Emile Zola, LA CUREE

February being what it is, we were a reduced group before the fire at L’Auberge du Clou: Caroline, Cynthia, Maren, Myriam, and Phoebe. It was nonetheless lovely getting together for the first time in 2013.

The book discussed, Zola’s LA CUREE, was generally well received. Here are some of the points I caught tonight – please do add to and comment on them! [Myriam just sent in a fabulous comment by email, which I'm taking the liberty of adding to the post itself.]

• The heavy detail of the book – typically thorough Zola documentation, potentially a strain for the reader, but an effective replication of Second Empire materialism. Comparison made to the accumulation of branded products in AMERICAN PSYCHO.
• Zola’s “ant farm” effect – his hereditary and environmental determinism seems to wipe out the possibility of full characters/characterization – possibly less true for minor characters? Sister Sidonie was applauded as a Dickensian grotesque.
• Renée – some distaste voiced for the emptiness of her character. I feel that, given her background and lack of inspiration (through the people around her or education [Myriam pointed out the relative unimportance of education in the Second Empire vs. its central role in the Third Republic]), she would have had to be some kind of spiritual genius to have developed further than she did.
• An Emma Bovary with money, and no better off for it? There was fairly heated discussion of whether Renée was groping for some sense of meaning and beauty or just swept brainlessly by the tide of her surroundings.
• Woman’s role in the Second Empire – diminished by the replacement of legitimacy by money as a social touchstone. The Isak Dinesen quote I forgot to bring was: “In a world to which legitimacy is the primary law and principle, woman acquires a mystic value. She is more than herself, and holds the office of the ordained priest who alone among the people possesses power to transform the grapes of common earth into that supreme fluid: the true blood.” -- Isak Dinesen, “Copenhagen Season,” Last Tales
• Second Empire vs. Third Republic: Cynthia brought up Colette, very appropriately, as we were discussing the demimonde. This led to a mention of how, in LA CUREE, courtesans model themselves on society women (as in the disappointing evening Renée crashes with Maxime), whereas by the Belle Epoque, the imitation is all the other way: Colette describes herself scolding a conventional society friend for attempting to “have it all” by being seen in the same nightspots and at the same hours as a courtesan, but still get up and take care of the household and the children like a good bourgeoise (“De quoi est-ce qu’on a l’air?,” Les Vrilles de la vigne.)
• Zola: do you have a favorite? What would you suggest as a first book in the Rougon-Macquart series?

Phoebe

Myriam's comment:

I realised that one point we did not discuss is the very title of the book (and its translation). And it got me started on a chain of thoughts, which I wished to share with you.

Probably a good portion of what I write below was obvious to you as you read the book, but I realised that I personally was wrong about the point in time where the Curée could be said to take place in this novel.

La Curée is the leftovers part of the hunt that is thrown to the dogs, after the excitement of the hunt is over and everyone (including the dogs) goes to rest. (I see there is a curée froide, after the hunt, as opposed to a curée chaude, immediately after the animal is caught by the dogs, maybe closer to the English translation of ‘the kill’).

Of course, there is the figurative sense, which is the avid scramble for any piece of wealth, food. And the verb 'curer', with probably no direct etymological link, but a near-homonynous verb which is ‘to clean through dynamic scrubbing’ (my definition of it, not le Petit Robert).

After our interesting discussion of last night on Renée, and the values at stake in the book, I realised how important it was to place the curée in its political and philosophical context.

We mentioned the Empire was a materialistic period. I think it was even more so as the Empire was only the ending of an era, but never provided for continuity nor a new beginning.

Both the Monarchy values (status through birth) and the revolutionary ones (status through Republican virtue and fervour) are down, all corrupted by Napoleonian fakes (fake dynasty, fake symbols, plated glory - status through acquired money) which nevertheless tried to grow on the remnants of the previous social orders.

In itself, the Empire offers no ideology or philosophy that would help the nation grow. It is all just a vast Curée, the hunt and spoliation of previous eras, previous eagerness to rebuild the Nation through more virtue and more justice. It is a Curée froide, and the country may be tempted to go to sleep, fed on unjustly acquired meat.

Anyway, this is the message that Zola, very much a 3^rd Republic character, could have attempted to transmit to his readers in the early days of the 3^rd Republic (the book is from 1872), which was still fragile and unsure of its intentions (it initially was meant to be a transitional regime until a monarchy could be established again).

Basically: Keep virtue, (and Zola would rather keep the revolutionary one) and you'll help the Nation grow.

In that sense, I think Renée is the Curée herself, the part fed to the Empire-business world dogs. She is the old-world values being corrupted all along by her husband through wearing the Empire demi-mondaine’s jewellery, then by falling into an incestuous relation to the father and son. She is being tread down and doesn’t realise it, until in the end she tries to distantiate herself from the company of her husband’s social acquaintances. My interpretation is now therefore that she feared her incestuous adultery would be found out because of her fear of scandal (old world fear), craved for excitement (a revolutionary creation), but never realised the worst was already taking place. She was the show herself, being degraded and unwillingly taking part in it .