[Review] La Bête Humaine

In all human beings there is always the beast within. That’s what Zola wanted to remind us in La Bête Humaine (= the human beast). There’s always the animal side in us which lay side by side with the human conscience deep in our soul. In some people, it might perhaps never been unleashed, and so they would die honorably after living a decent life. However in most of others, this human beast could anytime leap out of them uncontrollably. The interesting question is, why some people can control it, while others can’t? Moreover, could it ever be controlled? And Zola took us to analyze these in this psychological thriller novel.

Jacques Lantier (son of Gervaise and Auguste Lantier—L’Assommoir; brother of Étienne—Germinal and Claude—The Masterpiece) is the main “human beast” in this story. He was an engine-driver of a French railway company; and was a handsome, educated and skilful worker indeed. From the first time Jacques had noticed that in time to time a kind of uncontrollable passion to kill a female would attack him; and when the seizure came, the passion would control his entire mind and body. For the time being he lived a healthy life as there was no female in his life, other than ‘La Lison’, his locomotive engine. But one day when he was visiting his aunt, Jacques was seduced by his cousin Flore who had been falling in love with him for a long time. Then and there the seizure came, and in his runaway of the scene, Jacques witnessed a man cutting another man’s throat in a fast-running train. As a witness in the murder case, Jacques came to the acquaintances of the murderers, Roubaud and his beautiful wife Séverine. When Jacques started to have passionate love towards Séverine, the beast was awaken there within the recess of his soul, waiting for the right time to once again control its master.

No wonder that La Bête Humaine was called the most brutal novel of Les Rougon-Macquart series. Before 60 earlier pages elapsed, we have been offered not less than three murder scenes or murder attempts by three different characters to three different victims. And the murders continued on till the end. Most of all were related to or caused by sexual passion, while others were moved by greediness. At first I was wondering whether the poverty was the root of these beasty passions; when human passion was imbalanced with their brains. However, the murderers came from both the intellectual workers and the uneducated ones, so it’s not that.

Moreover, Jacques was portrayed as an educated man, a dedicated worker with a polite manner. On several occasions, his education and his conscience prevented him to do such low-moral deed, and that’s why Jacques could not kill the man he ought to. But then, Jacques was not a real murderer, he won’t kill a man just because he needed to. When the urge to kill came, it was the ‘beast within’ which dominated his logic and conscience and took over his body. So, whence did the beast come, then? From the way Zola based the Rougon-Macquart series on scientific (taxonomy and physiology) point of view, the answer could be in the hereditary moral corruption. From Jacques’ part, he inherited it from his ancestors—whom were portrayed as ‘a cave man lifted his prey on his shoulder’—and especially from his drunkard parents. Now, did that make sense?

Train dans la neige, 1875, Claude Monet
picturing La Lison, Jacques' train in La Bete Humaine
[source]

I’ve been thinking quite a lot after finishing this book. Basically I can accept Zola’s theory of the human beast, the savage ‘animal’ passion in human. However, I also believe in the human free will; the free will God had granted us since we were born. Physically, human kind had perhaps evolved like animals—as Darwin put it—but one thing is sure, God granted us first, the divine spirit in our soul (conscience) to fight the animal passion, and second, the free will to use or not use it.

In this book, Zola focused solely on the losers, those who failed to use their consciences when deciding the murders. Actually, I have had a very slight hope that Jacques would conquer the human beast somehow, but having been knowing Zola much better now, that would be in vain. I know that Zola always intended to capture the worst of human being in order to awaken us to not falling in the same gutter. Jacques, Roubaud, and several other murderers in this book became murderers because they had both the human beast AND the conscience within, but nurtured the former and shut up the latter. Let’s take Jacques for instance, he knew perfectly well why and when the ‘beast’ would show up in him, i.e. when he was sexually aroused by a woman. Jacques was intelligent enough to know that the only thing he must do to prevent the beast from showing up is to stop making up with women and focused solely his passion to his works. It would need a huge effort, but again, we always have the choices, and the free will to choose one. So, we could not put the blame only on the ancestors, as if some of us were doomed to have ancestors with bad moral, and so we can’t do anything but to accept it, no! We can always fight it. The only question is, would we?

