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hiba59's review against another edition
4.0
Zola ne manque jamais de me surprendre, d'abord il utilise un titre débordant d'ironie, et puis il nous donne une fin qui me laisse bouche béante. Pourquoi? Bon, parce qu'il peut le faire tout simplement.
Pauline, la fille de Lisa et de Quenu, qu'on rencontre au troisième tome de la série : Le Ventre de Paris; elle donne l'impression qu'elle serait plutôt comme sa mère, mais ici, je dois avouer qu'elle est aussi différente que possible d'elle. Et je m'adresse à cette Pauline chérie, je n'ai cessé de la sermonner tout au long du livre: Et toi petite? Qui te soignera? Où est ta joie? Où est passée ta vie à toi? Si tu trouves ton bonheur à soigner les autres et à les rendre heureux, alors tu es libre à te gâcher la vie. On dit bien qui trop embrasse, mal étreint.
J'étais surprise par la quantité d'émotions présentes dans ce livre, plus que tous les autres tomes de la série. Il y avait des parties où les larmes me montaient aux yeux, tellement c'était chargé d'émotions. Il y avait surtout un contraste terrible entre la personnalité de Pauline et celle de Mme Chanteau et Lazare, Pauline tout simplement ne pouvait faire partie du ménage, elle était l'ultime manifestation de bonté et d'amour propre, et Lazare était un jeune homme lourd à porter comme a dit Dr. Cazenove, il s'ennuyait de tout nouveau projet qu'il venait avec, de toute sensation, et de l'existence elle même. Comment Pauline aurait elle pu vivre avec lui?
Pauline, la fille de Lisa et de Quenu, qu'on rencontre au troisième tome de la série : Le Ventre de Paris; elle donne l'impression qu'elle serait plutôt comme sa mère, mais ici, je dois avouer qu'elle est aussi différente que possible d'elle. Et je m'adresse à cette Pauline chérie, je n'ai cessé de la sermonner tout au long du livre: Et toi petite? Qui te soignera? Où est ta joie? Où est passée ta vie à toi? Si tu trouves ton bonheur à soigner les autres et à les rendre heureux, alors tu es libre à te gâcher la vie. On dit bien qui trop embrasse, mal étreint.
J'étais surprise par la quantité d'émotions présentes dans ce livre, plus que tous les autres tomes de la série. Il y avait des parties où les larmes me montaient aux yeux, tellement c'était chargé d'émotions. Il y avait surtout un contraste terrible entre la personnalité de Pauline et celle de Mme Chanteau et Lazare, Pauline tout simplement ne pouvait faire partie du ménage, elle était l'ultime manifestation de bonté et d'amour propre, et Lazare était un jeune homme lourd à porter comme a dit Dr. Cazenove, il s'ennuyait de tout nouveau projet qu'il venait avec, de toute sensation, et de l'existence elle même. Comment Pauline aurait elle pu vivre avec lui?
msand3's review against another edition
3.0
Zola’s La joie de vivre is the twelfth novel in the Rougon-Macquart cycle in both publication order and recommended reading order. It picks up the story of Pauline Quenue after the events of [b:The Belly of Paris|92965|The Belly of Paris|Émile Zola|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388455590s/92965.jpg|10242], as she has now become orphaned after the death of her parents. Pauline is perhaps the most sympathetic character is Zola’s oeuvre (alongside Angélique in [b:The Dream|335072|The Dream|Émile Zola|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1173841754s/335072.jpg|1504240] -- another orphaned heroine) because she is constantly the moral guidepost and symbol of health amidst a storm of suffering, misery, cheating, lies, and death. This is a difficult novel to read, as Zola compounds misery upon misery for three hundred pages. It is a novel of coping with pain and suffering (a “Symphony of Suffering”), perhaps to be read alongside Daudet's journal [b:In the Land of Pain|110988|In the Land of Pain|Alphonse Daudet|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1402552612s/110988.jpg|106913].
Zola tackles difficult and sometimes taboo topics, including menstrual cycles, abortion, miscarriages, broken relationships, suicide, disease, and death. As in many of his novels, animals come to symbolize the lives of the human characters, with the setting also revealing their plight -- in this case, the raging, storm-tossed waves that batter the coastline of the small town. Although I found this to be the most slow-going novel so far in the cycle, its climax is one of the most realistic and excruciating descriptions of a birth I've ever read. It must have been shocking for its time in the brutally graphic descriptions of the complications at birth.
Despite this being one of my lesser liked works by Zola, it has the kind of haunting and devastating ending that only Zola can do so routinely well. Humanity is presented as an awkward, stumbling toddler who waddling between two equally inevitable paralyses of failure (his father) and disease/death (his grandfather), with no choice but to have this path of pain and suffering already determined for him by “the degenerative law” of heredity. Pauline acts as his guide, but one understands that her success will likely be limited. As with her relationship with Lazare and Louise, she will keep the boy alive, which will ironically only prolong his suffering rather than alleviate it. The final line of the novel, referencing the suicide of the family servant, is devastating in its irony, spoken by the grandfather who is catastrophically crippled by his gout: “Only a damn fool would kill themselves!”
It is perhaps the most depressing novel I’ve ever read.
Zola tackles difficult and sometimes taboo topics, including menstrual cycles, abortion, miscarriages, broken relationships, suicide, disease, and death. As in many of his novels, animals come to symbolize the lives of the human characters, with the setting also revealing their plight -- in this case, the raging, storm-tossed waves that batter the coastline of the small town. Although I found this to be the most slow-going novel so far in the cycle, its climax is one of the most realistic and excruciating descriptions of a birth I've ever read. It must have been shocking for its time in the brutally graphic descriptions of the complications at birth.
Despite this being one of my lesser liked works by Zola, it has the kind of haunting and devastating ending that only Zola can do so routinely well. Humanity is presented as an awkward, stumbling toddler who waddling between two equally inevitable paralyses of failure (his father) and disease/death (his grandfather), with no choice but to have this path of pain and suffering already determined for him by “the degenerative law” of heredity. Pauline acts as his guide, but one understands that her success will likely be limited. As with her relationship with Lazare and Louise, she will keep the boy alive, which will ironically only prolong his suffering rather than alleviate it. The final line of the novel, referencing the suicide of the family servant, is devastating in its irony, spoken by the grandfather who is catastrophically crippled by his gout: “Only a damn fool would kill themselves!”
It is perhaps the most depressing novel I’ve ever read.
moncoinlecture's review against another edition
4.0
4,5
Ces descriptions de la mer terrible et belle à la fois... c'est magnifique.
Mais bon, c'est un roman pas facile à lire... j'ai dû le poser plusieurs fois.
Ces descriptions de la mer terrible et belle à la fois... c'est magnifique.
Mais bon, c'est un roman pas facile à lire... j'ai dû le poser plusieurs fois.
mariadesp's review against another edition
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
3.5
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