Reviews

The Masterpiece by Émile Zola

rougonmacaque's review against another edition

2.0

Ce livre dénote réellement dans la série des Rougon-Macquart; on passe d'un travail de journaliste très poussé à une oeuvre ultra-personnelle (trop)... J'ai été extrêmement déçue, ce livre manque de poésie et les passages sur le processus créatif sont trop rares. J'ai eu l'impression de lire une auto-biographie sur Zola et sa bande de potes. A mon avis, il l'a écrit dans une période de blocage, de stress par rapport à son métier et ça se sent... Néanmoins un très bon livre! De très belles images et des passages sur la création grandioses; à lire sans notes de bas de page.

msgtdameron's review

challenging dark emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Reading The Masterpiece after reading Llosa's War of the End of the World is that both are about revolution.  Llosa is revolution on the macro scale and Masterpiece is revolution on the micro scale.  Both works have extremely passionate characters.  Both have initial victory for all the revolutionaries.  Both works have a time of pain for all the characters as the revolution that they so passionately believed in is seen to crash around them.  And, finally, both have tragic yet foreseeable endings.  Seeing both revolutions fail at both the macro and micro level leads one to think that successful revolutions are very very few and very far between.  Weather in the arts as in Masterpiece or in a nation as in War of the end of the world.    

loyse_nl's review against another edition

dark funny inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

bahidby's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Great book, a bit repetitive and long with description but it's what define Zola and some were so so beautiful.I found so many similarities between Sandoz and Zola himself, I think at the end when he talk with bongrand and agree that when you fail as an artist you should resign and k*ll yourself and then his last sentence is "let's go work"..... So meaningful in way (I think) but also not at the same times.
Great writing and story overall but some character were uninteresting.
I understand Claude obssesion with his passion but the way he treated his wife and his son, not even changing after he died in his sleep (the son) was so bad of him but I think it truly shows how can one stray away from what's really important when passion blinds you. </Spoiler>

jenowen's review against another edition

dark emotional slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Read for the context (zola disapproving of cezanne), and it didn’t disappoint

browngirlreading's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

cloudytm's review against another edition

dark emotional sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

dzengota's review against another edition

2.0

Zola has such a struggling variance to his books. He wants (as does his surrogate Sandoz in this book) to genuinely depict a time and place; the effects of the environment on people. In books like Germinal that pulls all of the characters into a inevitable and tragic drama. In The Masterpiece it is watching the slow fall of artists whose visions have come at the wrong time for personal success.

The different artists occasionally have genius monologues that absolutely enrapturing. My personal favorite being a successful and revered artist lamenting the fact that he and everyone knows that he has already painted his masterpiece and that he basically no choice but to fail to live up to expectations or fade into obscurity, "...If only we had the courage the hang ourselves in front of our final masterpieces."

What softens the efficacy of the Masterpiece is its pacing. It takes place over many years, a couple decades even. Whenever a time skip happens in the book (and sometimes they happen multiple times in one chapter), you can expect to go through all of the supporting cast of characters and have them catch the reader up on what has happened in the interim. This creates a mood of so much happening "off-screen", like what you're reading is never quite the core of what the book is really about.

toobluetoflew's review against another edition

dark inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

rowena_wiseman's review against another edition

5.0

After Zola's childhood friend Cezanne read this novel, he never spoke to him again. The Masterpiece traces artist Claude's obsession with creating the perfect painting. Zola's descriptions of painting feel so authentic I felt as though he was holding a paintbrush rather than a pen. The story traces a group of artists full of hope and optimism in their youth, who are slowly strangled by their own dreams. Art is the mistress that Claude's wife can never compete with. The novel shows creativity as a curse, rather than a gift. There's a shockingly heartbreaking scene towards the end that's a cautionary tale for anyone caught in the clutches of creativity. Claude's artworks may have been a failure, but Zola's novel is a masterpiece.