Over all, Zola wanted to point out that the rapidly growing industry turned out not to be in line with overall human civilization. With the new century lurking, came the moral decadence; with the prosperity in some area, came the poverty in others. Zola pictured the irony as hundreds and thousands people rushed in express trains to welcome the modernization without ever realizing others around them who struggled with poverty and beasty passion; poor people whom they must have seen from their window for split of seconds, but whom were unrealistic for them. The cost of modernization was often the humanity!

"People go fast now, they know more... But wild beasts are still wild beasts, and they can go on inventing bigger and better machines for as long as they like, there'll still be wild beasts underneath there somewhere."

And the train of modernization would rush pass the humanity with its indiferrence and dignity; without recognizing that in the deep root of the humanity something would soon emerge; slowly and silently, painfully and terrifyingly....the human beast!

I must thank Zola for this brilliant and appalling book, which allowed me to think and reflect a lot. But besides that, I also loved Zola’s vivid portrays of the railway industry; the busy lives around the railways and the clanking and the hissy voices of train coming and going, leaving one civilization to another. But most of all, I loved how Zola personified La Lison. I was actually deeply touched at the ‘death’ of La Lison—imagine when I was weeping over a locomotive! But that’s just the genius in Zola. They are so vivid and so beautiful. Yes, only now I realize that engine can be feminine. The scenes of La Lison went through the snow will always be my favorite! If other writers 'wrote' beautiful passages, Zola beautifully 'painted' them in his novel as a canvas. I doubt if any movie director could even capture that scene into movie in the perfect emotion and feeling as Zola wrote it; only Zola can do it, in his perfect painted novel!

Five whole stars then—I’d love to grant more if I can—for La Bête Humaine. C’est tres bien, Monsieur Zola, merci beaucoup!

Pierre Sandoz in The Masterpiece

This young novelist, Claude’s best friend in The Masterpiece, actually represented Émile Zola’s personalities which makes this book the most autobiographical in Les Rougon-Macquart series. Sandoz was portrayed as an amiable and enthusiast young man, loved socializing and was always attentive to his friends. He had a habit of inviting his artist friends to have dinner in his humble house every Thursday evening, and to have warm discussions—or rather debates—around arts and politics after the meals. He continued this habit even after marriage.

Sandoz was indeed the oldest of the gang, but it’s not the only reason that he appeared to have a fatherly quality. Despite of being one of the members of the revolutionary young artists, Sandoz had a proportional and healthy life. Unlike his maniac friends, Sandoz possessed the ability to balance his creativity and his personal life. He did confess that sometimes he would be carried away by his imagination, that he’d forgot everything surround him; he would be drowned into his works and ignored his family. Nevertheless, he still kept his marriage well enough, and he have never neglected the Thursday’s dinner for his friends! I should say that Sandoz was the ‘glue’ of the gang. I believe Sandoz was the wisest and most logical artist of them all.

Portrait of Emile Zola - Paul Cezanne, 1864

Among the young artists, Sandoz befriended Claude Lantier most closely. I think it’s because Sandoz’ fatherly quality perfectly matched Claude’s childish and trustful personalities. Sandoz understood Claude very well, he never laughed at his mistakes, not because he was afraid to hurt his best friend’s feeling, but more because he knew that Claude was very sensitive, and criticizing him openly just brought him down. Sandoz knew how to bring it softly to encourage his friend. And when Claude did not do Sandoz’ suggestion and failed, Sandoz never blamed him.

When Claude completely failed, unlike the others, Sandoz kept befriending him; he even worried about him and took great care of him and Christine. Sandoz was willingly to put his effort and time to take Claude on their strolls to break his despair. And finally, at the funeral, Sandoz faithfully defended his poor friend; and was one of few who attended the funeral and took dear old Claude to his last resting.

What a friend Pierre Sandoz was, and how lucky Claude for having such a good friend! I won’t talk about Sandoz’ novels, for Sandoz is Zola, and we all know how genius this French novelist and Naturalist is!

