Les Rougon-Macquart series - year long group read

Les Rougon-Macquart is the collective title given to a cycle of twenty novels by French writer Émile Zola, published between 1871 and 1893. The cycle, described in a subtitle as The Natural and Social History of a Family Under the Second Empire, is a documentary of French life as seen through the lives of the violent Rougon family and the passive Macquarts, who are related to each other through the character of Tante Dide.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Rougon-Macquart-cycle

Interview from Oxford World’s Classics with Valerie Minogue, translator of Money by Émile Zola,- https://blog.oup.com/2016/05/zola-rougon-macquart-series/

Les Rougon-Macquart series website - http://emilezola.info/index.htm

Wikipedia - As a naturalist writer, Zola was highly interested by science and especially the problem of heredity and evolution. He notably read and mentioned the work of the doctor Prosper Lucas, Claude Bernard, and Charles Darwin as references for his own work. This led him to think that people are heavily influenced by heredity and their environment. He intended to prove this by showing how these two factors could influence the members of a family. In 1871, in the preface of La Fortune des Rougon, he explained his intent:

The great characteristic of the Rougon-Macquarts, the group or family which I propose to study, is their ravenous appetite, the great outburst of our age which rushes upon enjoyment. Physiologically the Rougon-Macquarts represent the slow succession of accidents pertaining to the nerves or the blood, which befall a race after the first organic lesion, and, according to environment, determine in each individual member of the race those feelings, desires and passions—briefly, all the natural and instinctive manifestations peculiar to humanity—whose outcome assumes the conventional name of virtue or vice.

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Welcome to the year long read of Les Rougon-Macquart series. There are twenty books and the suggestion was for everyone to read at their own pace, and hopefully get to the halfway point by the end of the year.

Here is a list of the novels in publication order -
La Fortune des Rougon (1870) La Curée / The Kill (1871) Le Ventre de Paris / The Belly of Paris (1873) La Conquête de Plassans (1874)
La Faute de l'Abbe Mouret / The Sin of Father Mouret (1875) Son Excellence Eugene Rougon (1876) L'Assommoir (1877) Une Page d'amour / A Love Story (1878)
Nana (1880) Pot-Bouille / Potluck (1882) Au Bonheur des Dames / The Ladies Paradise (1883) La Joie de Vivre / The Joy of Life (1884)
Germinal (1885) L'Oeuvre / Masterpiece (1886) La Terre / Earth (1887) Le Reve / The Dream (1888)
La Bete Humaine / The Beast Within (1890) L'Argent / Money (1891) La Debacle (1892) Le Docteur Pascal (1893)

and Zola's recommended reading order..

1. The Fortune of the Rougons (1870)

2. His Excellency Eugene Rougon (1876)

3. The Kill (1871)

4. Money (1891)

5. The Dream (1888)

6. The Conquest of Plassans (1874)

7. Pot Luck (1882)

8. The Ladies’ Paradise (1883)

9. A Love Story (1878)

10. The Sin of Father Mouret (1875)

11. The Belly of Paris (1873)

12. The Joy of Life (1884)

13. L’Assommoir (1877)

14. The Masterpiece (1886)

15. The Beast Within (1890)

16. Germinal (1885)

17. Nana (1880)

18. Earth (1887)

19. The Debacle (1892)

20. Doctor Pascal (1893)

Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola (2 April 1840 – 29 September 1902) was a French novelist, playwright, journalist, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism, and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism. He was a major figure in the political liberalization of France and in the exoneration of the falsely accused and convicted army officer Alfred Dreyfus, which is encapsulated in the renowned newspaper headline J'Accuse…! Zola was nominated for the first and second Nobel Prize in Literature in 1901 and 1902.

The Rougon-Macquart family begins with Adelaïde Fouque. Born in 1768 in the fictional Provençal town Plassans to middle-class parents, she has a slight intellectual disability. She marries Rougon, and gives birth to a son, Pierre Rougon. However, she also has a lover, the smuggler Macquart, with whom she has two children: Ursule and Antoine Macquart. This means that the family is split in three branches:

The first, legitimate, one is the Rougons branch. The second branch is the low-born Macquarts. The third branch is the Mourets (the name of Ursule Macquart's husband). They are a mix of the other two.
Because Zola believed that everyone is driven by their heredity, Adelaide's children show signs of their mother's original deficiency.

from the BBC Radio 4 adaption of The Rougon-Macquart: Blood, Money, Sex.

I'm reading my library's e-book edition of The Fortune of the Rougons, translated by Edward Vizetelly. I've only read one chapter so far.

I've just read anzlitlover's blog post about reading this series in translation and she (Lisa) recommends the Oxford World Classics series over all the other editions she experienced during her two year read of the books. She especially warns readers away from the translator I'm currently reading, 'worst of all – a couple of archaic self-censored editions from the 19th century publisher Vizetelly (who was scared of being locked up for obscenity that wouldn’t raise an eyebrow now)'
...so I feel I need to urgently find a better edition of the book before I get much further along.

