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3.63 AVERAGE
3.63 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Well that was a shocking read. Very dark and gothic. I didn't like any of the charecters but Laurent was an absolute sleeze! The writing was amazing. It is very depraved. Reminded me a bit of crime and punishment by Dostoyevsky though Raskolnikov did have some redeeming traits not so with Laurent and Therese!
I didn't think it was anywhere near as good as The Dram Shop (L'Assomoir) but it was still brilliantly absorbing.
Wasn’t expecting this kind of horror.
Therese Raquin is truly a classic masterpiece dealing with themes of human nature, carnal desires and murder. Therese lives her boring, mundane life, inside a decrepit and musty shop, in the passage of Pont-Nuef in Paris. She lives an uneventful life, caught in the ordinary passing of days; she shows no emotions, she knows no happiness. Her only purpose is to care for Camille, her hypochondriac husband (and cousin) and help her mother-in-law with household chores. But everything changes when Camille comes home one evening with an old friend, Laurent.
A torrid affair starts between Therese and Laurent and they soon find themselves inside uncharted territories of the human emotional spectrum. They soon start to crave one another, but the continuous presence of Therese’s husband prevents them from freely expressing their love. So, after a short brainstorming session, they come up with the solution – killing Camille would give them the much desired freedom to live their life together.
After they go on with their plan, drowning Camille in the Seine, the novel gets incredibly dark and foreboding, changing tracks towards a more gothic approach of grief and remorse. The murdered husband comes back to haunt his murderers – a swollen, black corpse, dripping with water follows them everywhere, reminding them about their darkest side.
I would’ve given this book five stars – it has an engaging plot, beautifully constructed characters, incredible execution and choice of words. The only thing that makes me lower to four stars is the way it kind of dragged in the second half. At some point, it felt a little bit too repetitive.
Therese Raquin is truly a classic masterpiece dealing with themes of human nature, carnal desires and murder. Therese lives her boring, mundane life, inside a decrepit and musty shop, in the passage of Pont-Nuef in Paris. She lives an uneventful life, caught in the ordinary passing of days; she shows no emotions, she knows no happiness. Her only purpose is to care for Camille, her hypochondriac husband (and cousin) and help her mother-in-law with household chores. But everything changes when Camille comes home one evening with an old friend, Laurent.
A torrid affair starts between Therese and Laurent and they soon find themselves inside uncharted territories of the human emotional spectrum. They soon start to crave one another, but the continuous presence of Therese’s husband prevents them from freely expressing their love. So, after a short brainstorming session, they come up with the solution – killing Camille would give them the much desired freedom to live their life together.
After they go on with their plan, drowning Camille in the Seine, the novel gets incredibly dark and foreboding, changing tracks towards a more gothic approach of grief and remorse. The murdered husband comes back to haunt his murderers – a swollen, black corpse, dripping with water follows them everywhere, reminding them about their darkest side.
I would’ve given this book five stars – it has an engaging plot, beautifully constructed characters, incredible execution and choice of words. The only thing that makes me lower to four stars is the way it kind of dragged in the second half. At some point, it felt a little bit too repetitive.
Grade: 4.5 I am not sure what I expected when I started this book, but it certainly wasn't a 19th Century Ruth Rendell novel. Zola has written a fascinating study of human nature as the characters must cope with the consequences of their decision to commit murder. The effects of the murder on Therese and Laurent is as horrifying as any of Poe's writings. I even had a nightmare one night because I read some of the book before I went to sleep. I am impressed with Zola's ability to effectively penetrate my subconscious mind. The book was overwrought at times; still a very worthwhile use of my reading time.
Kate Winslet does a fabulous job narrating the audio book. I will definitely read more Zola because my lasting impression of the book was its timelessness. The Ladies' Paradise is my next Zola.
Kate Winslet does a fabulous job narrating the audio book. I will definitely read more Zola because my lasting impression of the book was its timelessness. The Ladies' Paradise is my next Zola.
2.5 or 3, I am not really sure about my score
I read this as a school assignment, but I would never have finished it if I didn't. This is because I can honestly say that the first and last 50 pages or so were the only I found interesting, accept for the few pages that was about the marriage. Every other minute spent reading was pretty much a process of waiting for the unhappy end.