Naturalism and Impressionism in The Masterpiece

During April I read two books from Émile Zola for my Zoladdiction event; one of them is The Masterpiece, which relates quite a lot about the turning of the century, or specifically pointing to the birth of Impressionism. Zola was one of several young artists in Paris who originated the new wave of arts. Having been saturated by the “dark and grim” Romanticism arts, these energetic young men (Zola, Paul Cezanne, Claude Monet and Edouard Manet were among them) introduced more natural, bright sunshine into paintings. I am quoting a few passages from the book, which I believe was Zola’s own thoughts.

“…Courbet’s “black” painting is already beginning to feel rusty and reek of a musty studio where the sun never enters… Do you see what I mean? Perhaps that’s what we need now, sunlight, open air, something bright and fresh, people and things as seen in real daylight. I don’t know, but it seems to me that that’s our sort of painting, the sort of painting our generation should produce and look at.” ~The Masterpiece, p. 37.

Claude Monet, Impression, soleil levant (Impression, Sunrise), 1872

Impressionist painting characteristics include relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage of time), ordinary subject matter, inclusion of movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience, and unusual visual angles. [wiki]. And Claude Monet with his painting “Impression” has inspired the name of the new style: Impressionist.

Not only in paintings, Zola believed that the naturalism and impressionism should occur also in other branches of arts: music, sculpture, literature, and architectural.

“Surely all the arts were intended to march forward together, and the process of change which was taking place in literature, painting, and even music, was going to lead to a renewal of architecture too. If ever there was a century in which architecture should have a style of its own, it was the century shortly to begin, the new century, new ground ready for reconstruction of every kind, a freshly sown field, the breeding ground of a new people. Down with the Greek temples, down with the Gothic cathedrals; belief in legends was dead! Down too with the delicate colonades and the intricate tracery of the Renaissance, that Classical revival crossed with medieval art… What was wanted was an architectural formula to fit that democracy, the power to express it in stone, building which it could feel to be its own, something big and strong and simple, the sort of thing that was already asserting itself in railway-stations and market-halls, the solid elegance of metal girders, developed and refined still further, raised to the status of genuine beauty, proclaiming the greatness of human achievement.” ~The Masterpiece, p. 139.

The Card Players, an iconic work by Cézanne (1892)

Zola also emphasized the condition near the end of the century with a vast rebuilding scheme took place, which also touched the land prices and many people attracted in investments. In short, Zola portrayed the early decadence of the society at the end of the 19^th century through The Masterpiece.

“We are living in a bad season, in a vitiated atmosphere, with the century coming to an end and everything in process of demolition; buildings torn down wholesale; every plot of land being dug and redug, and every mortal thing stinking of death. How can anybody expect to be healthy? The nerves go to pieces, general neurosis sets in, and arts begin to totter, faced with a free-for-all, with anarchy to follow, and personality fighting tooth and nail for self-assertion.” ~The Masterpiece, p. 359

[Review] The Masterpiece - L'Oeuvre

“Should we devote our time and energy to leaving a mark in some way (a painting, a sculpture, an opera, a fortune), or should we indeed ‘spend more time with our family’ and live for the present?”

Zola seemed to let us answer the above question by depicting Claude Lantier’s struggles between arts and life, imagination and reality. The Masterpiece—although not Zola’s masterpiece—is a prominent work from the Father of Naturalism which was also the most autobiographical piece from Les Rougon-Macquart series. Claude was the son of Gervaise and Auguste Lantier (in L’Assommoir), now lived in Paris as a painter. Together with his junior artist friends (painters, architect, sculpture, novelist, journalist), he started the new wave of arts, which later on became Impressionism. Zola’s own personalities could be found in Pierre Sandoz, Claude’s closest friend, a novelist who acted as ‘the glue’ of their friendship since school to their adult lives as artists. They met every Thursday to discuss about the fading Romanticism that they hated, and the urge to bring their fresh ideas of Impressionism to public.

