Thérèse Raquin

Di Émile Zola

Introduzione di Mario Lunetta
Traduzione di Maurizio Grasso
Edizione integrale

Thérèse Raquin, forse il più famoso romanzo di Zola, è la straordinaria, lucidissima analisi di un delitto quasi perfetto. In apparenza la storia è un tipico feuilleton: i protagonisti (due amanti che, sconvolti dal desiderio carnale, diventano assassini per sbarazzarsi del marito di lei) finiscono travolti dalla precisione della loro stessa macchinazione. Si assiste così a una metamorfosi quasi “chimica” della passione in paura e in egoismo: i due complici sono condannati a restare legati come gemelli siamesi, l’uno saprofita del corpo e dell’anima dell’altro, eppure enormemente distanti, ciascuno perseguendo una sua solitaria quanto vana strategia di salvezza. E dietro all’apparente epilogo moralistico che vede scoccare un inesorabile castigo per i due criminali, si legge piuttosto in filigrana una sorta di insostenibile pesantezza del crimine per due creature fondamentalmente fragili e pavide. Qui per la prima volta nella letteratura un personaggio di fantasia viene esplicitamente trattato come un caso clinico: «In Thérèse Raquin», ammette Zola, «ho voluto studiare dei temperamenti e non dei caratteri […] ho semplicemente fatto su due corpi vivi ciò che i chirurghi fanno su dei cadaveri».


Émile Zola

nato a Parigi nel 1840, è uno dei massimi scrittori europei dell’Ottocento. Fin da giovane poté lavorare nel campo dell’editoria e nel 1864 pubblicò il suo primo libro, Contes à Ninon. Da allora continuò a scrivere senza sosta fino alla morte, causata dalle esalazioni di una stufa nella sua casa di Parigi nel 1902, mentre stava lavorando; le modalità della sua fine fecero nascere il sospetto che fosse stato assassinato. È molto noto il suo J’accuse, il pamphlet con cui lo scrittore denuncia al presidente della Repubblica francese tutte le irregolarità e le ingiustizie commesse durante il processo al capitano ebreo Alfred Dreyfus, e a causa del quale Zola fu costretto a fuggire per un periodo in Inghilterra. La Newton Compton ha pubblicato Al Paradiso delle Signore, La bestia umana, Germinal, Nanà, Thérèse Raquin, Lo scannatoio, I misteri di Marsiglia e il volume I grandi romanzi.

• Lingua: Italiano
• Editore: Newton Compton Editori
• Data di uscita: 16 dic 2013
• ISBN: 9788854136908

Émile Zola

Émile Zola (1840-1902) was a French novelist, journalist, and playwright. Born in Paris to a French mother and Italian father, Zola was raised in Aix-en-Provence. At 18, Zola moved back to Paris, where he befriended Paul Cézanne and began his writing career. During this early period, Zola worked as a clerk for a publisher while writing literary and art reviews as well as political journalism for local newspapers. Following the success of his novel Thérèse Raquin (1867), Zola began a series of twenty novels known as Les Rougon-Macquart, a sprawling collection following the fates of a single family living under the Second Empire of Napoleon III. Zola’s work earned him a reputation as a leading figure in literary naturalism, a style noted for its rejection of Romanticism in favor of detachment, rationalism, and social commentary. Following the infamous Dreyfus affair of 1894, in which a French-Jewish artillery officer was falsely convicted of spying for the German Embassy, Zola wrote a scathing open letter to French President Félix Faure accusing the government and military of antisemitism and obstruction of justice. Having sacrificed his reputation as a writer and intellectual, Zola helped reverse public opinion on the affair, placing pressure on the government that led to Dreyfus’ full exoneration in 1906. Nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1901 and 1902, Zola is considered one of the most influential and talented writers in French history.

Anteprima del libro

EC180 - ZOLA Therese Raquin EBOOK.pnge-classici.png

180

Titolo originale: Thérèse Raquin

Prima edizione ebook: dicembre 2011

© 2009, 2010 Newton Compton editori s.r.l.

Roma, Casella postale 6214

ISBN 978-88-541-3690-8

www.newtoncompton.com

Edizione digitale a cura della geco srl

Émile Zola

Thérèse Raquin

Introduzione di Mario Lunetta Traduzione di Maurizio Grasso

Edizione integrale

logo_NCE.png

Introduzione

Thérèse Raquin è il primo ragguardevole congegno a orologeria che Émile Zola allestisce con eccezionale tempismo ed eccezionale precocità, dopo l'esperienza «alimentare» e puramente routinière di due mediocri romanzi feuilleton come Les mystères de Marseille (I misteri di Marsiglia) e Le voeu d'une morte (II voto di una morta), non certo fatti per attirare sull'autore l'attenzione della critica seria. Praticamente nessuno si accorge dei due libri, che si perdono nella gran massa dei prodotti senza fisionomia destinati al consumo. Siamo ai limiti della paraletteratura, e Zola ne è freddamente cosciente, se in una lettera all'amico Valabrègue, che lo stigmatizza in nome del buon gusto letterario, scrive: «Ho bisogno della folla, ci vado come posso, tento tutti i mezzi per impadronirmene. In questo momento ho bisogno soprattutto di due cose: pubblicità e denaro»¹. Il giovane scrittore si è prefisso un compito: farsi le ossa, darsi un metodo di produzione. Vuole essere un professionista della letteratura, e tutto è buono per imparare il mestiere, anche l'apprendistato meno nobile. Les mystères de Marseille è, come riconosce senza arrossire lo stesso Zola, il quale ha sempre difeso con orgogliosa onestà anche le meno felici tra le proprie opere, un «lavoro di puro mestiere, e di brutto mestiere»². Un lavoro, comunque, senza il quale non avrebbe preso vita un 'opera della forza di Thérèse Raquin, in cui appaiono bruciate tutte le insorgenze idillico-sentimentali dei Contes à Ninon (1864), esordio tardoro-mantico del narratore.

Il libro esce nel 1867. L'autore ha soltanto ventisette anni, e mostra una capacità di strutturazione diegetica assolutamente fuori del comune, un 'acutezza di analisi psicologica tagliente, infine una crudeltà di rappresentazione che — se spinta alle estreme conseguenze col necessario cinismo intellettuale, anziché riportare entro l'alveo della morale convenzionale la sua carica nell'ultima fase del racconto, coi cattivi giustamente puniti e la vittima giustamente risarcita — avrebbe dato luogo in tutta naturalezza a un capolavoro.

Il fatto è che la potenza crudele del giovane Zola non può giungere ai fastigi di una radicale perversità. Lo scrittore, malgrado il coraggio di proporre in pieno conformismo Secondo Impero una materia sordida e azzardosamente negativa, non è in grado di trarre fino in fondo partito dalla lezione sarcastica di Sade e di Laclos, che in tema di «infamia» romanzesca avevano toccato un point of no return proprio giocando con le carte della violenza fisica e del plagio psicologico, molto analoghe a quelle giocate dallo Zola della Raquin che è, a suo modo, un romanzo noir e «di spavento» sotto tratti bruscamente realistici.

Durante la stesura, lo stesso Zola parla del libro come di un «grande studio psicologico e fisiologico». In una lettera del maggio 1867 all'amico Valabrègue dice: «Questo romanzo, che ho quasi terminato di scrivere, sarà sicuramente la mia opera migliore. Credo di essermici impegnato anima e corpo. Temo, anzi, di essermici impegnato col corpo un po' troppo e di turbare il signor procuratore imperiale. È anche vero che qualche mese di prigione non mi fa paura»³.

