Reviews

A Love Story by Émile Zola

hardcoverhearts's review

sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

burritapal_1's review

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.0

One thing about this book (A Love Story, #8 in the Rougon-Macquart Series) is that it talks about different buildings in Paris a lot. It talks about hills, and you look them up on Google Maps and you can't really see any hills around paris. And the house that Hélène lives in, it's up on some kind of Hill cuz she's always looking down at the city of paris. And yet I can't find out from Google Maps the hills that the author is talking about. She's always looking out this window from her Chaise Lounge and seeing building like Notre Dame, trees on the Champs-Élysées, the crushed roof of the Madeleine, the immense form of the Opéra, the Vendôme column, St Vincent de Paul the wings of the new Louvre and Tiolerirs, the Dôme Des Invalides, the towers of Saint-Sulpice, the Panthéon, the Trocadéro. And all of these descriptions of Paris in the buildings in it are featured throughout the book in different seasons and different conditions of light. He was doing in a literary sense what the impressionist painters of the time we're doing in pictures.
🤷‍♂️

From the Introduction, Brian Nelson: 
"... naturalist fiction represents a major assault on Bourgeois morality and institutions. It takes an unmitigated Delight -- while also seeing the process as a serious Duty -- in revealing the vices, follies, and Corruption behind the respectable facade. The last line of The Belly of Paris is: 'respectable people... what bastards!' " 
this must be why I love Zola so much.

Helene, a widow, has only two friends, friends of her deceased husband. Abbee jouve, the officiating priest at the local church, and his half-brother ramboud, a middle-aged oil and produce merchant. Abbee Jouve asks Helene to visit one of his invalid parishioners, mother Fetu. While she's visiting her in her dirty little attic room, Dr deberle pays her a visit. This is where they begin to see each other regularly and they're attracted to each other. Father Abbee urges Helene to remarry and tells her that his brother has offered to marry her. She can't bear the thought of it, and neither can her daughter Jeanne. She asks him to give her time to think about it and he says basically "all the time in the world". In the end of the book, she has married him.

During a children's dress ball that Dr deberle's wife Juliette gives, Dr deberle tells Helene that he loves her. When Jeanne becomes ill for the second time in the book, Dr DeBerle attends her, and during the three weeks of her illness, they become even more enamored of each other. When he cures Jeanne with leeches(! ), Helene tells the doctor that she loves him. 
" 'Maman, maman,' murmured Jeanne. 
Henri came over then to the young woman, saying: 
'she is saved.'
'she is saved,' Helene stammered. And again: 'she is saved.' Suffused with such joy, she sank on to the floor by the side of the bed looking at her daughter, looking at the doctor as if she had lost her mind. 
And with a violent movement she Rose and threw herself at Henri's neck.
'oh, I love you,' she cried. 
She kissed him, she hugged him. It was her Declaration of love, the admission which had been so long delayed, and had at long last burst forth in the crisis of her heart. Mother and lover were one being, in this moment of delight. She offered the Burning Love of her gratitude.
'I'm crying, look, I can cry now,' she stammered. 'oh god, how I love you, how happy we shall be!' "
However, at this time Jeanne observes the feelings between the two of them and becomes jealous. She gets sick whenever the doctor shows up now.
Zola stated in his planning notes that A Love Story's basic theme is "sexual passion -- its birth, development, effects, consequences, and death."

"... nothing moved Helene more than this suspended moment in the life of the city. In the 3 months she had been confined there next to Jeanne's bed, her only companion in keeping watch over the invalid had been the great City of Paris stretching out to the horizon. In this July and August Heat Wave the windows were almost continuously open; she couldn't cross the room, move, turn her head, without seeing its Eternal picture on display for her. It was there in all weathers sharing her sufferings and her hopes like a friend who called on her regularly. But she still did not know it properly, she had never been so far away from it, or more indifferent to its streets and its inhabitants. . . "

https://readingzola.wordpress.com/2014/11/14/a-love-affair-une-page-damour-by-emile-zola-translated-by-jean-stewart/

From the Introduction, Brian Nelson points out through Susan Harrow's quotes that if Jeanne "blames her mother for her agony, it is as the woman she is afraid to become." 
" 'her willed death,' Harrow comments, 'preserves Jeanne from the transition to Womanhood and provides an Escape From Desire: her mother's and her own. In the death of Jeanne, the mother and her lover are separated, the child is freed from her own trial of Desire.... daughter and mother merge in a double death, one real and literal, the other psychic and symbolic.' "

Indeed the character Jeanne seems to be the most sickly little child I've heard of in quite a while. When in part one Abbee Jouve and his brother Monsieur Rambaud are talking about Helene going to see Mother Fetu the next day, Jeanne pleads with her mother to let her go with her. 
"but the priest and Monsieur Rambaud immediately scolded her. They couldn't take her to visit poor folk because she didn't behave properly. Last time she'd gone she had fainted twice, and for three days even when she was asleep her eyes had swollen up and they'd been watering."

