Fruitfulness

Émile ZolaProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.6

Word count: 980K words
Chapters: 98

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Fruitfulness by Émile ZolaAuthor: Zola, Émile, 1840-1902,Language: English, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: Nov 1, 2003

Editor's review

Fruitfulness is the first novel in Zola's Four Gospels series, using the thriving family of its protagonist Mathieu to argue directly for fertility and the vitality of life. In his naturalist manner Zola lays out domestic life, rural labor, and social debate, examining population, family ethics, and personal choice together, with a distinctly polemical and utopian flavor. The characters are vividly drawn as a group, the narrative moves slowly, and discussion abounds, so it reads more like a novel of ideas than a tightly plotted story. This English Project Gutenberg edition gives readers low-cost access to a later phase of Zola's work and suits those interested in nineteenth-century French literature, naturalism, and questions of family and society. It is best read within the arc of Zola's career, with attention to its thesis-driven character, rather than judged by the realist standards of Germinal or Nana.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Literary readers interested in Zola's later work and the Four Gospels series
Students of nineteenth-century French society, family, and population thought
Readers who enjoy idea-driven novels blending argument and narrative
Lovers of French classics who wish to read in English or in a bilingual edition

Not a good fit for

Readers of popular fiction seeking fast plots and strong dramatic conflict
Readers impatient with long social commentary and didactic passages
Those with weak English reading skills unaccustomed to nineteenth-century English

Reading tips

Start by understanding the overall design of Zola's Four Gospels before entering this volume, to avoid misreading its polemical tone.
Read the book's views on fertility and family against the French social context of the time to grasp their point.
Slow down through dense passages of argument, and sort out the characters' relationships before pressing on with the plot.
After finishing, read other works by Zola to compare how his naturalist method shifts across different subjects.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Where does this book stand in Zola's work?

It is the first novel in the Four Gospels series of Zola's later years. Compared with the naturalist novels of his early and middle periods, represented by the Rougon-Macquart cycle, it states its ideas more directly and is more strongly idealistic, making it a useful entry point for understanding shifts in Zola's thought.

Can I read this Project Gutenberg edition if my English isn't strong?

This is an English translation with much nineteenth-century literary language and many long sentences, so readers with average English will find it difficult. Try a few pages first to gauge the difficulty, or use a bilingual or fully annotated edition for support.

The book has a lot of discussion; what should I watch for while reading?

The plot serves the themes, and the discussion and dialogue are often polemical. You need not weigh every sentence of argument; first grasp the author's basic positions on fertility, family, and society, then return to see how specific passages support them.

Comments

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About the author

Émile Zola Author · French · 1840–1902

Émile Zola (1840–1902) was a French novelist, critic and political activist, one of the most prominent French writers of the late nineteenth century and the founder of the theory of naturalism. Through his twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart he constructed a vast social panorama, with representative works including Germinal, L'Assommoir, Au Bonheur des Dames and La Bête humaine. These works often take workers, peasants and ordinary city people as their protagonists, presenting poverty, labour and desire with meticulous observation and an almost documentary style, calm yet powerful. During the Dreyfus Affair Zola published the famous open letter J'Accuse, intervening in public affairs as an intellectual in the cause of justice. The library holds 93 of his works, including several translations.