, that his characters developed powers of
wickedness beyond mortal strength; he lay under an obsession regarding
the iniquities of mankind. In dealing with this it was unfortunately
his method to leave nothing to the imagination, and herein lies the most
serious blemish on his work. There is undoubtedly much coarseness in
some of his books, and the regrettable feature is that it is not only
unnecessary, but in some cases actually lessens the effect at which he
aimed. It is doubtful whether he was possessed of any sense of humour.
Mr. Andrew Lang says that his lack of it was absolute, a darkness that
can be felt; Mr. R. H. Sherrard, on the other hand, indicates that his
work “teems with quiet fun.” On the whole, truth seems to lie with Mr.
Lang. M. and Madame Charles Badeuil, in _La Terre_ may seem Dickensian
to an English reader, but there is always the Gallic point of view to be
reckoned with, and it is doubtful if Zola did not regard these persons
merely as types of a virtuous bourgeoisie.
It was in the treatment of crowds in motion that Zola chiefly excelled;
there is nothing finer in literature than the march of the strikers in
_Germinal_ or the charges of the troops in _La Debacle_. Contrast him
with such a master of prose as George Meredith, and we see how immensely
strong the battle scenes in _La Debacle_ are when compared with those
in _Vittoria_; it is here that his method of piling detail on detail and
horror on horror is most effectual. “To make his characters swarm,” said
Mr. Henry James in a critical article in the _Atlantic Monthly_ (August,
1903), “was the task he set himself very nearly from the first, that was
the secret he triumphantly mastered.”
“Naturalism” as a school had a comparatively brief existence--Zola
himself departed largely from its principles after the conclusion of the
Rougon-Macquart series--but its effects have been far-reaching on
the literature of many countries. In England the limits of literary
convention have been extended, and pathways have been opened up along
which later writers have not hesitated to travel, even while denying the
influence of the craftsman who had cleared the way. It is safe to say
that had _L’Assommoir_ never been written there would have been no _Jude
the Obscure_, and the same remark applies to much of the best modern
fiction. In America, Frank Norris, an able writer who unfortunately died
before the full fruition of his genius had obviously accepted Zola
as his master, and the same influence is also apparent in the work of
George Douglas, a brilliant young Scotsman whose premature death left
only one book, _The House with the Green Shutters_, as an indication
of what might have sprung from the methods of modified naturalism.
M. Edouard Rod, an able critic, writing in the _Contemporary Review_
(1902), pointed out that the influence of Zola has transformed novel
writing in Italy, and that its effect in Germany has been not less
pronounced. The virtue of this influence on German letters was
undoubtedly great. It made an end of sentimentality, it shook literature
out of the sleepy rut into which it had fallen and forced it to face
universal problems.
One must regret for his own sake that Zola was unable to avoid offending
those prejudices which were so powerful in his time. The novelist who
adopts the method of the surgeon finds it necessary to expose many
painful sores, and is open to the taunt that he finds pleasure in the
task. On no one did this personal obloquy fall more hardly than on
Zola, and never with less reason. It may be that he accumulated unseemly
details and risky situations too readily; but he was an earnest man with
a definite aim in view, and had formulated for himself a system which
he allowed to work itself out with relentless fatality. The unredeemed
baseness and profligacy of the period with which he had to deal must
also be borne in mind. As to his personal character, it has been fitly
described by M. Anatole France, himself a distinguished novelist.
Zola, said he, “had the candour and sincerity of great souls. He was
profoundly moral. He has depicted vice with a rough and vigorous hand.
His apparent pessimism ill conceals a real optimism, a persistent faith
in the progress of intelligence and justice. In his romances, which
are social studies, he attacks with vigorous hatred an idle, frivolous
society, a base and noxious aristocracy. He combated social evil
wherever he encountered it. His work is comparable only in greatness
with that of Tolstoi. At the two extremities of European thought the
lyre has raised two vast cities. Both are generous and pacific; but
whereas Tolstoi’s is the city of resignation, Zola’s is the city of
work.”
It is still too soon to form an opinion as to the permanent value
of Zola’s writings, for posterity has set aside many well-considered
judgments; but their influence has been, and will continue to be, far
reaching. They have opened up new avenues in literature, and have made
possible to others much that was formerly unattainable.