Reading Order
Une page d'amour Reading Order
Une page d'amour (1878) by Émile Zola is the eighth novel in the Rougon-Macquart cycle and the most intimate and psychologically concentrated of Zola's works — the story of Hélène Grandjean, a widow who falls in love with a doctor, and of her daughter Jeanne, who dies of jealousy when she realizes that her mother loves someone other than her. The novel is formally shaped by a device that makes it unique in Zola: five long descriptive passages of the Paris cityscape, seen from Hélène's window at different times of day and in different weather, that frame the five parts of the novel and provide a visual correlative to Hélène's emotional states. These descriptions of Paris — one of the great achievements of Naturalist prose — function as a Greek chorus, responding to and commenting on the drama with the impersonal perspective of the city itself. Une page d'amour is the most personal of the Rougon-Macquart novels: Zola's daughter Denise, born in 1869, died in 1872, and the figure of the child Jeanne who dies of a jealousy she cannot express is widely understood to reflect Zola's grief.
Where to start
Une page d'amour (1878) — the novel is short (about 300 pages, among the shortest in the Rougon-Macquart cycle) and self-contained; it requires no knowledge of the other Rougon-Macquart novels. The Roger Pearson Penguin Classics translation is the best English version. Read after L'Assommoir (the preceding novel in the cycle) and before Nana (the following novel) to understand it in context, but it can also be read independently.
Complete Une page d'amour Book List
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Une page d'amour
Émile Zola·1878·Eighth novel in the Rougon-Macquart cycle. The five panoramic descriptions of Paris (dawn, morning, afternoon, dusk, night) that frame the five parts of the novel were among the passages most admired by Zola's contemporaries; they influenced the Impressionist painters' serial studies of the same landscape under different light conditions.
Une page d'amour — Frequently Asked Questions
Is Une page d'amour a good entry point to Zola?
Une page d'amour (1878) is one of the best entry points to Zola for readers who have not yet tried the Rougon-Macquart cycle, for several reasons: it is short (about 300 pages, among the shortest in the twenty-novel cycle), self-contained (it requires no knowledge of the other novels), psychologically concentrated (where many Rougon-Macquart novels are panoramic, Une page d'amour follows a single consciousness through a single emotional crisis), and formally beautiful (the five panoramic descriptions of Paris that frame the five parts of the novel are among the finest descriptive prose passages in French literature). The traditional entry points to Zola are L'Assommoir (1877) and Germinal (1885) — both are longer, darker, and more comprehensive demonstrations of Naturalist method — but Une page d'amour offers the essential Zola combination of precise psychological analysis, Naturalist environmental determinism, and spectacular descriptive set pieces in a more accessible form. Readers who prefer psychological intimacy to social panorama will find Une page d'amour more congenial than either L'Assommoir or Germinal as a starting point.
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