Nella Francia della borghesia affaristico-bancaria di Napoleone il Piccolo, ancora soprattutto intenta a mettere in pratica il famoso Enrichissez-vous! («Arricchitevi!») di Guizot, il Delitto non paga, e il Vizio esibito procura, ben più della sadiana Virtù, qualche infortunio di troppo. Zola, che si muove in una società (anche in una società letteraria tutta intrisa di questa morale da pescicani, trasgredisce al livello della descrizione non al livello del messaggio, che recupera alla fine del romanzo, cioè alla fine dei conti, una dimensione rassicurante pur nell'ambito del raccapriccio. Doppio suicidio degli assassini. Soddisfazione feroce della vecchia Raquin, che vede così vendicato il suo povero figlio annegato nelle acque della Senna per mano della moglie adultera e del suo amante Laurent.

C'è in Thérèse Raquin più di un colpo di genio, sulla linea di una procedura di allegoria straniata. Si pensi al personaggio della vecchia mereiaio Raquin, la quale involontariamente costruisce la catena di orrori che culmina non con l'uccisione del figlio, ma — in matematica progressione — con il matrimonio tra i due assassini (la nuora Thérèse e il giovane scioperato Laurent, reputato dall'ingenua donna il migliore amico del figlio), da lei stessa caldeggiato e costruito, e infine con la paralisi e l'afasia che la riducono a un vegetale immobilizzato e sottoposto quindi al martirio di conoscere la verità nell'assoluta impotenza di agire con la parola o coi gesti. La sua diventa da questo momento una presenza di vittima passiva che tuttavia assume suo malgrado la tragica autorità di un coro muto, al centro di una vicenda di dannazione che sta precipitando inesorabilmente verso la catastrofe. E ancora: la straordinaria invenzione della ferita che non cicatrizza sul collo di Laurent, inflittagli da un morso di Camille durante la colluttazione che l'ha visto soccombere nelle acque del fiume, e che brucia come un 'ulcerazione della carne ma più ancora come le stimmate di un rimorso immedicabile. E la lunga fantasia macabra rappresentata dalla sequenza dell'obitorio, che Laurent dopo il delitto (rubricato come incidente) frequenta praticamente ogni giorno con un terrore affascinato, fino a che non riconosce il cadavere disfatto e ripugnante dell'ucciso, che prenderà a perseguitarlo ormai senza tregua nei suoi incubi diurni e nelle sue interminabili veglie notturne. Dopo il matrimonio con Thérèse la presenza della vittima cresce tra i due assassini, li divide e li rende nemici. Il suo spazio sempre più costante e aggressivo non è quello di un fantasma: è lo spazio fisico, tangibile e ossessivo dell'allucinazione, che nei terrori dei coniugi colpevoli prende corpo addirittura nel loro letto, in mezzo a loro, fino alla sensazione insostenibile e orrenda che un possibile abbraccio comprenda anche il corpo rigonfio e verdastro dell'annegato.

La conclusione di Thérèse Raquin chiarisce fulmineamente, in termini che si direbbero didascalici, più che il senso complessivo del romanzo, che rimane comunque affidato alla sua ricchezza rappresentativa, le intenzionalità ideologiche dell'autore prima del gran ciclo dei «Rougon-Macquart»: intenzionalità fatte anche di pulsioni inconsce (autopunizione come unica possibilità di catarsi; acre assaporamento della vendetta lungamente attesa). Gli amanti diabolici trovano nel suicidio compiuto insieme, che agisce come surrogato istantaneo del reciproco progetto di eliminazione, un 'uscita dall'orrore. È la liberazione da un cumulo insostenibile di tormenti (senso di colpa via via più schiacciante; tentativo di sottrarsi ai danni dell'altro — alla responsabilità feroce di una complicità da scontarsi in solido; terrore speculare della denuncia del coniuge, per stanchezza o per odio). Siamo ancora, pervicacemente, all'interno della sfera «nervosa» del delirio patologico e animale. A Thérèse e Laurent la dimensione morale è preclusa, ma ciò non impedisce al narratore di caricare della propria morale rigidamente regolamentatrice (a una data quantità di crimine deve naturalmente corrispondere un'equivalente quantità di castigo) anche i loro comportamenti estremi:

In quell'istante, quella sensazione strana che precede l'avvicinarsi di un pericolo fece girare la testa ai due coniugi con un moto istintivo. Si guardarono. Thérèse vide il flacone nelle mani di Laurent, e Laurent notò il lampo bianco della lama che luccicava tra le pieghe della gonna di Thérèse. Si esaminarono così per qualche secondo, muti e freddi, il marito accanto al tavolo, la moglie china davanti alla credenza. Avevano capito. Ciascuno dei due si sentì raggelare sorprendendo il suo stesso pensiero nel complice. Leggendo reciprocamente quella segreta intenzione sui loro visi sconvolti, si fecero pietà e orrore.

La signora Raquin, sentendo che la fine era prossima, li guardava con occhi fissi e penetranti.

E bruscamente Thérèse e Laurent scoppiarono in lacrime. Una crisi suprema li spezzò, li gettò l'uno nelle braccia dell'altro, deboli come fanciulli. Ebbero come l'impressione che qualcosa di dolce e di tenero, si fosse ridestato nel loro petto. Piansero, senza parlare, pensando alla strada fangosa che avevano percorso e che avrebbero continuato a percorrere se fossero stati abbastanza vili da vivere ancora. Allora, al ricordo del passato, si sentirono talmente stanchi, nauseati di se stessi, da provare un immenso bisogno di riposo, di annientamento. Si scambiarono un ultimo sguardo, uno sguardo di ringraziamento, davanti al coltello e al bicchiere di veleno. Thérèse prese il bicchiere, ne bevve metà e lo tese a Laurent che lo vuotò. Fu un lampo. Caddero l'uno sull'altro, folgorati, trovando finalmente nella morte una consolazione. La bocca della giovane donna andò a urtare, sul collo di suo marito, la cicatrice lasciata dai denti di Camille.

I cadaveri rimasero per tutta la notte sul pavimento della sala da pranzo, contratti, rannicchiati, rischiarati dai riflessi giallastri della lampada che il paralume proiettava su di loro. E, per quasi dodici ore, fino a mezzogiorno dell'indomani, la signora Raquin, rigida e muta, li contemplò ai suoi piedi, non potendo saziare i suoi occhi, schiacciandoli con i suoi sguardi implacabili.

Nella prefazione alla seconda edizione del romanzo (aprile 1868) Zola espone, a difesa offensiva nei confronti dei critici, la propria Filosofia della Composizione: «In Thérèse Raquin ho voluto studiare dei temperamenti, non dei caratteri. In questo risiede la ragione d'essere del libro. Ho scelto dei personaggi completamente sopraffatti dai nervi e dal sangue, privi di libero arbitrio, spinti ad agire nella vita dalla fatalità della carne. Thérèse e Laurent sono degli animali travestiti da esseri umani: nient'altro. Ho cercato di seguire da vicino in questi animali il lavoro sordo della passione, la spinta dell'istinto, le turbe cerebrali sopravvenute in seguito a una crisi nervosa.

Gli amori dei miei protagonisti sono la semplice soddisfazione di un bisogno: l'omicidio che commettono è solo una conseguenza dell'adulterio, conseguenza che accettano come i lupi accettano l'assassinio delle pecore; infine, ciò che sono stato costretto a chiamare rimorso consiste in realtà in un puro disordine organico, in una rivolta del sistema nervoso che sta per cedere. In loro l'anima è totalmente assente: è un fatto che sono obbligato a sottoscrivere perché ho voluto io questa impostazione.

A questo punto spero che il lettore cominci a capire che il mio fine è stato soprattutto scientifico. Appena abbozzati i personaggi di Thérèse e di Laurent, ho voluto risolvere alcuni problemi: ho tentato di spiegare la strana unione che può prodursi tra due diversi temperamenti, ho mostrato il profondo turbamento che deriva dall'accostamento tra una natura sensuale e una natura nervosa».