Thank you, Kerry, that's an enormous treasure trove of information. The family tree is particularly useful.

I read La fortune des Rougon last year and I can well imagine that some of his subject matter would have offended the more prudish Victorians. It is very likely that a contemporary translation would omit stuff like that. I'm thinking here especially of the relationship between Silvère and Miette, even if it is not consummated.
The first book is a very lengthy introduction to the two branches of the family in the first generation and concentrates on the effects of political events in Paris on the provincials in Plassans, and to me it makes sense to follow Zola's reading order. I am twenty pages in to Son Excellence Eugène Rougon which shows how he used Napoleon's coup d'état for his own career. I downloaded it from the Bibliothèque électronique du Québec as plain text without notes and I don't know yet if that will suffice. I usually prefer annotated editions of the classics and may pick up a folio edition if I'm lost too much among the historical detail.

ETC

My 'thank you' to you, too, Kerry. Such a nice job. Makes me want to read the whole series but I don't think that I will join with many but do plan on reading Germinal and Nana with you.

That family tree is great! It is often so hard to keep track, especially when there are characters that come and go.
Good info on the translations too. It makes you wonder just how much you may be missing in any translated work.

I am in! I have read a few and love Zola. I recently read L'Assommoir and Germinal so I plan to continue the family line with Nana and then slowly fill in the rest.

>10 Yells: Nana was one of my favorite of the series, I hope you like it when you get to it!

I've read His excellency (Son excellence Eugène Rougon) and was a bit disappointed. Though it was highly readable I thought the plot depended too much on coincidental events. I was a bit confused about the historical aspect but that did not bother me too much, and I was fascinated by the description of the repressive rule of Napoleon III.

After really disliking The sin of Father Mouret I'm starting to reconsider the wisdom of reading all the books in the series: I'm starting to think that there is a reason some of them are still widely known today and some aren't, and that maybe the lesser known books are not that good.
Still, I intend to keep on with at least one book this year, which will be, if I'm not mistaken, Money.

I re-read Le Reve a few years ago and absolutely loved his description of the embroidery, especially that made with the fil d'or for the Archbishop (I think it was). Imagine creating gold that is so thin that it can be fit around a piece of thread. It is so easy now (or easier) to pick up blending filament or gold thread made from synthetics. While not easy to stitch with it does require some skill.

I've meant to re-read Nana and also read L'Assomoir so, if it's OK, I'd like to also read a few in the series while not reading the series in its entirety.

I've been wanting to get to this series for a while now as several of the books are on the 1001 Books list, but have not gotten around to any yet. I've read and enjoyed one other book by Zola which is not part of the series, Therese Raquin. I normally like to read a series in publication order, but in this case, I guess I will follow the author's recommendation. I found a LibriVox recording of The Fortunes of the Rougons, which had a really good narrator for LibriVox, but it is the Vizetelly translations. In the translator's notes before the story, he even states that 1 in 3 sentences have been changed in the translation. So, I think I will try to find a different edition. Maybe I will try it in the original French to avoid any translation issues.

I've also read Therese Raquin and picked up two of his other books; Nana and Germinal for this group read.

I have now finished Son Excellence Eugène Rougon and found it very helpful for understanding the politics of the time. I had no idea of the anti-republican repressions. There's little passion or excitement in the book, though, Rougon is a very cold fish. And Clorinde Balbi, his opponent, is one of the strangest women I have yet encountered in a book. I don't see how she could have bent all these men to her will.

I finished The Fortune of the Rougons a few days ago, I had put my library version aside and bought the new Oxford World Classic edition with the recommended translation. I enjoyed this quite a lot and will pick up His Excellency Eugène Rougon next as I'm reading the books in the Zola preferred reading order, plus I'm dying to know what Eugene was up to in Paris as events played out in Plassan.

I got quite wrapped up in the fortunes of the various family members and the way events played out around the coup d'état in 1851. I'm not that au fait with French history so enjoy reading this type of book which adds to my knowledge.

>16 avatiakh: I'll be curious to hear what you make of Corinne Balbi!

I have finally finished La curée.
Eugène's brother comes to Paris and hopes to profit from Haussmann's grand schemes, but he needs starting capital and finally gets in the dowry of Renée, who is "damaged goods" after having an illegitimate child. It's a time of feverish money-making, everyone's chasing it and spending it like mad. And then there is Renée's affair with her stepson.
The characters are not very sympatheric, but convincingly drawn. But I confess I got bored with the detailed descriptions of dresses and apartments.

I just found this group and was wondering if it is still an ongoing project.
I read last year, La Curee and Le Ventre de Paris, and decided to go back and start the series in the recommended reading order. I am now starting with the Fortune des Rougon.
Listening to it through Librivox and quite enjoying it so far.