Claude was the leader of this group (it is assumed that either Paul Cézanne and/or Claude Monet or Edouard Manet might have inspired his character). Real objects, natures and outdoor landscapes were his obsession—while at that time painters used models for indoor paintings of mythological or historical themes. Unfortunately his paintings were repeatedly rejected by the Salon des Refusés (an exhibition of works rejected by the jury of the official Paris Salon), while his friends—who adopted his ‘Open Air’ ideas and who were less talented than him—could gain successes little by little.

Bennecourt, where Claude & Christine spent their happy times together
[source]

Claude then found a perfect landscape in Ile de la Cité for his masterpiece, and became obsessed to paint it in big canvas, using his wife Christine as his nude model. However, no matter how hard he had worked on it and revised it many times over, Claude could never put the painting in a meaningful whole; and this depressed him severely. Claude could never recover from his humiliating failure until the end, and it ruined Christine’s life too in the process.

The Masterpiece (originally L’Oeuvre or The Work) is simply Zola’s way to criticize Parisian arts society. Many of the artists were so obsessed to be famous and a master of their art, that they ignored their private lives, happiness and families. They were never satisfied with their works, and worked madly day and night to create such a masterpiece; often drove themselves to severe despair or even madness. But on the other hand, there was also the Salon with its overwhelming tasks to sort art works from hundreds of artists. The Selection Committee would decide whether their works deserved to be hung for the Salon or not. This committee would walk together from rooms to rooms, inspect each painting, and vote for its inclusion or exclusion.

People gathered to discuss Cezanne's painting,
might it be some kind of the Salon?
[source]

I can imagine how tiring the task might have been, and in those pressured events, who could maintain their fair judgment all the time? It was more than possible that a painting of a talented artist would be rejected just because it’s different from the current trend. And don’t forget, there were many collectors who did not understand arts and just took whatever the Salon exhibited as the most valuable paintings to collect. In short, there were so many small wrong aspects in the Salon exhibitions running by men who might not have had enough artistic sense to execute their jobs, while these aspects might have influenced an artist’s failure or fortune, wealthy or poverty.

Although The Masterpiece would not shock you like L’Assommoir or entertain you like Germinal, but it’s enough to take us to see the ugly struggles beneath the beautiful works of arts! Zola wanted also to make us see how a child who was born from generations of drunkards might be deformed either mentally or physically. Claude, in particular, had the problem of madness attack every time he was exposed to an intense emotion. The art was the dearest thing of his existence; it’s his life, it’s his soul….

“What was Art, after all, if not simply giving out what you have inside you?”

But that was also one thing that triggered his madness, and when the madness came, it would dominate him such, that his painting would be one disaster. Oh, poor Claude! The only one which made him happy, caused his ruin. Genius in brain but corrupted in soul….and that was not his fault! It’s his parents’; but most of all, it’s the society…Paris of the late 19^th century, under the Second French Empire.

Although the novel has a rather hopeless tone, it actually marks the turning of the century. The birth of impressionism in arts—and painting is only one of them, because it would change architecture, sculpture, literature, and music as well—would certainly bring a new change to the civilization.

Four stars for The Masterpiece, a very interesting and educating novel! And thank you Monsieur Zola for ever writing it….

“What price glory, then, the thing we’d die for?”

“In life everything comes to an end, but nothing is ever repeated.”

Claude Lantier in The Masterpiece

Claude is the main character in Zola’s The Masterpiece; he was a shy guy who liked painting but disliked women. One day Claude met Christine, fell madly in love with her, then married her. But it turned out that Claude could not control more than one passion at the same time; that when he was enjoying his love with Christine, he could not drag himself to produce any serious painting. Then, when Christine offered herself to model for his painting, Claude began to stay away from his wife, and began fallen in love with his painting—or in this case, the woman in his painting. Seems that, in Claude, one passion would dominate another; but it was a madness which dominated Claude to his end.

I am still wondering whether it’d be much better if Claude has never been in love with Christine at all, or it would be all the same whether he married her or not, because the madness was already there? Maybe Claude was right after all for not liking women, maybe that way he could focus only on painting. But would have it altered his future to the better? I don’t know, maybe not…..

