The Kill by Emile Zola

Description from Goodreads

The Kill (La Curée) is the second volume in Zola’s great cycle of twenty novels, Les Rougon-Macquart, and the first to establish Paris – the capital of modernity – as the centre of Zola’s narrative world. Conceived as a representation of the uncontrollable ‘appetites’ unleashed by the Second Empire (1852-70) and the transformation of the city by Baron Haussmann, the novel combines into a single, powerful vision the twin themes of lust for money and lust for pleasure. The all-pervading promiscuity of the new Paris is reflected in the dissolute and frenetic lives of an unscrupulous property speculator, Saccard, his neurotic wife Renée, and her dandified lover, Saccard’s son Maxime.

I gave this book four stars out of five

My thoughts:

I enjoyed this book a great deal. This is the second part of the infamous Rougon-Macquart cycle of twenty volumes by Emile Zola, and follows on from ‘The Fortune of the Rougons’.

For a relatively short book of 260 pages this took me an inordinate amount of time to read. I kind of lost my way at the midpoint and didn’t get back to it for a few months. That is not to suggest that this was the fault of the book though. I gave this book four stars out of five despite the high quality, since I know that other books in this cycle are even better.

The writing was technically very proficient, as one might expect, and the descriptive passages evocative of everything one imagines of Paris of this period.

It was an interesting insight into the influence of Haussmann on the architecture of, and ultimately, the face of the future Paris.

The power of this book, I believe, is the authors ability to bring to life the hedonistic lifestyle followed by many Parisians, and the debauchery that prevailed at the time. He combined this with an exploration of the underbelly of Paris and the corruption associated with the development and rebuilding of the city.

I enjoyed the character development, which was superb, along with the relationships of Renee with her husband, Sacard and his son, her lover, Maxime. The characters were interesting and fully formed. I liked the numerous small links to the family history, as this both tied the story in with the previous volume and set the stage for future volumes.

I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in Paris of this period, due to the dearth of information that can be gleaned from it, or those interested in classic French literature. It was a fantastic account of the period, and an excellent read.

Multitasking whilst Reading

Those of you that have been following my reading progress, and I am sure there must be at least one person out there, hang on, no, I forgot my mother doesn’t blog anymore, so it is possible that I truly am talking to myself, will be pleased to know that I have finally finished Zola’s ‘The Fortune of the Rougons’. Not before time, I hear you say, and rightly so. This book has taken me an inordinate amount of time to get through, given its limited length. There are twenty books in this series, ‘The Rougon-Macquart Cycle’, and given the speed of progress thus far, I am looking forward to a finish sometime in early 2015. I may even throw a small celebratory shindig, to which you shall all be cordially invited.

I have been pondering the reason for my slow progress and I think that it comes down to my current limited ability to multitask, when one of those tasks is reading. When I was younger this never seemed a problem. I could do almost anything and read at the same time. I could read in the car, whilst watching television, whilst eating, whilst playing the guitar, whilst walking, like I say, pretty much anything. And I did.

Now though, it seems like a much larger chunk of my limited brain capacity is required to carry out individual tasks. I need to concentrate on things more directly. I guess the reading in a car as a child was easier. Reading whilst driving is apparently considered a pretty dangerous pastime, and not one I can comfortably consider, although I have been known to read in a traffic jam. I always find that the sound of irate drivers sounding their horns lets me know that the traffic has begun to move again. Pretty handy really, as it is shit boring looking at the arse of the car in front, just to see when it starts moving.

I am working on restoring my ‘reading multitasking skills’, but I am interested in other people’s views. Does it get harder to multitask as you get older, particularly when one of those tasks is reading? Is it just a temporary blip that can be overcome? I believe that it is. Finally, what weird and wonderful things can you do whilst reading? Can you read whilst riding a unicycle or taking a shower, for example? Let me know.

Reading Goals

So, I have been generally absent from posting here recently, other than the odd reblog. I have been pretty distracted of late, rather euphoric, and have been ignoring the blog almost entirely. My reading has also been rather slow, but I thought that I would return to the way of the blog, with a general update as to my current progress and goals.

I am still stuck on the three books I have been reading for a while, but intend to make some progress today, if possible. So currently trying to finish Homer’s ‘The Odyssey’, Zola’s ‘The Fortune of the Rougons’ and Stephen King’s ‘Joyland’. With  a bit of luck I will actually finish Homer this weekend and then be able to concentrate on the others during the week.

So what is next, you may ask? Probably you won’t, but I shall tell you anyway. I want to start on the next book in  Zola’s ‘Rougon-Macquart’ cycle, which in order of publishing, which is kind of the order that I am going to read these in is ‘The Kill’. As to other books, I am intending to take a look at the sonnets of Edna St Vincent Millay that have been recommended to me, and I am looking forward to experiencing.

So there it is. My altogether inadequate reading goals for the next few weeks.

Reading Habits

Following my post updating my reading progress a few days ago I received a very interesting comment from Charles, regarding the fact that I always seem to have a number of different books on the go at the same time.

This got me to wondering how others organise their reading.

Do you read one book at a time or multiple ones and if so is there any structure to it or just what you fancy at any given moment.

