La Bete humaine (1890), the seventeenth novel in the Rougon-Macquart series, is one of Zola's most violent and explicit works. On one level a tale of murder, passion, and possession, it is also a compassionate study of individuals derailed by atavistic forces beyond their control. Zola considered this his 'most finely worked' novel, and in it he powerfully evokes life at the end of the Second Empire in France, where society seemed to be hurtling into the future like the new locomotives and railways it was building. While expressing the hope that human nature evolves through education and gradually frees itself of the burden of inherited evil, he is constantly reminding us that under the veneer of technological progress there remains, always, the beast within. This new translation captures Zola's fast-paced yet deliberately dispassionate style, while the introduction and detailed notes place the novel in its social, historical, and literary context.

Left with discoverylover

Tempted to make some sort of terrible pun based on the title but I won't, instead I'll take it to the BC meetup this week.

Couldn't resist 'catching' this book when I cam across it in the Wellington Bookcrossers' February meet-up last night. I've only read one other book by Emile Zola and I'm hoping this one will be a splendid adventure for me. This is the first book I have ever seen with the page numbers halfway down the side of each page - why was that? I ask myself. Will that quirk be explained during the reading. I certainly hope so.
I liked the tempting words on the back cover. "Zola's tense, gripping psychological thriller of adultery, corruption and murder on the French Railways is a graphic and violent exploration of the darkest recesses of the criminal mind." Certainly reads like my sort of tale.