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A review by wickedcestus
The Conquest of Plassans by Patrick McGuinness, Émile Zola, Helen Constantine
This book is wild. I'm reading through this series in release order, and this one felt dramatically different from the previous three.
What remains the same is Zola's amazing characterization, his elegant style, and his critical eye. Once again, the book is about a small chapter of the Rougon-Macquart household living inside of French society, as it existed during Napoleon III's reign, aka "The Second Empire".
In this one, a priest rents out the top floor of the home of Francois Mouret, grandson of Rougon and husband of Marthe, granddaughter of Macquart. Mouret doesn't much like priests, but he appreciates money and business and all things such as that, so he begrudgingly accepts. The priest brings his mom, and for a while things go on as normal. The priest is quiet, the home is quiet, the town is quiet.
But before you know it, the heat turns up. I can't even begin to talk about all of what happens in this book, but it just keeps ratcheting it up constantly until the climax is just mad. Every character just goes nuts in entirely different and conflicting ways. I don't read a lot of thrilling books, but this one makes me see the appeal.
The last three were so tame, relatively. I mean, sure, the first one had an uprising, the second one had some incest-in-law, and the third some good political intrigue, but none of them reached the levels of this one. I sat down and described all of the events to my wife, just to see if it was as wild as I thought it was, and she was blown away.
I love it. I have no idea what's going to come next in the series. Bless the French. Bless my buddy Zola. And a hearty "J'accuse" to you all.
What remains the same is Zola's amazing characterization, his elegant style, and his critical eye. Once again, the book is about a small chapter of the Rougon-Macquart household living inside of French society, as it existed during Napoleon III's reign, aka "The Second Empire".
In this one, a priest rents out the top floor of the home of Francois Mouret, grandson of Rougon and husband of Marthe, granddaughter of Macquart. Mouret doesn't much like priests, but he appreciates money and business and all things such as that, so he begrudgingly accepts. The priest brings his mom, and for a while things go on as normal. The priest is quiet, the home is quiet, the town is quiet.
But before you know it, the heat turns up. I can't even begin to talk about all of what happens in this book, but it just keeps ratcheting it up constantly until the climax is just mad. Every character just goes nuts in entirely different and conflicting ways. I don't read a lot of thrilling books, but this one makes me see the appeal.
The last three were so tame, relatively. I mean, sure, the first one had an uprising, the second one had some incest-in-law, and the third some good political intrigue, but none of them reached the levels of this one. I sat down and described all of the events to my wife, just to see if it was as wild as I thought it was, and she was blown away.
I love it. I have no idea what's going to come next in the series. Bless the French. Bless my buddy Zola. And a hearty "J'accuse" to you all.