Émile Zola

''My title speaks not merely of war, but also of the crumbling of a regime and the end of a world.'' Émile ZolaThe penultimate novel of the Rougon-Macquart cycle, La Débâcle (1892) takes as its subject the dramatic events of the Franco-Prussian War and the Commune of 1870-1. During Zola''s lifetime it was the bestselling of all his novels, praised by contemporaries for its epic sweep as well as for its attention to historical detail.La Débâcle seeks to explain why the Second Empire ended in a crushing military defeat and revolutionary violence. It focuses on ordinary soldiers, showing their bravery and suffering in the midst of circumstances they cannot control, and includes some of the most powerful descriptions Zola ever wrote. Zola skilfully integrates his narrative of events and the fictional lives of his characters to provide the finest account of this tragic chapter in the history of France. Often compared to War and Peace, La Débâcle has been described as a ''seminal'' work for all modern depictions of war.

''There''s something of everything there, the best and the worst, the vulgar and the sublime, flowers, muck, tears, laughter, the river of life itself''Pascal Rougon has served as a doctor in the rural French town of Plassans for thirty years. He lives a quiet life with his faithful servant Martine and young niece Clotilde. Pascal is a man of science, striving to find the ultimate cure for all diseases. This puts him at odds with his niece, who is horrified by his denial of religious faith. Clotilde also distrusts Pascal''s lifelong ambition to create a family tree on scientific principles, based upon his theories of heredity. Tensions in the household are fuelled by Pascal''s scheming mother, Félicité, as the final episode in the great Rougon-Macquart saga plays out. Dr Pascal is the passionate conclusion to Zola''s twenty-novel sequence, and the most eloquent expression of the ideas on heredity and human progress that have underpinned it. Human relations are at its heart, as Pascal and Clotilde are bound ever closer by ties of family and love.

''I really don''t understand how people can blame a priest so much, when he strays from the path.''The Sin of AbbA© Mouret tells the compelling story of the young priest Serge Mouret. Striving after spiritual purity and sanctity, he lives a life of constant prayer, but his neglect of all physical needs leads to serious illness, followed by amnesia. No longer knowing he is a priest, he falls in love with his nurse Albine. Together, like a latter-day Adam and Eve, they roam through an Eden-like garden called the ''Paradou'', seeking a forbidden tree in whose shade they will make love. Zola memorably shows their gradual awakening to sexuality, and his poetic descriptions of the luxuriant and beautiful Paradou create a lyrical celebration of Nature. When Serge regains his memory and recalls his priestly vows, anguish inevitably follows.The whole story, with its numerous biblical parallels, becomes a poetic reworking of the Fall of Man and a questioning of the very meaning of innocence and sin. Zola explores the conflict between Church and Nature, the sterility of the Church and the fertility of Nature. This new translation includes a wide-ranging and helpful introduction and explanatory notes.

''Everything revolved around their love. They were constantly bathed in a passion that they carried with them, around them, as though it were the only air they could breathe.''Hélene Grandjean, an attractive young widow, lives a secluded life in Paris with her only child, Jeanne. Jeanne is a delicate and nervous girl who jealously guards her mother''s affections. When Jeanne falls ill, she is attended by Dr Deberle, whose growing admiration for Hélene gradually turns into mutual passion. Deberle''s wife Juliette, meanwhile, flirts with a shallow admirer, and Hélene, intent on preventing her adultery, precipitates a crisis whose consequences are far-reaching. Jeanne realizes she has a rival for Hélene''s devotion in the doctor, and begins to exercise a tyrannous hold over her mother.The eighth novel in Zola''s celebrated Rougon-Macquart series, A Love Story is an intense psychological and nuanced portrayal of love''s different guises. Zola''s study extends most notably to the city of Paris itself, whose shifting moods reflect Hélene''s emotional turmoil in passages of extraordinary lyrical description.

''She was the golden beast, an unconscious force, the very scent of her could bring the world to ruin.''Nana, daughter of a drunk and a laundress, is the Helen of Troy of Paris. A sexually magnetic high-class prostitute and actress, she becomes a celebrity, rapidly conquering society, ruining all men who fall under her spell-especially Count Muffat, Chamberlain to the Empress. Nana herself meets a terrible fate, consumed by her own dissipation and extravagance, just as the disastrous war with Prussia is declared.Nana is the ninth instalment in the twenty volume Rougon-Macquart series. The novel opens in 1867, the year of the World Fair, when Paris, thronged by a cosmopolitan élite, was la Ville Lumiere, the glittering setting-and object-of Zola''s scathing denunciation of society''s hypocrisy and moral corruption. Nana comes to symbolize the Second Empire regime itself in all its excesses; but in the final chapters, the narrator seems to suggest that the coming disaster is not so much a result of the corruption of the Empire, as of rampant female sexuality.

Audiobook Money, written by Émile Zola. Zola’s Money (L’Argent, 1891) shows the corrupting effect of untrammelled stock-market speculation. While some seek redemption through philanthropic and evangelical ventures, others – such as the main protagonist, Saccard – embrace their own avarice. Speculators illegally push up share prices so that ordinary citizens are feverishly swept up in an epidemic of small-scale investment.