E poco dopo, tendendo quasi irosamente la corda della propria tesi: «Mi sono [...] limitato a compiere su due organismi viventi quel lavoro analitico che i chirurghi eseguono sui cadaveri. Dovrete convenire che non è molto piacevole, appena usciti da un simile compito, quando ancora si assapora la gioia della ricerca della verità, sentirsi accusare di aver perseguito come unico fine la confezione di un osceno quadretto di genere».

Tutto, in questa appassionata dichiarazione di poetica, appare troppo semplice. Di complicato, in realtà, c'è l'irrisolta impostazione ideologica del narratore, che non se la sente (e in nome di quale morale potrebbe farlo, se non in nome di una morale violentemente blasfema nei confronti di quella dominante?) di attribuire alle sue creature la benché minima responsabilità. In quanto «animali», puri «organismi viventi», esse sono destituite secondo Zola di qualsiasi psicologia, quindi di qualsiasi capacità di scelta. Il loro comportamento è quello di due automi, tutti i loro atti sono predeterminati e consequenziali secondo un processo rigidamente meccanico. Tutto ciò, a detta dell'autore: ma le dinamiche interne del romanzo sono lì, per fortuna, a smentire le sue pretese e i suoi alibi improntati al più volgare determinismo.

In realtà, Thérèse Raquin non ha bisogno di nessuna difesa d'ufficio, e la discreta ingenuità della presa di posizione del suo autore, interessante più come elemento di dimostrazione a contrario che come indispensabile appui teorico, non inficia né accresce l'intrinseca energia poetica del romanzo. Di questo libro ancor oggi vivissimo, il quale è stato acutamente visto, or non è molto, come un trattamento di materiali d'appendice che «assume le proporzioni del dramma classico, diviene epitome di quella tragedia greca da camera, che, in anni recenti, è stata brillantemente teorizzata da Szondi»⁴.

Un «dramma domestico» quindi, che si sviluppa attraverso una serie di segregazioni fisiche e psicologiche, lontanissime, se non opposte, ai liberi spazi en plein air che negli stessi anni sono la grande scoperta innovativa dei pittori impressionisti. Un seguito di scenari angusti, squallidi, privi di luce in cui le tinte dominanti sono livide e spente, e che — pur non concentrandosi unicamente sul principio dell'unità di luogo —, tendono comunque a uniformarvisi in misura massiccia, data la centralità che nella vicenda ha il tetro negozio-abitazione in cui vivono i personaggi. Il tono insieme depressivo e sinistro del romanzo lo si respira fin dall'attacco:

In fondo a rue Guénégaud, venendo dal lungosenna, si trova il passaggio del Pont-Neuf, una sorta di corridoio stretto e oscuro che va da rue Mazarine a rue de Seine. Questo passaggio è lungo trenta passi e largo al massimo due; è pavimentato di lastroni giallastri, consunti, sconnessi, che trasudano sempre un'umidità acre; la vetrata che lo ricopre, tagliata ad angolo retto, è nera di sporcizia.

Nelle belle giornate estive, quando un sole pesante brucia le strade, una luce biancastra filtra dai vetri sudici e vaga miserabilmente nel passaggio. Nelle brutte giornate invernali, nelle mattinate nebbiose i vetri vomitano solo notte sui lastroni umidi, una notte lurida e ignobile.

Il tangibile disgusto del narratore si esercita sia sugli ambienti che sulla cianfrusaglia di merceria in vendita nel negozio della vecchia Raquin (« Tutte le tinte tendevano ormai a un grigio sporco in quello stipo infradiciato dalla polvere e dall'umidità»), per trasferirsi, come per omologia, ai personaggi: la vecchia grassa, pallida e quasi perennemente affondata in un torpore sonnolento; la giovane nuora «dalprofilo serio», chiusa e impenetrabile; il trentenne marito di Thérèse e figlio dell'anziana mereiaio: «piccolo, gracile, aveva un portamento languido; con isuoi capelli di un biondo insipido, la barba rada, il viso coperto di chiazze rosse, sembrava un ragazzino malato e viziato». Infine, il gatto, che nel romanzo, fino a quando in un accesso d'ira Laurent pittore non lo sfracellerà contro un muro, esercita la funzione enigmatica e malvagia del testimone muto capace per vie misteriosamente magnetiche di tormentare la coscienza infelice degli adùlteri assassini. In questo spazio concentrato, Laurent, pittore a tempo perso di mediocre talento, e soprattutto profittatore senza scrupoli a caccia di fortuna, ha il ruolo dell'usurpatore. Elimina illegittimo «sovrano» di quel regno meschino, e —da ganzo della «regina» — gli subentra dopo il delitto anche nei diritti coniugali, come capita nelle migliori tradizioni della tragedia classica. Il resto, il gruppetto di stolide figure che il giovedì sera si raccolgono nel salottino dei Raquin per una partita a carte e per avvitare l'una all'altra un 'infinità di chiacchiere insulse (il commissario di polizia Michaud; suo figlio Olivier con la fragile e piccola moglie; il vecchio impiegato delle Ferrovie Grivet) risultano silhouettes puramente riempitive, in quel vuoto costipato che inebetisce la giovane, nevrotica e sensuale Thérèse, e la predispone al momento fatale in cui scocca la scintilla dell'incontro erotico con Laurent.

Così come importante è nel romanzo la presenza di una Parigi funerea, allucinata e in qualche modo irreale pur in tanto sfoggio di «realismo», assolutamente fondamentale si rivela l'aver concepito i personaggi e i loro movimenti «di scena» come schiacciati tra il «corridoio stretto e oscuro» che è il «passaggio» del Pont-Neuf e il triste negozio-appartamento. Il «passaggio» funziona come il tubo intestinale, il canale di scarico di tutti gli orrendi malesseri, frustrazioni, angosce dei protagonisti. I «passaggi», allora, come subways metapsichiche perennemente intasate, non solo come angusti budelli topografici. Teatro sotterraneo. Grotta delle streghe. Wunderkammer surreale. L'ha capito benissimo Walter Benjamin in quello splendido studio sui passages parigini, parte di un 'opera inconclusa su Parigi capitale del XIX secolo, in cui suona aspramente questo giudizio sul romanzo zollano, certo non condivisibile in assoluto, ma da leggersi (storicamente) nel quadro della dura dialettica degli anni Trenta fra mimesi realistica e invenzione delle avanguardie: «A ciò che dicono ipoeti dei loro scritti non bisogna mai credere. Volendo difendere la sua Thérèse Raquin dall'ostilità delle critiche, Zola dichiarò che il suo libro era uno studio scientifico sui temperamenti. Per lui si sarebbe insomma trattato di esporre esattamente attraverso un esempio come il temperamento sanguigno e quello nervoso agiscano uno sull'altro, a discapito di entrambi. Questa dichiarazione non poteva accontentare nessuno. Essa non spiega nemmeno l'impronta di una dozzinalità senza precedenti, il carattere sanguinolento, la truculenza da cinematografo d'azione. Non a caso la trama si svolge in un passage. Se poi qualcosa il libro davvero espone scientificamente, questo è il decesso dei passages parigini, il processo di putrefazione di un 'architettura. L'atmosfera di questo libro è pregna dei suoi veleni, e di essi periscono i suoi personaggi»⁵.

