A Love Episode, Emile Zola

I am now a good chunk into Emile Zola’s twenty volume Rougon Macquat series of novels. Attacking this pile of books in the recommended reading order:

• La Fortune des Rougon (1871) (The Fortune of the Rougons)
• Son Excellence Eugène Rougon (1876) (His Excellency Eugene Rougon/ His Excellency)
• La Curée (1871-2) (The Kill)
• L’Argent (1891) (Money)
• Le Rêve (1888) (The Dream)
• La Conquête de Plassans (1874) (The Conquest of Plassans/A Priest in the House)
• Pot-Bouille (1882) (Pot Luck/Restless House/Piping Hot)
• Au Bonheur des Dames (1883) (The Ladies’ Paradise/Shop Girls of Paris/Ladies’ Delight)
• La Faute de l’Abbé Mouret (1875) (The Sin of Father Mouret/Abbe Mouret’s Transgression)
• Une Page d’amour (1878) (A Lesson in Love/A Love Episode/A Page of Love/A Love Affair)
• Le Ventre de Paris (1873) (The Belly of Paris/The Fat and the Thin/Savage Paris/The Markets of Paris)
• La Joie de Vivre (1884) (The Joys of Living/Joy of Life/How Jolly Life Is/Zest for Life)
• L’Assommoir (1877) (The Dram Shop/The Gin Palace/Drink/Drunkard)
• L’Œuvre (1886) (The Masterpiece/A Masterpiece/His Masterpiece)
• La Bête Humaine (1890) (The Beast in the Man/The Human Beast/The Monomaniac)
• Germinal (1885)
• Nana (1880)
• La Terre (1887) (The Earth/The Soil)
• La Débâcle (1892) (The Downfall/The Smash-up/The Debacle)
• Le Docteur Pascal (1893) (Doctor Pascal)

The next one up was A Love Episode.

At this point I have finished the last of the books from the Mouret section of the Rougon Macquat books. The Rougon section dwelt mostly on the upper classes, especially on the mad ruthless speculation in L’Argent. Then came the Mouret branch of the family – middle class workers fighting to get ahead – and not always succeeding.  Now, after A Love Episode I will move into the Macquat  books – where poverty, drunkeness, and madness await. I’ve read four of these already – will have to decide whether to re-read them or not.

One characteristic of the last few books has been elaborate, extensive, florid, and detailed description. In A Love Episode this mostly consists of pages of description of the appearance of Paris out of the window of the protagonists suburban apartment. The changes in weather and light over the magnificent city reflect the inner turmoil that the main characters are experiencing.

It’s a short book, the easiest so far to read, that details… as the title suggests, a romance. The love story is between a beautiful young widow and the doctor that lives next door. He comes to her aid when her daughter falls ill. This is Paris, so the fact he is married is not an immovable obstacle, even though she is of sound moral character. The daughter, however, is sickly and very jealous, which leads to complications and, this being a Zola novel, an ultimate disaster.

A quick, fun, read… with a nice bunch of interesting characters – folks like those that you will still meet today.

If you look hard enough