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A review by joannaautumn
Thérèse Raquin by Émile Zola
4.0
A study of temperaments not character as Zola said.
Zola wanted to incorporate science and reason into literature making them a form of creative studies, and looked at writers as scientists and thinkers more than artists.He was one of the founders of naturalism.
Naturalism was a literary movement taking place from 1865 to 1900 that used detailed realism to suggest that social conditions, heredity, and environment had inescapable force in shaping human character.
The novel is based on the temperaments that a Greek philosopher Aelius Galenus or Galen has made. The characters are assigned one of the four temperaments accordingly. Therese is a melancholic and Laurent is sanguine, Camille phlegmatic and so on.
It is an interesting concept of mixing something highly logical like a scientific study with something as free and creative as literature.
The writing style was full of descriptions of often gruesome images, since it does contain traces of realism.The novel shows what happens if we let the impulses and beastly part of us take over, what happens if we let out temperaments rule over our reason. Accordingly, the characters are stripped away of any inner self or complex thinking and emotions because they are ruled by their animal impulses.There is not much emotional or lyrical scenes in this novel, you don’t really form any kind of attachment to the characters due to the distanced way of writing, being that it is a study in literary form. So it might be dull at times, and certain words and phrases are repetitive.
Nonetheless, it did achieve what it was intended to do, and you will either like the book or find it boring. As for myself, I did like it and I will reach again for something written by Zola.
Zola wanted to incorporate science and reason into literature making them a form of creative studies, and looked at writers as scientists and thinkers more than artists.He was one of the founders of naturalism.
Naturalism was a literary movement taking place from 1865 to 1900 that used detailed realism to suggest that social conditions, heredity, and environment had inescapable force in shaping human character.
The novel is based on the temperaments that a Greek philosopher Aelius Galenus or Galen has made. The characters are assigned one of the four temperaments accordingly. Therese is a melancholic and Laurent is sanguine, Camille phlegmatic and so on.
It is an interesting concept of mixing something highly logical like a scientific study with something as free and creative as literature.
The writing style was full of descriptions of often gruesome images, since it does contain traces of realism.The novel shows what happens if we let the impulses and beastly part of us take over, what happens if we let out temperaments rule over our reason. Accordingly, the characters are stripped away of any inner self or complex thinking and emotions because they are ruled by their animal impulses.There is not much emotional or lyrical scenes in this novel, you don’t really form any kind of attachment to the characters due to the distanced way of writing, being that it is a study in literary form. So it might be dull at times, and certain words and phrases are repetitive.
Nonetheless, it did achieve what it was intended to do, and you will either like the book or find it boring. As for myself, I did like it and I will reach again for something written by Zola.