Zola's Correspondance

Reviews Zola's Correspondanee HENRY H. WEINBERG Emile Zola. Correspondanee, IV, 1880-1883. Edited by B.H. Bakker Montreal and Paris: Presses de l'Universite de Montreal and Editions du CNRS '983. 522. $49.00 By the time he was forty Zo'a had achieved what most of his colleagues in the Paris literary fraternity could only dream about and far more than he himself had thought possible when twelve years earlier he set out on the ambitious project of the Rougon-Macquart. By 1880, he was the most talked about novelist in France, and perhaps in Europe as well. The son of an Italian immigrant, raised by an impoverished young widow wh? had a few years earlier barely managed to scratch together a meager subsistence, he was now the recipient of huge royalties earned by his record-breaking best-sellers. He was surrounded by a group of talented writers who viewed him as their 'maitre' and enjoyed the respect and friendship of such major literary figures as Flaubert and Turgenev. And yet, from the beginning of this volume of correspondence it is evident that the moment of triumph is almost instantly obscured by personal grief and energy-sapping aggravations provoked by philosophically and politically inspired animosity, as well as the jealousies aroused by his fame and fortune. The deaths of his mother, and ofclose friends such as Flaubert and Duranty, seem for a while to threaten Zola's mental well-being and to stifle his creative energies, this at the verymomenthe is reaching his prime. At the same time he becomes involved in a highly publicized dispute with the editor of one newspaper (Le Voltaire) and turns into the centre of controversy in another (Le Figaro). He is accused of betrayingboth his political allegiances and aestheticcommitments and of peddling pornography. A loyal supporter's imprudent behaviour (Paul Alexis in the so-called affaire Henri IV) dragged Zola into a round of nasty wranglingand forced him to expend time and energy on quarrels in the press, which he had by then decided to abandon as a forum and as a source of income. The intensity of the exasperation the journalistic jousting produced can be measured by Zo]a's surprisingly bitter attack on a medium to which he owed a great deal. [n a September 1881 article in Le Figaro (cited in a footnote to one of the letters), Zola - who had forged his literary craft and shaped the plans for his UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY, VOLUME 55, NUMBER 2, WINTER 1985/6 EMILE ZOLA 211 ambitious novelistic enterprise in a variety of newspapers - defined the journalistic profession as 'Ie demier des mNiers,' and noted that 'il aurait mieux valu ramasser la boue des chemins, ... se donner a des besognes grossieres et infames,' than to practise it. Although he had counselled a hot-headed supporter to be careful and diplomatic in breaking lances with the hostile columnists, to be 'poliment mechant,' in responding to the attacks ofhis foes, he evidentlycould not always restrain his own ire. The publication of Pot-Bouille brings a series of lawsuits by individuals who charge Zola with defaming them by using their homonyms in 'degrading' Naturalist fiction. The frustrated Zola complains: 'les reclamations continuent a pleuvoir, mes ennemis augmentent achaque reuvre nouvelle.' Surprisingly, he not only loses one of the suits but is forced to make a series of name changes to satisfy all the Mourets and Duponts. He is also forced to defend himself against charges by literary critics who question the authenticity of his unflattering portrayal of the Parisian bourgeoisie. In one of the letters in this volume Zola refutes, one by one, everyone of the thirty-one points raised by a critic who questions his knowledge of bourgeois circles and the 'vraisemblance' of several episodes in the novel. The beleaguered Zola appears grateful for some faint praise mixed in with the sharp criticisms. All this strengthens the impression that at the height of success both the ego and the spirits of this 'beeuf de labour' are in an unexpectedly fragile state. At first glance, volume IV of this correspondence project appears very thin, with thank-you notes, acknowledgments, and business correspondence with...