Everything about Zola is lengthy: the 15 volumes of his Œuvres complètes (Cercle du livre précieux, 1966–70) are only one compendious example; his letters published to date (Montreal University Press, 1978–2010) fill 11 enormous tomes; Henri Mitterand’s definitive biography (Fayard, 3 vols., 1999–2002) covers 3000 pages. And as for the secondary literature devoted to his work, the 10,000 items registered by 1980 seem like the mere preliminaries to the exponential increase in such studies over the last 40 years. It makes it all the more remarkable that Brian Nelson has successfully risen to the challenge of distilling the various dimensions of Zola’s career and the sheer profusion of his writing into a set of introductory perspectives which explain why he remains one of the giants of nineteenth-century European culture. And Nelson argues that to limit his importance to that particular context is to ignore the extent to which ‘Zola is the quintessential novelist of modernity’ (p. 1), by virtue of the intensity of his focus on the dynamics of an emerging capitalist society. One of the key strands of Nelson’s overview is the subversive nature of Zola’s fiction, not least in the originality of novels bringing the reading public up close to subjects not hitherto considered aesthetically legitimate. If the parallels with the Impressionists are compelling in this respect, it is also true that contemporary painting ‘had a profound influence on his art in terms of visual effects, compositional techniques, and choice of motifs’ (p. 22). Nelson usefully offers a general summary of Zola’s creative processes, underlining (and thereby addressing a popular misconception which cannot be corrected too often) the extent to which documentary validation is subordinate to imaginative elaboration. But, instead of an inevitably superficial synopsis of each of the Rougon-Macquart novels in turn, he has selected for closer attention some of the dominant themes of Le Ventre de Paris, L’Assommoir, Nana, Au Bonheur des Dames and Germinal, exemplifying what Nelson calls the ‘poetry of fact’ (p. 6). His chapter on the late work (Les Trois Villes and Les Quatre Évangiles) makes the point that these novel-cycles are inseparable from the ‘ideological strains of the period’ (p. 108), but is less likely to enthuse potential readers. Zola’s involvement in the Dreyfus Affair, however, is seen as the ‘logical’ (p. 111) extension of his lifelong engagement in public affairs and the polemical thrust of both his early journalism and the fictional representation of his age. Within the constraints of this Oxford University Press series, and as an introduction to Zola’s life and work, Nelson’s little book cannot be faulted: it is grounded in a specialist’s mastery of the field; it is completed by a reliable chronology; and its invitation to read further is supported by a bibliography listing major editions in French as well as critical studies in English which range from the accessible to the scholarly.

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书评：布赖恩·纳尔逊：埃米尔·佐拉：非常简短的介绍

关于左拉的一切都是冗长的：他的 15 卷 Œuvres complètes (Cercle du livre précieux, 1966-70) 只是一个简明的例子；他迄今为止出版的信件（蒙特利尔大学出版社，1978-2010）填满了 11 部巨著；Henri Mitterand 的权威传记（Fayard，3 卷，1999-2002）有 3000 页。至于专门用于他工作的二级文献，1980 年登记的 10,000 项似乎只是过去 40 年此类研究呈指数增长的初步。更令人瞩目的是，布赖恩·纳尔逊 (Brian Nelson) 成功地迎接了挑战，将左拉职业生涯的各个方面以及他的大量作品提炼成一系列介绍性观点，这些观点解释了为什么他仍然是 19 世纪的巨人之一。欧洲文化。纳尔逊认为，将他的重要性限制在特定背景下就是忽略“左拉是现代性的典型小说家”（第 1 页）的程度，因为他对新兴资本主义社会的动态的关注强度. 纳尔逊概述的主要内容之一是左拉小说的颠覆性本质，尤其是小说的原创性使阅读大众接近了迄今为止在美学上不合理的主题。如果在这方面与印象派的相似之处令人信服，那么当代绘画“在视觉效果、构图技巧和主题选择方面对他的艺术产生了深远的影响”（第 22 页）也是事实。Nelson 有用地提供了 Zola 创作过程的一般总结，强调（从而解决一个不能经常纠正的流行误解）文件验证在多大程度上从属于富有想象力的阐述。但是，他没有依次对鲁贡-麦夸特的每部小说进行不可避免的肤浅概要，而是选择了《巴黎文特尔》、《L'Assommoir》、《娜娜》、《Au Bonheur des Dames》和《Germinal》中的一些主要主题进行密切关注，例如纳尔逊称之为“事实之诗”（第 6 页）。他关于晚期作品（Les Trois Villes 和 Les Quatre Évangiles）的一章指出，这些小说周期与“那个时期的意识形态压力”密不可分（第 108 页），但不太可能激发潜在读者的热情。然而，左拉参与德雷福斯事件被认为是“合乎逻辑的”（第 15 页）。111）他终生参与公共事务的延伸以及他早期新闻业和他那个时代的虚构代表的论战主旨。在牛津大学出版社系列的限制下，作为对佐拉生活和工作的介绍，纳尔逊的这本小书无可挑剔：它以专家对该领域的精通为基础；它由可靠的年表完成；其进一步阅读的邀请得到了参考书目的支持，该书目列出了法语的主要版本以及英语的批判性研究，范围从可访问到学术。它以专家对该领域的掌握为基础；它由可靠的年表完成；其进一步阅读的邀请得到了参考书目的支持，该书目列出了法语的主要版本以及英语的批判性研究，范围从易于访问到学术。它以专家对该领域的掌握为基础；它由可靠的年表完成；其进一步阅读的邀请得到了参考书目的支持，该书目列出了法语的主要版本以及英语的批判性研究，范围从可访问到学术。