Anche di questi tratti maleodoranti è fatto il mito di Parigi, e onestamente va riconosciuto che la Raquin zoliana ne costituisce una fase quanto si voglia grossière ma di indubitabile energia. Di quella lontana Ville Lumière ha scritto Giovanni Macchia: «Parigi diventa come un 'immensa miniera al cui grandioso sfruttamento tutti possono partecipare; un enorme asilo per l'intelligenza universale; un meraviglioso blocco d'appunti che si può sfogliare senza mistero. Dal realismo al naturalismo. Lontano dalla mitomania di un Balzac, nei confronti della società parigina, Zola si è scelto un meccanismo inesorabile che possa guidarlo verso la sicurezza delle cause: una grande aria d'inchiesta»⁶. Non è poco, ed è il contributo sostanzioso che l'autore dell'Assomoir, la cui musa imbronciata sta sempre in bilico tra reportage e studio analitico imbevuto di ossessioni fisiologiche, ha dato al romanzo moderno. Fingere che un romanziere cui debbono la vita oltre 1200 personaggi non costituisca che un incidente di percorso nell'arte del raccontare, equivale a imitare quei detrattori di Anatole France (autore peraltro tanto inferiore a Zola), dei quali Elisabeth de Gramont diceva che facevano pipi contro l'Arco di Trionfo⁷.

In frontespizio alla prima edizione di Thérèse Raquin Zola pose l'azzardata affermazione di Taine, secondo cui «le vice et la ver tu sont desproduits comme le vetriol et le sucre». Un adagio seriosamente umoristico. Il positivismo, a forza di semplificazioni brutali, finisce per complicare tutto, ma il giovane narratore non se ne avvede, e tira dritto per la sua strada. Sono gli anni, del resto, in cui l'idolo Flaubert afferma: «Le temps du beau est passe. Plus ira, plus l'art sera scientifique [...]. La letterature prendra de plus en plus les allures de science»⁸. Sulla base di queste convinzioni, o di questi pregiudizi, il ventisettenne Zola dà vita alla sua Thérèse. La fa nascere figlia del fratello di mamma Raquin, il capitano Degans, che l'ha avuta da un 'algerina. Nelle sue vene scorre dunque sangue africano, ardente e selvaggio. Un sangue carico di tutti gli istinti belluini e sensuali propri di una stirpe di predatori, immagina Zola con un'ombra di razzismo involontario. Un sangue denso e cupo che, a contatto con le frustrazioni e le nevrosi di una civiltà che pure lo scrittore guarda con occhio severamente critico, non potrà che esplodere nella débauché e nel delitto. Tout se tient, così, nel quadro ideologico del giovane Zola. Ma, lo si è già detto, è un quadro che si rompe sotto la pressione di quello che il Lanson ha definito «l'immenso talento» di un infaticabile costruttore il cui occhio allucinato «deforme et agrandit tous les objets»⁹. Quella di Zola, dice Lanson, «c'est de la science en trompe-l'oeil»¹⁰.

L'aveva capito perfettamente uno che di realismo crudelmente straniato se ne intendeva, quel Gustave Flaubert che espresse la sua stima al collega con un complimento non formale: «Io sostengo che voi siete un bel romantico. E per questo vi ammiro e vi amo». Di Zola, l'autore di Madame Bovary apprezzava la «ferocia delle passioni sotto una superficie bonaria»¹¹, come dirà sette anni dopo l'uscita della Raquin, a proposito de La faute de l'abbé Mouret. Ma anche da noi c'era chi aveva testa per capire l'intensità di tipo nuovo che emanava da un libro come Thérèse Raquin. Era Francesco De Sanctis, il quale, forgiato al fuoco del materialismo integrale di Leopardi, non si lasciava certo scandalizzare — come capitò a molto coevi critici d'oltralpe — dall'audacia di certe rappresentazioni alquanto sovreccitate della sfera carnale. «Questo libro riassume troppo fedelmente tutte le sconcezze della letteratura contemporanea per non sollevare un po’ di collera», tuonò Louis Ulbach sul Figaro, facendosi portavoce del più gretto benpensantismo culturale¹². Era lo stesso famigerato condirettore di quella Revue de Paris che aveva già creato non pochi problemi a Flaubert, all'epoca della parziale (e censurata) pubblicazione della Bovary sulle colonne del periodico. Ma ormai Thérèse Raquin era là, proprio come Madame Bovary: due storie, appunto, di «bovarismo» e di autodistruzione, in cui due eroine ossesse e funeste a chi le accosta, a cominciare dai rispettivi coniugi similmente inadeguati, diventano per forza poetica luoghi incandescenti di contraddizione dell'inconscio collettivo moderno.

MARIO LUNETTA

---

¹ Cit. in M. Bernard, Zola, Parigi, Seuil, 1971, p. 12; e ripreso da L. Binni, «Introduzione» a Teresa Raquin, Milano, Garzanti, 1985.

² Cfr. É. Zola, «Prefazione» a I misteri di Marsiglia, Milano 1885. La citazione è riportata da Riccardo Reim nella sua introduzione a I misteri di Marsiglia, Roma, Editori Riuniti, 1987.

³ Riportata in L. Binni, «Introduzione», cit.

⁴ E. Groppali, «Presentazione» a Teresa Raquin, cit., Milano, Garzanti, 1985.

⁵ Cfr. W. Benjamin, Parigi capitale del XIX secolo, Torino, Einaudi, 1986, p. 1083.

⁶ Cfr. G. Macchia, Il mito di Parigi, Torino, Einaudi, 1965, p. 344.

⁷ Cfr. E. de Gramont, Souvenirsdu monde (1980-1940), Milano, Longanesi, 1971, p. 14.

⁸ Cit. in W. Rossani, Scrittori stranieri, Pisa, Nistri-Lischi, 1963, p. 71.

⁹ Cfr. G. Lanson, Histoire de la littérature frangaise, Parigi, Hachette, 1946, p. 1080.

¹⁰ Ibid., p. 1079.

¹¹ Cit. in Interpretazioni di Zola, a cura di R. Paris, Roma, Savelli, 1975, p. 57.

¹² Ibid., p. 51.

Nota biobibliografica

LA VITA

Émile Zola nasce a Parigi il 12 aprile 1840 dall'ingegnere veneziano Francesco Zola e da Emilie Aubert. Quando il futuro scrittore viene al mondo, suo padre si trova ad Aix-en-Provence. La sua amicizia con Adolphe Thiers, allora ministro degli Interni, gli facilita il progetto e la realizzazione del cosiddetto «canale Zola», che porterà l'acqua ad Aix, ridando vita alla città. Se Emilie, sua madre, è tenera e dominata da una sensibilità lievemente nevrotica, suo padre, come dice A. Lanoux in Buongiorno Monsieur Zola è «un tipo d'avventuriero alla Stendhal, appassionato sino alla follia del proprio lavoro».

Nel 1843 tutta la famiglia si trasferisce ad Aix, ove, ottenuto ufficialmente l'appalto del canale, Francesco Zola ha costituito una società per azioni. La sua morte giunge quattro anni dopo, per un attacco di polmonite: per la vedova e per il ragazzo Émile si prospetta, dopo un passato da agiata famiglia borghese, un futuro di ristrettezze. Dapprima nel convitto di Notre-Dame, in seguito nel collegio governativo di Aix, stringe amicizia con alcuni coetanei imbevuti di spirito romantico: tra questi, il futuro pittore Paul Cézanne, che gli resterà amico fino alla pubblicazione del romanzo L'oeuvre ( 1866), nel cui protagonista si vedrà negativamente raffigurato. «A quell'epoca — ricorda lo scrittore — i nostri amori erano, prima di tutto, i poeti. Non andavamo a zonzo da soli, avevamo sempre qualche libro nelle tasche o nei carnieri da caccia. Per un anno, Victor Hugo ha regnato su di noi da monarca assoluto, conquistandoci con quel suo incedere da gigante. Ne conoscevamo a memoria drammi interi...»¹ Qualche tempo dopo «uno di noi portò un volume di De Musset... La lettura di De Musset significò per noi tutti il risveglio del nostro cuore... Il nostro culto per Victor Hugo ricevette un colpo formidabile: soltanto Alfred De Musset troneggiava ora nei nostri carnieri da caccia»². Il ragazzo Zola divora i romanzi di Chateaubriand, di Scott, di Balzac, di Flaubert, i saggi di Taine, i versi

Recensioni su Thérèse Raquin

[theelliemo · Valutazione: 2 su 5 stelle]

This starts off as a great story, but from about half-way in, it gets repetitive and unnecessarily drawn-out. The final scene was as much a relief for me reading it as it was for the main characters

[beezle176 · Valutazione: 4 su 5 stelle]

fantastic book, depressing story

[flippinpages-1 · Valutazione: 2 su 5 stelle]

So disappointed with this book. Horrible repetitive writing. No characterization. It's like a poor knockoff of "Crime and punishment". I may have chosen a poor translation as I didn't do my usual research but that only bears so much responsibility.