Claude seems to be a man with an unbalanced emotion. He was, in fact, a talented and skilled painter—all his friends admitted that—and he was genius too. Claude with several of his friends—young painters—started a new generation of impressionism. He had set a new style of painting, and although his paintings kept being refused by the Salon (a public exhibition which influenced the public taste of arts), many young artists followed his example in putting natures in their paintings. But strangely, he who had set the style, could never produce any single masterpiece till the end. Why? Again….I put the blame to his unbalanced emotion.

It’s a pity to see such a talented young man must meet a sad end. Claude was always very kind to his friends, and in a way he still loved Christine till the end. His only problem was he could not cope with himself, he could not control his emotion—when his paintings were refused, he would be so enraged, and when he poured out his feelings in painting, he became severely obsessed. Claude did not possess self-control of himself, and at last his repeatedly failure ruined him completely.

Bernard Fresson as Claude in L'oeuvre, 1967

Between Work & Success - The Masterpiece

The Masterpiece is called the most autobiographical novel of Zola’s Rougon-Macquart series. Zola’s personage was reflected from Pierre Sandoz, a kind hearted novelist, a best friend of Claude Lantier—the protagonist of this book—who represented Paul Cézanne or Claude Monet. The quote I am featuring this week is from Sandoz,

“So long as you can say to yourself that you’ve put your whole life into your work, that you expect neither immediate justice nor even serious appreciation, that you’re working without hope of any kind, simply because the urge to work beats in your body like your heart, because you can’t help it, you can let yourself die happy and console yourself with the illusion that you’ll be appreciated one day…”

I can’t agree more with it. Sandoz here wanted to console Claude who was depressed because the world rejected his works, and he felt himself useless. The fact is, we might be different from others, we might not be with the mainstream, but that doesn’t mean that we are not as good as they are. I believe that success comes not from the world’s appreciation, but from the happiness which our work had brought us. As long as we can do what we want which came from our heart, make the best of it, to achieve what is right for us, then I’ll call that ‘success’. To be praised by others would be a bonus, but without that, we can claim that we have served our purpose very well…. and die happily, as Sandoz put it…

Do you agree?

Sunset Views From The Masterpiece

In The Masterpiece, Émile Zola spoiled me with his beautiful descriptions of Paris in the end of 19^th century landscapes. As I always amazed at nature beauties, I am trying to capture here some images which transform the beauties from Zola’s words to more vivid imagination. These passages were taken from chapter 3 (p. 95-96) where Claude was enjoying afternoon strolls together with Christine. While the pictures might not represent the scene accurately, they could still help us to imagine the scenes, while savouring Zola’s beautiful words….

“The lovely sunsets they watched on those weekly strolls along the Seine, when the sun shone ahead of them all the way through the many lively aspects of embankment life: the Seine itself, the lights, and shadows dancing on its face, the amusing little shops, each one as warm as a greenhouse, the pots of flowers on the seedsmen’s stalls, the deafening twitter from the birds-shops, and all the joyous confusion of sounds and colours that makes the waterfront the everlasting youth of any city.”

[source]

“One evening, in an unexpected shower, the sun, as it reappeared through the falling rain, lit up every cloud in the sky, making the rain overhead glowed like liquid fire shot through with pink and blue.”

[source]

 “On days when the sky was clear, the sun like a ball of fire would sink majestically into a waveless lake of sapphire."

[source]

"For a moment, as it passed behind the black dome of the Institut, it was horned like a moon on the wane; then as its disc reddened to deepest purple it would pass out of sight in the depths of the lake transformed into a pool of blood.”

[source]

“But the most theatrical effects, the most magnificent transformation scenes were only produced in a cloudy sky. Then, according to the whim of the prevailing wind, they would see waves of sulphur breaking on boulders of coral, palaces, towers of buildings piled up in a blazing heap or crumbling down as torrents of lave poured through the gaps in their walls.”

[source]

“Or, at other times, the sun already out of sight, hidden by a veil of mist, would suddenly break through with such a mighty thrust of light that a tracery of sparks would be sent shooting clear across the sky like a flight of golden arrows.”

[source]

Don't those gorgeous views make you want to visit Paris? In 19th century?.... I do!