The Flood (French Classics)

Émile Zola

May 2008 · Mondial

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The tragic fate of a well-to-do farming family is the focus of the dramatic novella, "The Flood," by Emile Zola. From the perspective of the family's patriarch, the seventy-year-old Louis Roubien, Zola provides the reader with emotionally charged and detailed descriptions of the large family's desperate struggle against the rising flood waters and of the destruction of their farm. --- Emile Zola is considered to be the most important representative of the literary school of Naturalism. In this novella, which is thrilling to the very end, his literary theme is the helplessness of human beings and their dependence upon the unpredictable and indomitable forces of nature.

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Zola was the spokesperson for the naturalist novel in France and the leader of a school that championed the infusion of literature with new scientific theories of human development drawn from Charles Darwin (see Vol. 5) and various social philosophers. The theoretical claims for such an approach, which are considered simplistic today, were outlined by Zola in his Le Roman Experimental (The Experimental Novel, 1880). He was the author of the series of 20 novels called The Rougon-Macquart, in which he attempted to trace scientifically the effects of heredity through five generations of the Rougon and Macquart families. Three of the outstanding volumes are L'Assommoir (1877), a study of alcoholism and the working class; Nana (1880), a story of a prostitute who is a femme fatale; and Germinal (1885), a study of a strike at a coal mine. All gave scope to Zola's gift for portraying crowds in turmoil. Today Zola's novels have been appreciated by critics for their epic scope and their visionary and mythical qualities. He continues to be immensely popular with French readers. His newspaper article "J'Accuse," written in defense of Alfred Dreyfus, launched Zola into the public limelight and made him the political conscience of his country. Andrew Moore assisted James McNair on the last 10 of his cookbooks, including recipe development and editing. James and Andrew divide their time between a home in Northern California and their lodge on the north shore of Lake Tahoe.