[bookmarque · Valutazione: 4 su 5 stelle]

If you think serious depravity is a theme confined to 20th century literature or later, you need to read Therese Raquin. This book paints a brutal and unrelenting story of two amoral people who will even fake the appearance of guilt and remorse. At first I was put off by the repetition. In the beginning it was the grungy arcade, shop and claustrophobic rooms where Therese and family spend most of their lives. Then it was the description of that life and what led to present circumstances. Each section of forward progress is really over-the-top and repetitive, but once Zola is done and moves beyond, it’s pretty much left in the past. Which is good because the sheer emotional turmoil is enough to cope with from one time frame to the next.It’s that emotional turmoil that had me at the breaking point for believability. No, I’ve never been a murderer or an adulteress, so I don’t know what that kind of guilt can do to a person, but it seemed like drama for drama’s sake. Either in the narrative style, or in the intent and motivations of the characters. Whichever it was, it felt alien, like it did in Crime and Punishment. All the murderers in these tales have many a justification for their crimes ahead of time. Their victims deserve to be killed. The killers have the right to do away with their victims because justice is on their side. But after the killing is done, all fall prey to their own twisted psyches which feed on escalating guilt if not exactly remorse.For Therese and Laurent, they wait so long to engineer their eventual marriage, that any passion they manufactured for each other (out of propinquity and ennui) is gone; burned out by the act of violence they committed and has gone unpunished and undetected. Camille’s death was and will forever be an accident to the world and what is more natural than to bring Camille’s widow and best friend together in a union to honor the drowned man. By the time they connive their way into their legitimate relationship, all they have left is fear, guilt, self-pity, and hatred for each other. Zola describes it well in one short sentence - “Waiting had extinguished the flame that had formerly fired them.”Some say that Therese is portrayed as a more base creature than Laurent and is the victim of the writer’s misogyny and chauvinism, but I didn’t feel it was unbalanced. Laurent is described as not caring if he hurt Camille or his mother. He’s brutish, lazy and delusional about his right to live a completely idle life on the money Therese will inherit from Madame Raquin. His “love” for Therese is brought on by the fact that he cannot have her, not from anything genuine. I found the use of the word sweehearts to describe what they are to each other to be the height of irony and I don’t know whether to attribute it to Zola or the translation. Either way it is the perfect antithesis of their true nature. As bad as Laurent is, Therese is a perfect match for him. She manipulates Laurent to violence and uses this to engineer some sort of pardon in her own mind. She abases herself before Madame Raquin and though the old woman is beyond speech, determines that she does in fact forgive Therese for killing her son. With these ideas twisting in her brain, she attempts to live a life outside of her household and tries on loose living and drink for a while. So does Laurent. It doesn’t work to relieve them of their hallucinations of the dead man and they are inexorably drawn back together in a spiral of increasing violence and hate.The gothic heights of perverted morality and atmosphere are pretty thick toward the end and the Poe vibe is even stronger. Their impending madness is always in the forefront of the narrative and it doesn’t take much to see where this will end up. With Madame Raquin’s paralysis a la Noirtier being the absolute capper on the whole situation, the tension escalates to the inevitable conclusion which, really, is the only way it could end and it satisfies. Therese and Laurent deserved each other and were true to their natures to the bitter end.

[kristelh_15 · Valutazione: 4 su 5 stelle]

The story is of a young girl, daughter of the brother of Madame Raquin and a woman from Algeria who is brought to Madame Raquin to raise after the mother dies. Madame Raquin has one son Camille Raquin who is sickly and spoiled. Madame Raquin marries her son and Therese to each other. Therese later becomes involved an an affair. The story is about the affair and murder. The author’s purpose in writing the novel is to “study temperaments” Therefore there is a detached and scientific approach to the story and the work is considered an example of Naturalism. Themes include punishment and imprisonment, temperaments and the interaction of these temperaments. Therese is melancholic, Laurent is sanguine, Camille is phlegmatic. It was made into film, TV and theatrical adaptations. What I liked; it was a story easy to follow, the characters were such that it was hard to like any of them. You want to feel sorry for Therese and Laurent is detestable. Madame and Camille Raquin have little to evoke any sympathy. Still the story is good. The narration by Winslet is very good. Her voice is clear and easy to listen. I give it 3.5 stars. It would have been higher except for its detachment. The author studies adultery and murder and the devastating effects it has on those that make that choice. Of the three temperaments, Camille’s was the easiest to find merit. He was rather spoiled but he had a desire to work and work he found and work he did. More than what can be said for Laurent.

[knittingfreak · Valutazione: 4 su 5 stelle]

I finished this book a while ago and just haven't had time to post about it. I've been busy knitting desperately trying to get some Christmas presents done. I really haven't been doing much reading at all. I have started a 'knitting novel' for one of my December book clubs, though.This novel by Emile Zola apparently caused quite a stir when it was first published in 1868. The novel tells the tragic story of Therese and her lover Laurent and the lengths that they go to in order to be together. For the time, the sex scenes were quite explicit, and the author was actually accused of pornography. I personally didn't think they were that explicit and don't think most people today would be offended by them. The Penguin Classics edition that I read contains a preface in which Zola defends his work against these accusations.Therese is taken in by a woman after she is orphaned and is raised with the woman's sickly son, Camille. It's just assumed by all that the two will marry one day, which they do. The three live a relatively happy life until Camille brings a young man home with him one day. Laurent awakens feelings in Therese that she has never experienced before. The two begin an affair and become obsessed with possessing each other. This is not a sweet story of a forbidden love. Instead, it quickly turns into a very dark tale, and Therese and Laurent find themselves in a living nightmare.

[mabe_10 · Valutazione: 4 su 5 stelle]

Zola painted Camille as a man devoid of redeeming features. We were routing for Laurant to finish him off so that he and Thesese could indulge their passion. However, when the moment came it was truly horrible. The downward and agonising descent into madness and eventual mutual suicide was difficult to read.

[rosecityreader · Valutazione: 4 su 5 stelle]

Published in 1867, Thérèse Raquin is Emile Zola’s first novel and a magnificent proto-noir thriller. All the necessary elements are here -- a hot-to-trot young wife, an invalid husband, a greedy lover – all simmered together in a Parisian stew of lust, murder, deception, debauchery, and guilt. With the macabre ghoulishness of Poe and the diabolical desperation of Cain, Thérèse Raquin should be on any noir-lover's bookshelf.

[williamcostiganjr · Valutazione: 3 su 5 stelle]

This is really a dreary book. Zola never lets up. I felt kinda "eh" about this novel, but it's a quick read and holds one's interest.It's humorless and not very enjoyable though, so I'd probably pass if I were you.However, if you are ever considering committing a crime this book will change your mind in a flash.