Reading more than one book at a time is just something that I seem to have always done, especially if one or more of the books is quite complicated, as in the case of one of my current reads, Homer’s ‘The Odyssey’.

I can often have five or six books that I am part way through. Sometimes I read a chapter of one, then a chapter of another and just flit back and forth. Strangely I don’t usually lose track of where I am and what is happening, although sometime I do find that it is easier to read a reasonable chunk of a particular book if the language is difficult. for example old English, or the style unusual, as it takes a little while to get to grips with.

Sometimes I find a particular book is more suitable for reading in the commercial breaks whilst watching television, the sort of book with lots of breaks in it, lots of small paragraphs, rather than pages and pages that are not broken up in anyway. For example ‘Joyland’ by Stephen King as opposed to Zola’s, ‘The Fortune of the Rougons’, another two of my current reads.

I also find that I like the variety and I can read whichever book suits my mood at the time. Usually I have different types of books going. One could be a classic, one fantasy, one modern literature, one thriller etc. Sometimes I do however have just a single book that I am reading. A lot depends on how complex it is and also my desire to get to the end of the book and find out what has happened.

So question time. How do you organise your reading matter? Do you tend to have more than one book on the go at the same time or do you start a book and read it to completion before starting the next.

Please comment and let me know what your reading habits. As always, I am eager to hear your views.

Pointless Post

So, it’s time for another short and ultimately pointless post. I have been kind of distracted from the blog lately. I have managed to get a bit of reading of reading done, although in fairness some of that has been trashy literature that I could not not bring myself to bore you with. I did read ‘The Rape of the Lock’ by Alexander Pope, which I enjoyed. Another book that I have just started is ‘The Cement Garden’ by Ian McEwan, which I am enjoying. Still persevering with Homer’s, ‘The Odyssey’ and I aim to finish that within the next couple of weeks. Zola is still on stand by and I will start that after ‘The Cement Garden’, I expect, which shouldn’t be long.

I still haven’t gotten very far with my assignment for the writing course. I have about two sentences, so it’s a start. I need to be stricter with myself about that. It isn’t that I don’t have the time. I just find that I don’t have the inclination at the moment, although I am sure that will return. I suppose it is because it is something that is new to me, having to actually write about a particular thing, rather than just random musings. I want to do a good job of it and so I end up spending more time thinking about what I am going to do than actually doing it.

Summer appears to have vanished yet again. We had a few bright days near the end of May and it looked like summer had finally arrived and then it just upped sticks and left, probably never to return. It is now just grey and cold again. I even had the heat on for a couple of hours last night – in June!

So, sorry for the pain you must have suffered if you have made it this far through my post. Have a good day/evening.

Reading progress

Only a short post today, but I promised myself I would write something before any original posts get completely swamped by the reblogs. My reading has been going quite slowly lately and I am still working my way through Homer’s ‘The Odyssey’ and Raymond E Feist’s ‘Magician’s End’. Still waiting to start Zola’s ‘The Fortune of the Rougon’s’, and I have a few other books I am eager to get round to, including Alexander Pope’s ‘The Rape of the Lock’, but more on those later.

Even when the reading is going slowly, I still find myself buying more and more books. I think it is a kind of disease, but fortunately not one I feel I need to worry much about. Certainly it’s not one worth worrying the doctor about (the psychiatrist? Well maybe.) The only problem I have is finding the space to put these new acquisitions, since most of them are actual books, made of paper and all shiny and new. Either that or they are old and battered with the tell-tale marks of their exciting journey through time, from the moment they were published to their final resting place on my book shelves. Admittedly there is also the odd ebook (that I cannot get a hard copy of) that I read on the PC, since I have still not sunk to the depths of purchasing an actual kindle.

Well, there you have it. Like I said, little else to say today. Have a good day, I am off to read.

Bank Holiday Reading Plans

I have decided to undertake some gentle reading today, following the excesses of yesterday. I spent yesterday visiting the Cambridge Beer Festival, a tradition that my friends and I have followed for many years. Every year we take the last Friday of the beer festival, the Friday before the Spring Bank Holiday, off of work and spend the day at the beer festival. This year for the first time in many years the weather was atrocious. It rained pretty much all day, turning the field in which the marquee was pitched into a muddy bog. Still, there were plenty of interesting beers to sample, and sample them we did. Needless to say I have been feeling a little delicate today, and in particular, very lethargic.

I decided the best option would be to find something reasonably easy to read whilst mildly hung over. I am reading ‘The Vintage Teacup Club’ by Vanessa Greene. Then I want to make some head way with rest of my reading over the bank holiday weekend. I am still working my way slowly through Homer’s ‘The Odyssey’. Then I am finally going to get started on reading Raymond. E. Feist’s Magician’s End. In fact I have just slipped the perfect, as yet undamaged, dust cover from my copy of Magician’s End in preparation. After this I think I am going to start Emile Zola’s ‘The Fortune of the Rougons’, the first part of the twenty book ‘Les Rougon-Macquart’ cycle.

So some decent goals set up. Now all that remains is for me to fail to achieve them. Not that I intend to get all of this reading done this weekend, it is likely to take a bit longer than that.