Helene comes from a rather sad background. She's sitting at her window looking out on Paris, her forgotten book in her lap, musing...
"love, love! Why did this word come to mind again, with all its sweetness, while she was watching the fog disperse? Had she not loved her husband, whom she looked after like a child? But she suddenly had a piercing memory of her father found hanged after his wife's death, at the back of a wardrobe where her dresses still hung. He died there, stiffening, his face buried in a skirt, wrapped in those clothes which still gave off a slight scent of the woman he adored... she had lived a dignified life for more than 30 years in an absolute firmness of purpose. Right Behavior was all that mattered to her. When her mind turned to her past life she did not consider she had been weak, not for a moment; she saw herself traveling steadily along a smooth, straight path. The days might come or go, she would walk quietly on, without stumbling on the way. And that made her stern, angry, and scornful towards those fictitious lives led astray by the affections of the heart. Hers was the only true life, lived in such tranquility.... " 
yes, all that, but when she finally succumbs to Dr deberle, it's as if she's addicted to a strong narcotic. He's all she can think about, and she forgets her little girl Jeanne, which is the beginning of Jeanne dying.

Dr Deberle follows Helene as she seeks quiet in the Deberle house during the childrens' dress ball. He Corners Helene:
" 'I love you, oh I love you!' Henri said again.
She shivered, could not listen anymore. Her head whirling, she took refuge in the dining room. But that room was empty. Monsieur Letellier was peacefully asleep on his own on a chair. Henri followed her. He went so far as to catch hold of her wrists, risking a scandal, with a face so ravaged by Passion that she trembled. He kept on repeating: 
'I love you, I love you... '
'leave me,' she murmured feebly, 'Leave me, You Are mad... '
and the ball was going on next door, a wild scurrying of tiny feet! You could hear the little bells of Blanchard Berthier accompanying the softer notes of the piano. Madame Deberle and Pauline were clapping in time. It was a polka. Helene saw Jeanne and Lucien go by smiling with their hands round each other's waists. 
Then, with a sudden movement she jerked away, and escaped into the next room, a pantry where there was a broad daylight. The Sudden clarity blinded her. She was panicky, she was not in a fit state to return to the salon with the passion that must surely be visible on her face. And, crossing the garden, with the noise of the dancers still in her ears as she left, she went back up to her own apartment to recover."

When Helene and Dr deberle are having sex in the house where mother Fetu lives, Jeanne commences her fall into depression, the beginning of her death. she's sitting at the window, looking out at paris, and though she has been forbidden to open the window, she does. It's raining: 
"abruptly Jeanne turned. She could have sworn that there was a footstep in the bedroom, and even that there had been a light touch on her shoulder. But the room was empty, and still in the very untidy State Helene had left it. The dressing gown was still lying prostrate and crumpled, apparently weeping into the bolster. Then Jeanne, pale as a ghost, looked quickly around the room, and her heart broke. She was alone, all alone. Oh god! Her mother, leaving, had pushed her, and so very violently that she had fallen to the floor. That came back to her with anguish, she could feel once more the pain of that brutal action in her wrists and shoulders. Why had she struck her? She was a good little girl, she wasn't to blame for anything. Usually people spoke kindly to her, she was disgusted by this punishment. She felt as she had when she was scared as a little girl, when they threatened her with the wolf and she looked for it but couldn't see it; it was as if in the shadows there were things coming to crush her. However, she was suspicious and her face grew deathly pale with jealous rage. Suddenly the thought that her mother must love the people she had rushed to see more than her, throwing her so roughly out of the way, caused her to clutch her chest with both hands. Now she knew. Her mother was betraying her. 
A great anxiety hung over paris, in expectation of another squall. The darkened sky muttered, thick clouds were amassing. Jeanne at the window coughed violently. But she felt that by being cold she was getting her revenge, she wanted to be ill. Her Hands Held against her chest, she felt her discomfort increase. She was suffering and her body was delivering itself up to it. She Shook with fear and dared not turn her head, the thought of looking at the bedroom again made her blood run cold... "