Emile Zola, you could say, is the father of naturalism, a literary movement focusing on the raw and extremely extensive details of the lives of ''ordinary'' humans, presenting them as objects as if in a scientific analysis and with a deterministic view on humans and life. Naturalism is a reaction to realism, which is similar in some ways, but much less radical than naturalism. I can also see that it is a post-Scientific Revolution school of thought.
I myself is a very secular person and strongly believe in human reason and what we as humans can try to objectively observe in the universe. I therefore see why you would want to present humans as products only of their instincts for finding pleasure and for avoidance of pain, because that is what we merely are and there is no point to being ignorant about it. This I can actually appreciate about the book.
I do not on the other hand, like the dark undertone when examining the nature of these instincts, because that means that you clearly have an opinion about it and that nature and the products of evolution can be of moral victim. To say that you believe in science and what is actually is real, while on the other hand claiming something else than that ethics is a human concoction only, is in my opinion naive. This is why I can't agree with Zola about naturalism being real and I do not for the same reason agree with determinism, because to say that humans have a fait means that you will have to implement some sort of morality in defining what that fait is.
I did not find the exaggeration in details necessary as I think it made the book less interesting when nothing really happens. I prefer books with more action and a more selectiveness about what is most important and most interesting.
Finally, despite me being all negative towards this book, I am glad that I was forced to read it because it gave me new insights on other literary works aside from my usual young adults and fantasies.
I read this as a school assignment, but I would never have finished it if I didn't. This is because I can honestly say that the first and last 50 pages or so were the only I found interesting, accept for the few pages that was about the marriage. Every other minute spent reading was pretty much a process of waiting for the unhappy end.
Emile Zola, you could say, is the father of naturalism, a literary movement focusing on the raw and extremely extensive details of the lives of ''ordinary'' humans, presenting them as objects as if in a scientific analysis and with a deterministic view on humans and life. Naturalism is a reaction to realism, which is similar in some ways, but much less radical than naturalism. I can also see that it is a post-Scientific Revolution school of thought.
I myself is a very secular person and strongly believe in human reason and what we as humans can try to objectively observe in the universe. I therefore see why you would want to present humans as products only of their instincts for finding pleasure and for avoidance of pain, because that is what we merely are and there is no point to being ignorant about it. This I can actually appreciate about the book.
I do not on the other hand, like the dark undertone when examining the nature of these instincts, because that means that you clearly have an opinion about it and that nature and the products of evolution can be of moral victim. To say that you believe in science and what is actually is real, while on the other hand claiming something else than that ethics is a human concoction only, is in my opinion naive. This is why I can't agree with Zola about naturalism being real and I do not for the same reason agree with determinism, because to say that humans have a fait means that you will have to implement some sort of morality in defining what that fait is.
I did not find the exaggeration in details necessary as I think it made the book less interesting when nothing really happens. I prefer books with more action and a more selectiveness about what is most important and most interesting.
Finally, despite me being all negative towards this book, I am glad that I was forced to read it because it gave me new insights on other literary works aside from my usual young adults and fantasies.
Although I really liked Zola's style of putting together words and crafting ideas and overall the plot was exciting and unique, I found the book dragged out quite a lot and could have been 60-odd pages shorter. After the main climax it feels as if Zola is building to something else higher in importance but this event never really occurs, instead the narrative just "fizzles" out and the reader is left wanting more.
Aunque muchos conocemos la historia no tiene desperdicio leer una novela hecha con bisturí. Un clásico en toda la extensión, censurado en su tiempo por la crítica como muchas cosas, pero que Zola defendió con grandes argumentos vertidos en el prólogo a la segunda edición. Imperdible.
This was a "free" book on Audible.com and I grabbed it because the novel was read by Kate Winslet and it was Zola. It was definitely worth the price. Winslet read beautifully and the story did draw me in - although by the end, I was waiting for Therese and Laurent to break free of their 19th century French morality and realize, "So what we're murderers - let's move on with or without each other and have some fun." Either that, or have Madame Raquin break through her paralysis and kill them both, just to put everyone out of their misery. I did wonder, in this modern world, whether a person who committed such a murder would be haunted and racked with guilt for the rest of their life. Well, I would, but the ordinary brutish peasant?