Érzéki ruhák, csillogó ékszerek és a legfinomabb textíliák - a 19. századi francia áruház csillogásától még ma is sokan megszédülnének. Amikor a 20 éves Denise Baudu Párizsba érkezik, hogy a Hölgyek Öröme nevű nagyáruházban dolgozzon, keveset tud arról, hogy milyen romlott értékek lapulnak a ragyogó vitrinek mögött. Émile Zola Rougon-Macquart-ciklusának tizenegyedik regénye a bimbózó európai kapitalizmust mutatja be. Felfedezhetjük a fogyasztói kultúra kialakulását, a tradicionális értékek és a modern városi lét összeütközését ebben a részletgazdag, magával ragadó és áradó történetben, amelynél ma is érvényesebb művet nehezen találni. A szerző jelen regényét - amely először 1883-ban, azaz több mint száznegyven évvel ezelőtt jelent meg - egyre többször említik élvezetes és erotikus marketingszakkönyvként is. Sikere töretlen, hatása nem marad el.

Jedna z najväčších afér konca 19. storočia – Dreyfusova aféra – mala silnú odozvu v dobovej tlači. Najznámejšou osobnosťou, ktorá sa k afére vyjadrila, bol významný francúzsky spisovateľ Émile Zola vo svojom známom pamflete pod názvom J'accuse...!, teda „Žalujem...!“. Tento brilantný žurnalistický text nebol doteraz na Slovensku preložený ani publikovaný. Okrem spomínaného pamfletu od Émila Zolu v knihe nasledujú texty významných osobností súdobého spoločenského, politického a umeleckého života vo Francúzsku, aby sme dnešným čitateľom poskytli komplexný obraz reflexie tejto aféry vo vtedajšej francúzskej spoločnosti.

Příběh kurtizány Nany, která nemá žádný pěvecký ani herecký talent, a přesto díky své kráse získá věhlas jako divadelní herečka. Střídají se u ní bohatí milenci, které Nana trápí svými rozmary a zbyvuje je peněz i důstojnosti. Syrový příběh plný naturalistických scén je devátým románem z cyklu Rougon-Macquartové a volně navazuje na román Zabiják. Zolovi se zde podařilo velmi barvitě vykreslit prostředí nevěstinců, kabaretů. ale především společnosti, kde morálka nemá místo, ale zato je plné pokrytectví, nestoudnosti a hrubosti, i když navenek krytými leskem a přepychem. Zola se i v této próze představuje jako mistr literárního naturalismu.

Audiobook La Terre written by Émile Zola. Zola’s La Terre (The Earth) proved highly controversial on publication in 1887 and still retains the power to shock. It follows the fortunes of the Fouan family in the years leading up to the Franco-Prussian War. Old Fouan, the patriarch, draws up a legal contract to divide his farmland between his three children in exchange for an allowance that will support him and his wife through a comfortable retirement.

Published in 1867, Thérese Raquin is the novel which established Zola’s reputation as a writer who forensically explored the darker side of human nature. Thérese is a half Algerian orphan, brought up in provincial France by her aunt and married off to her sickly cousin Camille. His ambition takes the three of them to Paris, where they set up home in the dank and dingy backstreets that run down to the Seine.

Dvaadvacetiletá Gervaisa neměla v životě štěstí. Otec jejích dvou dětí, Lantier, ji opustil s milenkou a ona zůstala sama. Začne ale usilovně pracovat, aby si zařídila vysněnou vlastní prádelnu. Seznámí se s klempířem Coupeaua, vdá se za něj a zdá se, že všechno se konečně začíná dařit. Gervaise se s manželem a s dětmi přestěhuje do lepšího bytu, narodí se jim dcera a několik let spořádaně a spokojeně žijí. Gervaisuin sen o vlastním podniku se zdá být na dosah ruky. Jenže pak se její manžel zraní při pádu ze střechy a všechno jde najednou z kopce... Zabiják je považován za jedno ze Zolových vrcholných děl. Barvitý, syrový příběh strmého pádu lidí, kteří vlivem okolních poměrů a vinou alkoholu spadnou až na dno společnosti, fascinuje čtenáře svými naturalistickými popisy už více než sto let.

Against the backdrop of political and legal corruption in Second Empire France, La Bete Humaine (1890) contrasts the technological advancements of the Machine Age with the primitive and timeless human impulse to possess through killing and to kill through possession. The lives of two railwaymen on the Paris to Le Havre line are fatally entwined by their love for the same woman in this shocking account of brutal violence, greed, revenge and repression.

Presented here in a new translation, Money is, in the wake of recent financial scandals, an all-too-topical exploration of the dynamics of greed, the excesses of capitalism and its dangerous relationship with politics and the press.

Perhaps the most autobiographical of Zola’s Rougon-Macquart cycle of novels, The Masterpiece is a hard, bleak and raw portrait of unrecognised artistic genius. Claude Lantier, brother to Nana and son of Gervaise, is a struggling painter who dreams of conquering Paris’s art scene with his revolutionary ‘open air’ style of painting.

Eugena Rougona, vlivného politika a zastánce bonapartismu, zákulisní intriky dotlačily k rezignaci. Odmítne se ale stáhnout do ústraní a pomocí stejné zbraně, mocných politických přátel a také záhadné Italky Clorindy se snaží dostat zpět na politické výsluní. Předlohou pro hlavní postavu knihy byl významný francouzský státník Eugene Rouher, který měl silný vliv na politiku tak zvaného Druhého císařství. Velmi čtivý Zolův román je také přesným popisem pletich odehrávajících se v nejvyšších patrech francouzské společnosti, kde nelítostný boj o moc a císařovu přízeň měl přednost před čímkoliv jiným.