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These stories are offered together for the first time in English translation.They cover a period of more than 30 years, and were originally published in French periodicals and in Russia.Zola's racy tone is faithfully rendered by Parmee whose translations have been highly acclaimed. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

There's some great movies hiding in this book.
Emile Zola is one of the greatest writers of all time.His novels "Germinal" and "L`Assommoir" easily place in my List of Top 10 Novels."The Attack on the Mill and Other Stories" is an impressive collection of short stories spanning Zola's career.The thing I found most surprising is how funny Zola could be!All of the novels I've read have been dark and depressing, but the story "Rentafoil" was absolutely hilarious.Another thing that struck me was how some of these stories ("A Flash in the Pan", Coqueville on the Spree" and "Rentafoil") would make great movies.

"The Girl Who Loves Me" 3.5/5 A guy finds "love" at a fairgrounds

"Rentafoil" 5/5 Side splitting story about a business that rents out ugly girls to decent looking girls so they can go out in public together.

"Death by Advertising" 4.5/5 Humorous story about a guy who believes everything he reads in ads.

"Story of a Madman" 3/5 Wife drives husband nuts.

"Big Michu" 3.5/5 Revolt at a boy's school.

"The Attack on the Mill" 5/5 Classic Zola.Just read it.Best story in the collection.

"Captain Burle" 3.5/5 Captain Burle is a lazy ol' sod.

"The Way People Die" 5/5 Just what the title says.Sad.

"Coqueville on the Spree" 5/5 Residents of a remote coastal village put their differences aside when something special washes up on shore.Very funny.

"A Flash in the Pan" 5/5 Could easily be made into a very erotic movie.Hot.

"Dead Men Tell No Tales"5/5 Who knew Zola wrote horror?Very uncomfortable and disturbing story.I had a hard time reading it.

"Shellfish for Monsieur Chabre" 4/5Funny story about a twit who doesn't notice what his sexy young wife is doing.

"Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder" 2.5/5Long slow story about a guy who is thought to be dead, but isn't.Way too long.

"Priest and Sinners" 4/5 Obviously Zola didn't care much for priests.

"Fair Exchange" 2/5Boring story about a talented but drunk painter who marries an ugly woman.Skip it.

"The Haunted House" 2.5/5Lame.A guy investigates a haunted house.Very weak.Skip it also.

Great stories from a master storyteller
Zola is my favorite author and this is a wonderful selection of his short stories. Recently translated by Douglas Parmee, these stories were originally published between 1864 and 1899, spanning most of Zola's writing career. Arranged chronologically. you can see the author's style develop as you move from one story to the next. A great introduction to Zola's writings! The stories: The Girl Who Loves Me - A great description of a carnival sideshow's effects on a lonely young man. Rentafoil - An amusing satire on society's attempts to package and sell beauty. Story of a Madman - A woman and her lover plot to put her husband in an asylum. Big Michu - Boarding school students organize a hunger strike and a simple peasant's son takes the blame. The Attack on the Mill - The German Army occupies a French village and a young woman is forced to decide between the lives of her father and her lover - a wonderful love story. Captain Burle - A French officer embezzles funds to support his mistresses. The Way People Die - A series of brief tales showing death in different social settings. Coqueville on a Spree - Two feuding families in a small town resolve their differences in a most unusual way. A Flash in the Pan - Love between the classes is thwarted when a peasant girl falls in love with the son of a well-to-do lawyer, but her jealous father gets in the way. Dead Men Tell No Tales - A dead man tells his tale. Shellfish for Monsieur Chabre - A young woman has an affair while her aging husband gobbles shellfish to increase his virility. Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder - An exiled revolutionary given up for dead returns to France searching for his wife and daughter. Priests and Sinners - Like The Way People Die, this is a series of short sketches; this time dealing with the relationship between priests and people who are thought of as sinners. Fair Exchange - An excellent portrayal of the evolving power relationships in the long-term intimate relationship between a husband and wife. The Haunted House - A haunting story about how rumor can color our perception of reality for the worse. Seven pages of Explanatory Notes by the Translator, are very helpful in bringing these tales to the modern English reader. ... Read more

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The unsentimental but sympathetic portrayal of the working class in such novels as "Germinal" and "L'Assommoir" confirmed Zola's social and political interests, but as Brian Nelson points out in this study, Zola was also a great chronicler of the middle class. Nelson delineates the salient features of Zola's depiction of the middle class and identifies its value-structure. He then relates Zola's conception of the bourgeoisie to the general context of his social vision, and finally appraises the specifically literary qualities of four novels carefully chosen for extended analysis. ... Read more

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"This new study is original in that, written by a person who is thoroughly familiar with the Judeo-Christian messianic tradition, it seeks to do justice to the strong religious thread that runs through all of Zola's work. In addition, Dr. Evenhuis's experience in the psychoanalytical approach to literature allows him to venture into intriguing speculations involving Zola's conscious or unconscious use of symbolism: the reader is invited to read between the lines of Zola's text in order to gain deeper insights into the author's inner world."--BOOK JACKET. "Essentially, Messiah or Antichrist? examines the factors that may have induced Zola to embrace the messianic vision, and then systematically traces the rejection and eventual readopting of that myth in prose works that span a period of some forty years."--BOOK JACKET. ... Read more

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This is the first full-length stufy of Zola's practice as a novelist. Although Zola's literary achievement has been revalued in the last 25 years, critical attention has been concentrated on the contrast between his work's realistic dimension and its poetic power. Now the balance is redressed by this study of Zola as a crafstman. Most of the ten specially commissioned chapters in this book are concerned with its great saga of Les Rougon-Macquart. In each, Zola's techniques are related to problems on genre and representation and several relate his techniques to those used in contemporary melodrama, journalism and impressionist painting. One chapter is a deep, computer-assisted study of the ways in which Zola's novels are organized, and the study of conscious organization, both of the novel-cycle and individual texts, is the major theme of the entire book. ... Read more

