Re-Reading Zola and Worldwide Naturalism: Miscellanies in Honour of Anna Gural-Migdal ed. by Carolyn Snipes-Hoyt, Marie-Sophie Armstrong, Riikka Rossi (review)

Published in the wake of the twentieth anniversary of AIZEN (Association internationale Zola et le naturalisme), this collection of essays returns to the work of Zola and the study of naturalism with the aim of analysing ‘unexplored areas of Zola’s project and legacy’ (p. ix). Characterized by a diversity of approach, the volume explores Zola’s fiction, his legacy, and his connections with various contemporaries alongside a more international perspective, concerned with the fate of naturalism beyond France. Zola is placed in his literary context: contributions consider such figures as Marius Roux, Henry Gréville (Alice Fleury Durand), and Édouard Rod, reflecting on the relationships between these writers and the naturalist movement. Alain Pagès, in the study’s inaugural essay ‘Comment définir le naturalisme?’, also stresses the collaborative origins crucial to the development of naturalism, a point dramatized, according to his reading, in the narratives of Maupassant. The essays, however, are not limited to nineteenth-century fiction: Midori Nakamura, for example, examines Marcel L’Herbier’s film, L’Argent (1928), while Claude Sabatier discusses Zola’s political journalism of the early Third Republic. Testifying to the scope of Zola studies throughout the world, the volume brings together scholars from Europe, North and South America, Asia, Africa, and Australasia, and this impressive reach lies at the heart of one of the collection’s central objectives: the exploration of Zola and naturalism outre l’Hexagone. Emblematic of this interest is the examination of Zola’s literary legacy in the Far East, a topic explored by several contributors. Kyoko Watanabe, for example, documents Zola’s reception in Japan, noting the development of a short-lived period of Zolaïsme, which culminated in 1901. Akiko Miyagawa extends such concerns, plotting the complex history of Zola’s Travail in early twentieth-century Japan. Such analysis points to the sprawling influence of Zola’s fiction, and equally traces the encounter between European and Japanese cultures towards the end of the nineteenth century. This commitment to naturalism’s global appeal does not end in the collection’s discussion of Zola’s reception in Asia; the volume’s closing essays evoke, among others, Brazilian, American, and Finnish literary traditions. While certain lines of enquiry adopted in the collection prove more fruitful than others, the result is a study notable for its sheer breadth of analysis, highlighting an array of interests and approaches deployed and developed across the world. A testament to the growth of AIZEN, the volume serves, above all, to mark the enduring fascination of naturalism and of its leading French exponent.