[gbill_7 · Valutazione: 3 su 5 stelle]

Zola’s first major novel suffers mainly from him trying too hard, presumably because he was a young writer. The premise is straightforward: Therese Raquin is trapped in a marriage of convenience to her sickly cousin, Camille, and under the watchful eye of his mother. Along comes her husband’s friend Laurent, and sparks fly. To describe how it plays out from there would be to spoil the plot, which is pretty thin, and plods along.Zola is guilty scientifically of believing in the theory of the day that people could be categorized by their temperaments (bilious, sanguine, nervous, and lymphatic), and artistically of explaining his characters actions per his theories, as opposed to letting the reader observe and draw their own conclusions. In addition, the description of animal passion, haunting guilt, and the device of a bite on Laurent’s neck are all overwrought. However, there were a few redeeming aspects of the book: (1) the description of the public viewing of the morgue for unidentified bodies in 19th century Paris, which was shocking and true, (2) the torturous fate of Madame Raquin, and (3) the minor character Grivet, who Zola skillfully has playing the oaf on all occasions. These aren’t enough to pull the rating up higher than a three though, and I would recommend Germinal or Nana from the more mature Zola instead.

[stbalbach_1 · Valutazione: 4 su 5 stelle]

Thérèse Raquin is one of Zola's early works published when he was 27 years old. The writing style is very energetic, in fact Zola tries too hard. But it's still a powerful story, despite extended overly-emotional passages that turn his characters into amateur drama students. Zola existed in that middle ground between Romanticism and Modernism - there is overwrought sentimental emotion of Romanticism combined with the realism and symbolism of Modernism. This is my 8th Zola novel. I don't know what it is about Zola and smell but once again I came away feeling like I had sniffed the dirty undergarments of unsavory Paris. And once again I thought the first third of the novel was the best as he paints character and scenery portraits - when it goes internal and Zola relies on outdated notions of human behavior it becomes wearisome.

[voxel9ux · Valutazione: 5 su 5 stelle]

This is such a seriously Gothic story, IMO. The anger, the hatred, the lust, the disgust and the paranoia. Such a delicious mixture so well written is totally sick! I have read this story more than once and enjoy it more each time discovering new things and new interpretations every time I do. Zola is a master craftsman in the genre and I encourage anyone to read this book. You will discover the roots of many modern television and cinema themes paying homage to this book. I bet Hitchcock read this story more than once!

[jvioland_1 · Valutazione: 4 su 5 stelle]

A weak woman marries a weak cousin at the request of her strong Aunt. She has a long affair with the husband's friend, the husband dies, the lovers quarrel and plot to kill the other, have remorse and commit suicide before the Aunt who enjoys the spectacle as punishment for the woman who was responsible for her son's sad life. Hoo, boy!

[nosajeel · Valutazione: 5 su 5 stelle]

An absorbing novel, an early version of a noir. It is a naturalistic "study" of a loveless couple, an affair, a murder, and a descent into madness that, as you might guess, ends badly.

The novel generally has a very tight economy, with four main characters, four supporting characters, very few other walk-on parts, and the majority set in one location. It was considered shocking at the time due to its relatively open depictions of sexuality, crime, and punishment. It still is somewhat "shocking," to the degree that anything is, most notably as the lovers taunt the stroke-ridden mother of their victim--who is unable to communicate their confession to her visitors.

Zola's preface describes the book in quasi-scientific terms, as a scientific observation that takes an inevitable course that he did not decide. He places himself at odds with the romantics, but the novel itself shares many of the same dramas and conventions--and is thus considerably more interesting than the naturalistic description it claims to be.

[lauralkeet · Valutazione: 4 su 5 stelle]

In the preface to Thérèse Raquin, Emile Zola wrote,In a word, I wanted only one thing: given a powerful man and a dissatisfied woman, to search out the beast in them, and nothing but the beast, plunge them into a violent drama and meticulously note the feelings and actions of those two beings. I have merely performed on two living bodies the analytical work that surgeons carry out on dead ones. (p 4)The book was written in 1867, when psychology and behavioral studies focused largely on the idea of "temperament." Zola chose to examine how two individuals of different temperament would respond to a set of circumstances. Enter Thérèse, a young woman abandoned by her natural father, raised by her aunt (Madame Raquin), and married to her sickly cousin Camille. She worked as an assistant in her aunt's Paris haberdashery, and helped care for Camille. Life was dull, even stifling. Camille worked in a railway company office, and soon established a regular Thursday evening dinner with colleagues at his home. One of the guests, Laurent, was young and virile, and Thérèse was instantly attracted to him. The feeling was mutual, and they quickly found themselves entangled in a passionate affair.From this point Zola explored what two people of such temperaments might do to satisfy their desires. As Thérèse and Laurent's passions escalated, their actions became more rash, culminating in an unthinkable act. Zola meticulously dissected the couple's thoughts and actions, and the impact of the act on their relationship. Things turned quite dark at this point; the claustrophobia and fear were palpable. There was never any doubt in my mind how the story would end, and yet there was still an element of suspense.Zola's writing style is detached and analytical -- like a news reporter or scientist, reporting the facts without judgment -- but he also brought 1860s Paris to life, with settings modeled on popular paintings of the day. Despite the detached style, Thérèse Raquin was an excellent character study. I actually found Madame Raquin's character most intriguing. She's somewhat of a passive bystander, and yet as the situation escalates her passivity takes on a level of importance that I did not anticipate. This book was so well-written that I was quickly hooked.

[brakketh-1 · Valutazione: 4 su 5 stelle]

Excellent novel studying the different impacts that murdering someone has on different personalities.

[beyondedenrock · Valutazione: 5 su 5 stelle]

This book is alive. From the first to the last I saw the story came to life and I was drawn so completely in. It made my heart beat a little faster, and even now I have put the book down, slept and lived through another day, it is still in my head and my heart.On one hand the story is utterly modern: and it is timeless. It would be so easy to reset in in any period since it was published, and equally easy to take it back through the centuries.Because this is a story of humanity. Of what people may do to get what they want, and of how they may be destroyed if they reach too far, if they cross certain lines.A story of emptiness, passion, horror, despair, guilt, revenge …Thérèse was the daughter of a French sailor and a native woman. Her father took his sister, a haberdasher, to raise with her son. Camille, a bright but sickly child. It was expected that Thérèse and Camille would marry, and marry they did. Not because either one had feelings for the another, but because it didn’t occur to either of them to do anything else, or that life could offer anything more than they already knew.Zola painted a picture of dark and dull lives, and yet he held me. Somehow, I don’t know how, he planted the idea that something would happen, that it was imperative that I continued to turn the pages.When Camille tried to pull away from his protective mother life changed. Thérèse met Laurent, a friend of her husband who was everything that her husband was not. A passionate, obsessive relationship grew between them. Their feelings were tangible.They feared discovery. They knew what they wanted, and they were oblivious to anything else. And so they acted.That act is stunning. Shocking. A flash of light in a dark story, and it is executed quite brilliantly.It may sound like an end, but it came early in the story.The knowledge of what they had done, the consequences of what they had done, were corrosive. For Thérèse. For Laurent. And for their relationship.For a while it isn’t clear where the story will go. The pair seem trapped, in lives overtaken by guilt, horror and despair. But then something snaps. A downward spiral leads to a devastating conclusion.Zola handles all of this magnificently.The bleak street, the house, where Thérèse and her family lived and worked was described so vividly, the atmosphere was so claustrophic, it was utterly real.And he deployed his cast – four principals, four supporting players, and a cat – so cleverly. Each was essential. Each had more than one role to play. Their story has broad strokes, and it has small details too, and they all work together beautifully.The story is desperately dark, but it is honest and never gratuitous. And the story is paramount; everything else is there to support the story, and it is woven in so well that it is never a distraction. You could stop to observe if you chose, or you could be quite naturally swept along by events.It’s greatest strength is its creator’s understanding of humanity. That allowed him to bring flawed, fallible, utterly real human beings to life on the page. To lay bare their hearts and souls. And to make the evolution of their lives, the extraordinary things that happen, completely understandable.And so it was that the skill of the author, and the understanding of the author, make this book compelling, horrific, and desperately sad.

