Book Review: "His Excellency Eugène Rougon" by Emile Zola

Emile Zola's writing has always been something that I can really sink my teeth into. When I was seventeen, I first read his book "The Beast Within" and have read it about three times since. When I was about twenty, I read his book "The Debacle" which I followed with his book "The Masterpiece" all of which were brilliant. From the age of twenty-three, I read the rest of his texts with "L'Assommoir" sticking out as one of my favourites by him, but honestly I have to say that this book proves that he is a multitalented writer - capable of making fun of absolutely anyone with wit and class.

It's one of the books of a series that follows the Rougon family and this one opens with the President of the Chamber waiting for Eugène Rougon to arrive when someone announces that he will not be showing. We see Eugène empty his office and take out things such as letters from women, to which his friend sincerely replies that he should stay away from them because they will ruin him. From then on, we get a political discourse like no other. In the midst of Napoleon III's courts, Eugène Rougon and others seek to play each other like puppets, competing for class, recognition, political success and more. It seems like its almost being mirrored today with its cronyism and depiction of loyalty to one's friends rather than the cause of making the country a better place for everyone. The way in which Emile Zola takes them down to our level and beats them with reality is a sight to be witnessed.

Zola's language in this text is amongst some of his best, but probably not quite in the top three of his novels. The lengthy descriptions, I understand, slow the pace down and if you're not like me that loves these lengthy descriptions of everything from tabletops to architecture, then I am afraid you will find it difficult to proceed with this book. Just take a look at this for a quotation on description:

"When the crowd had dispersed, the embankments resumed their customary calm. Exhausted from its own excitement, Paris had now sat down to dinner; the three hundred thousand sightseers who had crushed each other in the streets had now invaded the restaurants on the river embankment and in the Temple district. Only people from the country worn out, were still dragging their feet along the deserted pavements, not knowing where to go for dinner. Down by the water's edge, on either side of the barge, the washerwomen were still banging away and a ray of sunshine was still gliding the tops of the towers of Notre-Dame, which looked silently down at the houses, dark in shadow. A light mist was rising from the Seine, and in the distance, at the top of the Ile Saint-Louis, the only thing that stood out in the grey expanse of the housefronts was the giant frock coat, the monumental advertisement, as if hung on a nail on the skyline, the cast-off, bourgeois clothing of some Titan whose limbs had been blown away by lightning."

I really don't want to lie to you - I was about to give this book five out of five based solely on that, my favourite, passage. It has all the class of Zola mixed with the strange political wit and topped off with a classic description that makes you want to breathe in the social turmoil of Paris in the mid-1800s. It is just absolutely beautiful even though the sight must have been quite overwhelming and horrific. Zola makes everything you look at worthwhile in the looking. As if he was searching for something special in there.