"Well, there’s so much to read, and I’m so far behind." Wallace Stegner
The night light in the blue-tinged glass on the mantleshelf burned behind a book, which cast a shadow across half the bedroom. The quiet glow spreading over the bedside table and the chaise lounge, bathed the wide folds of the velvet curtains, and flooded the mirror on the rosewood cupboard between the two windows with … Continue reading A Love Story | Émile Zola
Gervaise had waited up for Lantier until two in the morning. Then, shivering all over from sitting half undressed in the cold air from the window, she'd slumped across the bed, feeling feverish, her cheeks wet with tears. Brian Nelson | 2021 Gervaise had waited and watched for Lantier until two in the morning. Then … Continue reading The Assommoir | Émile Zola #Zoladdiction
Fanda @ClassicLit is once again hosting Zoladdiction month throughout April. This year she has included a fun questionaire to take us away from our books! You don't have to be reading a Zola this April to join in the tag either. The questions are designed to entice afficionados and those new-to-Zola as well. My first … Continue reading The Émile Zola Tag #Zoladdiction2023
I promised I wouldn't write a post for every single chapter in L'Assommoir but how does every second chapter sound 😀 ? The famous wedding day between Gervaise and Coupeau in L'Assommoir chapter three, sees the wedding party decide to walk to the Louvre to celebrate their special day. The plan had been to go … Continue reading Reading Zola | L’Assommoir – The Wedding Party
Reading Zola in April with Fanda @Classiclit has become a tradition and a treat; something I look forward to every year. Zola's Paris novels in particular, fascinate me. Zola was the master of detail. Between lived experience and strenuous research, Zola immerses his readers into the life and times of his Rougon-Macquart characters. Zola not … Continue reading Reading Zola | L’Assommoir an introduction
The President of the Chamber remained standing until the faint stir caused by his entry subsided. Then he took his seat, saying rather nonchalantly, in a quiet voice: 'The sitting is open.' As always, I am facsinated by translation choices. Above are the opening lines from Brian Nelson's recent 2018 translation of Son Excellence Eugène … Continue reading Son Excellence Eugène Rougon | Émile Zola #Zoladdiction
182 years ago today, Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola was born in Paris and for the past nine years, Fanda @Classiclit has hosted Zoladdiction throughout April. I joined in the first two with the only Zola's on my TBR pile - Germinal (1885) and Nana (1880). At that point I didn't really understand how the whole Rougon-Macquart thing … Continue reading Zoladdiction 2022
The autumnal months in Australia have turned into the busiest three reading months of the year. I'm struggling to stay on top of everything going on in my life right now, so creating a page that I can refer back to seems like an essential step in managing my reading and blogging life. Let me … Continue reading Autumnal Reading Plans
La Teuse came in and popped her broom and her feather duster against the alter. Confession one: this story ended up being a chore to read. After six engaging, enthralling Zola's I have hit my first dud with the seventh. Confession two: for the past week I have been trying to read three books that … Continue reading The Sin of Abbé Mouret | Émile Zola #FRAclassic
April is Zoladdiction month with Fanda @ClassicLit! This year I am up to book five in the Rougon-Macquart series - La Faute de l’Abbé Mouret (1875) The Sin of Father Mouret. I will be reading the Oxford University Press edition translated by Valerie Minogue, the President of the Émile Zola Society in London. 'I really don't … Continue reading Zoladdiction 2021
La Conquête de Plassans, or The Conquest of Plassans (1874) is the fourth novel in Émile Zola's twenty-volume Rougon-Macquart series that I have been reading with Fanda for #Zoladdiction. My Oxford World's Classics 2014 edition is translated by Helen Constantine and has an Introduction by *Patrick McGuinness. He reminded me that, Like all of Zola's … Continue reading The Conquest of Plassans | Émile Zola #FRAclassic
Photo by Jamie Street on UnsplashSometimes in this blogging life, the words just won't come.I have several posts on the back burner waiting for inspiration, time and for the right words to appear. In the meantime, I will fill the gaps with housekeeping posts and lists.Once upon a time, I used to join in a … Continue reading 2020 | Here We Come!
Le Ventre de Paris (also known as The Belly of Paris - a direct translation, or The Fat and the Thin referring to one of the main ideas explored in the story) is not only an extremely visual story, but a visceral one too. Zola's descriptions of the food markets at Les Halles are colourful, … Continue reading The Belly of Paris | Émile Zola
La Curée is the second book in Émile Zola's Rougon-Macquart series of books set during the Second Empire in France. I read it this month in honour of Fanda's #Zoladdiction2018. I have many, many thoughts about this story - I'll start off in point form - The translation of the title Haussmann the parks and … Continue reading La Curée (The Kill) | Émile Zola
April is #Zoladdiction month and this year Fanda is encouraging us to find the art in Zola's writing. This year I'm reading La Curee (The Kill) which is set in Paris during the mid 1860's at the height of the Haussmannisation of Paris. Napoleon III, the self-styled Emperor of the Second Empire 'pursued a policy … Continue reading #ZolaStyle – The Bois de Boulogne in La Curee
This Reading Life 