[bellettres · Valutazione: 1 su 5 stelle]

If this had not been a selection of our book group, I would not have finished it. I think it might have been a better read in the original French, but this translation was stilted and repetitive. The characters do not seem real, nor do their actions. Their crime haunts them, but only because they both have unbelievably over-active imaginations. Zola certainly evokes the misery and the hopelessness of their lives, but I was hard-pressed to care. If this is classic literature, you can have it!

[chris_v_7 · Valutazione: 5 su 5 stelle]

Over 140 years old and Zola's novel still grips with it's stale and dank atmosphere of lust, betrayal and murder. Often copied but never bettered, the characters of Therese, Laurent, Camille and Madame Raquin will haunt your memory.

[hemlokgang · Valutazione: 5 su 5 stelle]

This is the first novel I have read in French for many years. It was fantastic! Great characters whom you love to hate, fabulous melodramatic plot, and as always with Zola, so much to think about. This novel covers the following themes: passion, choice, consequence, what is a human being?, and much more. It is so French. I realize a translation could not flow in the same way, because English and French represent such differing cultures!

[cindywho-1 · Valutazione: 3 su 5 stelle]

It had been a while since I read a French novel and I'd been wanting to dive back into Zola. I think this is his first one and has some of the same themes as the other two I've read (Nana and L'assommoir) - What I find most fascinating about his stories are the details of middle class life in 19th century Paris. He'll talk about money and boredom and mediocrity and personalities that can't survive the things they've done.

[jonfaith · Valutazione: 3 su 5 stelle]

Zola was exhaustive in his efforts to establish his thesis of debilitating compunction. Unfortunately the reader is left bruised and likewise knackered as well. Old morality raises its invisible hand and thwarts the adulterers. It isn't that simple, but such is the thrust. The details of the waterborne episode are especially chilling.

[bayardus-1 · Valutazione: 4 su 5 stelle]

It's easy to see why Thérèse Raquin launched Zola's career, with its affecting imagery and dramatic scenes. It's also easy to see that this is early Zola, when the author was still figuring out pacing and how to blend his moralizing and his storytelling together. Overall, this is a good book, but a bit unbalanced.

First off, the good- even in this early book, Zola can set a great scene. He deftly establishes the character of Thérèse as a free spirit boxed in by circumstances and forced to watch her life slip away. When she is surrounded by her husband's friends at the weekly dinner party and imagines herself "buried at the bottom of the tomb, in company with mechanical corpses," you understand and sympathize with her. This is without Zola adding any malicious characters or making Thérèse into a victim: the novel emphasizes that the husband Thérèse hates so much is not evil, just as later on the book emphasizes that Thérèse and Laurent aren't cruel. The characters are what they are, all brutes (a term that Zola overuses throughout this work), but not monsters. The great scenes continue throughout the book- Thérèse and Laurent's early romance, where a stolen kiss is like a "blinding flash of lightning in a leaden sky." Later, the murder of Camille oozes with tension, and after he is gone the nearly-paralyzed Madame Raquin attempting to reveal his murder at a dinner party is a great piece of suspense. The killing of the cat by Laurent and the accompanying visuals are memorable, as is the final scene of the book, not to mention the famous morgue scene. In short, the writing hits many high notes, and, while they devolve a bit in the second half of the book, for the most part the characters avoid falling into tired archetypes.

Unfortunately, the story is not consistently great throughout. Zola has the affair escalate to murder rather quickly, so that I was told of the infatuation between Thérèse and Laurent but didn't have time to feel it. Then, once the murder occurs, Zola has the perpetrators wallow in their guilt for far too long, to the extent that the later half of the book tended to drag at times. There's nothing wrong with depicting the murder as having ruined the relationship, or with exploring the descent into vice and fear of betrayal that haunts both the characters, but the endless mention of Camille's drowned corpse occupying their lives and the sleepless nights of Thérèse and Laurent went on for so long that it dulled the impact of their grief and regret. The emphasis on how terrible the two felt after the murder made it eventually seem as though Zola wasn't so much telling a story as he was moralizing on the sin of murder, even though Zola insterestingly depicts Thérèse and Laurent as having in some ways been reborn through the act of murder (Thérèse with her adventure novels and Laurent with his art).

This is a short novel, so even shaving off twenty pages from the wallowing section and adding twenty more to the affair section could have significantly rebalanced the book and, in my opinion, made it noticeably better. Still, though, because the impressive imagery and individual scenes this story was well done overall. Not as good as Germinal, to be sure, but there's enough good stuff here that I'm excited to read La Bête Humaine, wherein Zola tackles similar subject matter with a more experienced hand. I give this book 3.5 stars, rounding up to 4.

[coach_of_alva · Valutazione: 4 su 5 stelle]

Kate Winslet reads Zola’s proto-noir tale of adultery and murder in the tone that I would have imagined Zola using: detached and disgusted. She brought the characters, male and female, to life in their short bursts of dialogue: angry, unhinged Therese; loud, brutish Laurent; the fools whose great goal in life is playing dominoes with what they imagine is a perfect family.

[jasonlf · Valutazione: 5 su 5 stelle]

An absorbing novel, an early version of a noir. It is a naturalistic "study" of a loveless couple, an affair, a murder, and a descent into madness that, as you might guess, ends badly.The novel generally has a very tight economy, with four main characters, four supporting characters, very few other walk-on parts, and the majority set in one location. It was considered shocking at the time due to its relatively open depictions of sexuality, crime, and punishment. It still is somewhat "shocking," to the degree that anything is, most notably as the lovers taunt the stroke-ridden mother of their victim--who is unable to communicate their confession to her visitors.Zola's preface describes the book in quasi-scientific terms, as a scientific observation that takes an inevitable course that he did not decide. He places himself at odds with the romantics, but the novel itself shares many of the same dramas and conventions--and is thus considerably more interesting than the naturalistic description it claims to be.

[writestuff_1 · Valutazione: 4 su 5 stelle]