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Among the short list of authors whose lives were as exciting as their books, Emile Zola is one of the most eminent. Bestselling author of a series of novels, close companion of C& eacute;zanne and Manet, critic of politicians, clergy, bankers, and businessmen, he acted with a courage that earned him enduring fame when he took on the most venerable of all institutions: the military. But, climactic as it was, the Dreyfus Affair was only the most famous of events in Zola's tumultuous life. In this detailed biography, Frederick Brown discloses Zola's development as an author, and the moral consciousness that led him to invest himself in one social and political problem after another. Brown also shows Zola's human side--his failings, his superstitions, his private joys and dilemmas. At a time when a career could be made by a well-timed review or be broken by a rebuttal, Zola carved out his place in the literary pantheon through a series of struggles against ever more powerful enemies.

Customer Reviews (2)

A biography worthy of its subject
This very full and long biography does an exemplary job of placing Zola's life, career and views within the context of his times. The reader comes to understand his life as he lived it, surrounded by friends, opponents, obstacles,
and challenges, both personal and societal. Reading this biography helps the reader to share a lived experience of one of France's most interesting periods of history. In addition, Brown gives a complete account of the historical
and biographical sources of Zola's fiction, though the literary traditions upon which he drew, and by which he was shaped, receive less notice. But this is a minor complaint. His discussions of Zola's friendships, especially with
Paul Cezanne, are very even-handed and persuasively argued. This is not a biography that lionizes its subject, freeing him of human faults and limitations; it does not patronize Zola either, but fully presents the significance of
his achievements. The discussions of Zola's upbringing in Provence, his struggles to make his way in Paris, his rise to success and fame, and Brown's analysis of the Dreyfus Affair, are highlights in a book that never disappoints.
Brown writes clearly, with energy and a keen eye for anecdotes and details that bring the story to life. Nonetheless, it takes energy to make one's way through a biography of this size, but the rewards are considerable, and the subject interestingly complex. Zola is one of the figures - both admired and scorned - who dominated his period in France, and this biography makes clear how and why.

Not an easy read, but worth the effort
I came to this book after having read Zola's twenty Rougon-Macquart novels. I wanted to read the most comprehensive, authoritative biography of the great writer, and I think this book qualifies. The level of detail is tremendous. Brown not only provides us with the story of Zola's life, but also the lives of his many contemporaries (including Cezanne, Flaubert, Turgenev, Goncourt, Manet). In addition Brown puts these lives in valuable perspective by thoroughly examining the events of French history, which, during Zola's life consisted of a very complicated series of wars, revolutions, and political upheavals. (Before reading this biography, it helps the reader to have a basic preliminary knowledge of French history in order to navigate the serpentine rise and fall of governments.)
Brown also examines Zola's writings from a critical perspective, and draws a complex web of literary influence to and from the author. For every novel that Zola published, Brown provides a detailed synopsis of the story (spoilers included), a critical analysis of the work, and valuable information on the critical and public reception of the book. Brown seems to grow tired of this, however, as books described in the beginning of Zola's life are more thoroughly examined than his later works. I myself got a little tired of Brown's constant Freudian analysis. "Zola did this because of his father. He did this because of his mother." It's as if Brown lacks confidence in the intelligence of his readers, and feels the need to relentlessly push his thesis on us.
This book is not an easy read. It is a scholarly work, written for an audience of literature professors, not for the casual reader. The beginning of the book is particularly challenging. When discussing Zola's education and literary influences, brown rattles off references to a lot of titles that most readers outside academia probably have not read. In every other sentence he'll throw in metaphors pertaining to obscure classical literature. Once over this intial hump, the reading goes more smoothly and one becomes accustomed to Brown's particular wordcraft. (He uses the word "tergiversations" about once in every chapter.)
Another problem with the book is that there is a period of Zola's life that just isn't very interesting. Brown's depiction of Zola's early hardscrabble career as a journalist, critic, and part-time novelist is particularly fascinating, but once Zola strikes it rich the excitement dies down quite a bit. While seclusion in a country house made it possible for Zola to create some of his greatest masterpieces, it doesn't make for the most exciting narrative. This is rectified late in Zola's life, however, by the Dreyfus affair. Brown's relation of the events surrounding the scandal are rewardingly exhaustive, covering at least 150 pages.
Despite my complaints, I'd have to say that I'm glad I read this book. I wanted to read "Everything You Wanted to Know about Emile Zola", and that's what I got. Something else I got from this book is a long wish list of books for future reading, by Zola and other authors discussed in the book. ... Read more

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This collective essay uses the entirety of Emile Zola's preliminary dossiers to describe his creative procedures. Rather than looking at specific aspects, this works originality is its generality and global view. The essay aims to both study Zola's creative processes in their early stages and to study his meta-discourse, since he wrote and commented on his work throughout the process. This complex process illustrates not only how Zola worked through his novels but also how he positioned himself in the field of contemporary literature. French text. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Is Naturalism truly enjoyable?
L'Assammoir is an interesting but slow moving and often banal novel. However, in Naturalistic terms it is a true classic. I ask you, is it worth reading a book for its intricate literary craftsmanship if it is often boring and uneventful? You decide. ... Read more

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Challenging the view of "Nana", by Emile Zola, as the story of an old-fashioned femme fatale, Bernice Chitnis offers a feminist reading which claims Nana as a heroine who managed to overturn patriarchy. The author also investigates how Zola himself saw Nana and others of his heroines. This book is intended to be of interest to students of wome n's studies, literature, sociology and French studies. ... Read more