For 3 weeks She lays there in the throes of dying.
" It had just struck four, the blue Shadows of evening were already falling. The end had come, a slow, still, suffocating death. The little angel had no more strength for the fight. Monsieur Rambaud, defeated, collapsed onto his knees, shaken by silent sobs, crouched behind a curtain to hide his grief. The Abbe knelt down at the bedside, his hands together, gabbling the prayers for the dying.
'Jeanne, Jeanne,' whispered Hélène, ice-cold with a terror that blew a cold draght through her hair. 
She had pushed the [old] doctor aside, thrown herself on the floor, leant over the bed to look closely at her daughter. Jeanne opened her eyes but did not look at her mother. Her eyes still went over to Vanishing paris. She squeezed her doll tighter, her last love. A huge sigh swelled her chest, then came two lighter sighs. Her eyes paled, and briefly her face expressed a terrible anguish. But soon she seemed relieved as she breathed her last, her mouth open.
'It's over,' said the doctor, taking her hand.
Jeanne was looking at Paris with her big, unseeing eyes. Her fawn-like face grew longer still, and sterner, a gray Shadow spread Down Under the frowning eyebrows. And so too in death her face was the pallid face of a jealous woman. The doll with her head hanging back, her hair falling down, seemed, like her, to be dead.
'It's over,' said the doctor, relinquishing the cold little hand. 
Hélène, her features strained, pressed her fist against her forehead as if she feared her head might burst open. She did not weep, she looked wildly about her. Then a Sob caught in her throat. She had just spied a small pair of shoes, Forgotten at the foot of the bed. It was over, Jeanne would never put them on again, they could give the little shoes to the poor. And her tears flowed, she remained there on the floor, rubbing her face over her dead daughter's hand, which had slipped down. Monsieur Rambaud was sobbing. The Abbe had raised his voice, while rosalie, at the half-open door of the dining room, was biting her handkerchief so that she wouldn't make too much noise."

And after this, when Helene sees Dr deberle, she kicks his ass to the curb.

luna545's review

emotional reflective tense slow-paced

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

4.5

kimilou's review against another edition

4.0

Ça m’a fait chiez au début avec ces descriptions de la couleur d’un rideau qui durent 3 pages, donc ça m’a pris du temps pour trouver mon rythme.

Mais après un moment j’ai plongé dans l’histoire et c’était comme si je la vivait avec, grâce à ces descriptions qui me permettaient d’avoir une imagination d’images très vivides et colorées.

Je suis plongé dans une ambiance très romantique et douce, je recommanderais ce livre aux poètes.

Mais pas pas pour les personnes avec peu de patience qui aiment l’action rapide. Car c’est une histoire très lente.

kiri_johnston's review

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

3.5

louloup_reads's review against another edition

challenging emotional sad 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? No

4.5

elisala's review against another edition

2.0

Parmi les Rougon-Macquart qui m'ont le plus marquée, une page d'amour est celui qui me laisse comme un goût amer. C'est un roman triste, et en quelque sorte calme, qui se dirige de manière inexorable vers la fin, triste à souhait.
C'est un titre assez ironique, je trouve, parce qu'il y a finalement ici beaucoup plus de passion et de jalousie toutes deux aveugles que de véritable amour...

jmiae's review

4.0

What a surprisingly scandalous story. There are a couple of things I particularly loved about this book: the descriptions of mid-19th century Paris (especially the passages about how the city looks in different kinds of light, weather, or time of day) and the ridiculous parties that Madame Deberle loves to throw.

Although I have not read any of the other books in the Les Rougon-Macquart series, I did not feel that I was missing any information as a result (the footnotes helped a bit). As a stand-alone read, there is a lot to parse through and if I were so inclined it would be such fun to write an essay about the different themes that run through the story. There were times when it felt a bit overkill, especially Jeanne's rather absurd behaviour towards her mother, but ultimately it came together for a very dramatic and emotionally satisfying ending.

ilonaisreading's review

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

2.0

blueyorkie's review against another edition

5.0

In one of the novels, the eighth in the Rougon-Macquart saga, the action occurs at Passy in Paris. The plot centres on three main characters: Jeanne, an 11-year-old girl; Hélène, her mother and the doctor. The mother is a saint who suffers from her daughter's infernal name, who is always sick with convulsions.
A loving relationship quickly settled between Hélène and the doctor, which the kid will hardly have to endure.
"A Love Story": a not very well known novel by Emile Zola.
Some sorrowful people find it a little hollow structure. Certainly. With main themes such as love at first sight, romantic passion, and a child's illness.
In my eyes, the fact remains that a Zola remains a Zola and that his style, just his style, is a delight to me.
In this novel, I noticed in Pot Bouille and The Fault of the Abbot Mouret the writer's pleasure in describing bare feet scenes and the joy of kissing them, which made me pleased: my fantasy being in women their bare feet and their toes.