Nature and circumstances seemed to have made this man for this woman, and to have driven them towards one another. Together, the woman, nervous and dissembling, the man, lustful, living like an animal, they made a strongly united couple. They complemented one another, they protected one another. In the evening, at table, in the pale light of the lamp, you could feel the strength of the bond between them, seeing Laurent’s heavy, smiling face and the silent, impenetrable mask of Therese. – from Therese Raquin, page 43 -Therese Raquin is an unhappy, somber woman who has married her cousin, Camille – a sickly man who repulses her. They live together with Camille’s mother Mme Raquin in a dingy apartment in Paris and the joyless days crawl past, with the only interruption being a weekly Thursday night domino game with visitors. So when Camille’s co-worker and friend Laurent arrives one evening, it is not surprising that his ruddy good looks and easy-going nature gain Therese’s attention. Soon the two are engaged in an unseemly affair right beneath the noses of Camille and his mother. The affair becomes more and more passionate, and the two lovers hatch a scheme to rid themselves of Camille so that they can marry each other.Therese Raquin is a psychological thriller of sorts which explores the psyche of the criminal mind and seeks to examine the repercussions of a criminal act. The plot is simple and the novel takes place primarily in the dreary apartment of the Raquin’s. To fully understand the novel, the reader should understand some of the science of the time. Zola, at only twenty-seven years old when he published Therese Raquin, was interested in a theory of human psychology which was well-accepted in the mid-nineteenth century…namely that of human temperament being the key to understanding human behavior. Simply put, human temperament could be divided into four basic categories: bilious, sanguine, nervous and lymphatic. At the time of the writing of this novel, doctors believed a person’s temperament could be altered by circumstance. It is this idea which motivated Zola to write Therese Raquin. Faced with fierce criticism that the novel was pornographic and “putrid,” Zola added a preface to the second edition of the book where he writes:In Therese Raquin I set out to study temperament, not character. That sums up the whole book. I chose protagonists who were supremely dominated by their nerves and their blood, deprived of free will and drawn into every action of their lives by the predetermined lot of their flesh. – from the Preface of Therese Raquin, page 4 -Zola assigns Therese a nervous temperament which becomes inflamed when her love for Laurent is awakened.With the first kiss, she revealed the instincts of a courtesan. Her thirsting body gave itself wildly up to lust. It was as though she were awakening from a dream and being born to passion. She went from the feeble arms of Camille to the vigorous arms of Laurent, and the approach of a potent man gave her a shake that woke her flesh from its slumber. All the instincts of a highly-strung woman burst forth with exceptional violence. – from Therese Raquin, page 35-36 -Laurent, on the other hand, demonstrates a sanguine temperament.Underneath, he was lazy, with strong appetites and a well-defined urge to seek easy, lasting pleasures. His great, powerful body asked for nothing better than to lie idle, wallowing in constant indolence and gratification. – from Therese Raquin, page 28 -Zola uses the temperaments of the characters to demonstrate what happens when two people with these temperaments come together to commit a crime for their own personal gain. It is heady stuff.At its core, however, Therese Raquin is a classic tragedy. It is also a moral tale – examining the consequences of adultery and murder. Both Therese and Laurent are narcissists who fail to regret the evil of their actions. In pursuing their own selfish desires, they not only inflict cruelty on Mme Raquin (who loves and trust them), but they ruin their own lives in the process.Emile Zola’s writing is surprisingly accessible and modern given the time in history the story was penned. Zola quickly pulls the reader into the dark and despairing lives of his characters. This is far from an uplifting story – in fact, it is a rather depressing read. Despite that, I enjoyed getting inside the heads of these characters who are admittedly grotesque. Although psychology today does not agree with psychology in Zola’s time, some things do remain the same…namely that immoral behavior rarely results in happiness and violent crime is almost always punished, if only by the impact it has on the perpetrators’ psyche.Readers who enjoy classic literature, psychology, and crime novels will undoubtedly want to add Therese Raquin to their list of potential reads.Recommended.

[burritapal · Valutazione: 4 su 5 stelle]

This book is about how the temperament of people can change, going from cold to hot to murderous to insane. All of this, just because another person enters the scene. The author suffered abuse from critics and received no support from his fellow writers. Critics only concentrated on what the characters actions were, not the change in their temperament. They called the work vile.

Thérèse was an orphan, whose father gave her to his sister when she was a child. Madame Raquin had a son who was flimsy and sickly, and she spoiled him rotten. For some reason, there was always an understanding that Thérèse and Camille would get married. Thérèse, like the mute dummy that she was in the first part of the book, just went along with this, though she felt nothing for Camille but sisterly feelings. This was her downfall, because when a friend of Camille's started coming to the house, her libido woke up. And she began to deceive her aunt and her cousin-husband.
".. oh, how she was deceiving these good folk! And how happy she was to deceive them with such triumphal impudence! It was there, a few feet away, behind that thin partition, that she would greet her man; it was there that she would writhe in the Grim throes of adultery. And, for that moment, her lover would become a stranger to her, a friend and colleague of her husband, a kind of imbecile, an Intruder who did not have to concern her. This frightful playacting, this life of deception and this contrast between the burning kisses of daytime and the feigned indifference of evening, Made the young woman's heart pound with new ardour.
When madame raquin and Camille went downstairs, for some reason or other, Thérèse would leap up and silently, with Savage force, press her lips against those of her lover and stay like that, panting, suffocating, until she heard the wooden stairs Creak. Then, with an agile movement, she went back to her place and resumed her grudging scowl."

Madam raquin had a stroke and was paralyzed. She loved her "children," Laurent and thérèse, believing them only good, as they took care of her.
"So she lived for several weeks, awaiting death and thinking herself safe from any further disaster. She thought that she had paid her debt of suffering. She was wrong. One evening she was smitten by a dreadful blow.
Even though Thérèse and Laurent put her between them in the full light of day, she was no longer enough alive to keep them apart and protect them against their anguish. When they forgot that she was there, that she could see and hear, madness overcame them, Camille Rose between them and they tried to drive him away. Then they would stammer, let slip confessions without meaning to, remarks that eventually revealed everything to madame raquin. Laurent had a sort of fit in which he spoke like a man in a trance. Suddenly, the paralyzed woman understood.
A frightful grimace passed across her face and she experienced such a shock that Thérèse thought she was going to LEAP up and scream. Then she lapsed back into a state of complete rigidity."

"Now that she had succumbed to the devastating embrace of paralysis and had realized that she could not leap at the throat of Thérèse and laurent, whom she dreamed of strangling, she resigned herself to silence and immobility, and large tears fell slowly from her eyes. Nothing was more distressing than this silent, unmoving despair. These tears, running one after another across the dead face, in which not a line moved, this inert, pallid face in which the muscles could not weep and only the eyes sobbed, was the most moving of sights.
Thérèse was overcome with terrified pity.
'We must put her to bed,' she said to laurent, indicating her aunt.
Laurent hastily pushed the cripple into her room. Then he bent down to pick her up in his arms. At that moment, Madame raquin hoped that some powerful spring would raise her to her feet; she made a supreme effort. God could not allow Laurent to clasp her to his breast; she was sure that thunder would strike him if he showed such monstrous impudence. But no spring drove her and the heavens kept their thunderbolts. She remained there, slumped in the chair, passive, like a bundle of washing. She was grasped, lifted and carried by the murderer. She experienced the horror of feeling herself soft and powerless in the arms of the man who had killed Camille. Her head rolled onto Laurent's shoulder and she looked at him with eyes made wider by terror and repulsion.
'Go on, then, have a good look at me,' he murmured. 'Your eyes won't eat me... '
And he threw her roughly on the bed. The cripple fainted away. Her last thought was one of fear and disgust. From now on, morning and evening, she would have to suffer the foul embrace of Lawrent's arms."

Madame raquin had a cat named François. The cat loved madame raquin, but for some reason Laurent and Thérèse felt that the cat disapproved of them. At times, they even imagined that the cat would begin to talk and tell all their deadly secrets.
"...Laurent was literally afraid of François, especially since the cat had taken to living on the old woman's knees, as though inside an impregnable fortress from which he could fix his green eyes with impunity on his enemy, Camille's murderer, who found some resemblance between the cat and the paralyzed woman. He told himself that the cat, like madam raquin, knew about the crime and would denounce him someday if he were ever to speak.
Finally, one evening, François was staring so hard at Laurent that the latter, driven to exasperation, decided that enough was enough. He opened wide the dining room window and went over to grasp the cat by the skin of its neck. Madame raquin understood, and two large tears ran down her cheeks. The cat started to snarl and hiss, stiffening itself and trying to turn round to bite laurent's hand. But he did not let go. he whirled the cat around his head a couple of times, then smashed it as hard as he could against the great black wall opposite. François struck it And, his back broken, fell on to the glass roof of the arcade. throughout the whole of that night, The wretched animal dragged itself along the gutter, its spine fractured, making harsh meowing noises. That night, madame raquin mourned in François almost as much as she had done camille, and thérèse had a dreadful nervous crisis. The cat's moans in the darkness under their windows were quite sinister."

[leslie398 · Valutazione: 4 su 5 stelle]

While none of the characters in this novel are very nice, Zola manages to make them human and thus understandable. Immensely readable, this tale of lust and murder focuses on the psychological toll of committing murder. I am glad that I read it (well, actually mostly listened to the audiobook edition) but doubt I would ever reread this.

[terris-7 · Valutazione: 4 su 5 stelle]

What an amazing story of a pair of lovers who decide to kill the woman's husband -- and they get away with it! -- Or do they?! Very, very interesting concept -- I loved it!