The Dream

So, after publishing Earth, Zola’s critics grew even more vehement in their damnation of him as a pornographer, immoral and obscene, burying his face in the mud and shit and filth of the world. In response, he wrote this. How are we meant to read it? What is the text doing? It is certainly very diff......more

Here’s something to warm the cockles this Christmas (what are cockles anyway? do cockles fit in a stocking and are cockles an acceptable present for a nephew?)—a Zola novel with a happy ending! Happy, that is, if you happen to be a pious foundling embroiderer with aspirations to sainthood who wins h......more

The Dream is one of the lesser known Rougon-Macquart novels and this was the first time I have read it. Set in the town of Beaumont, alongside a medieval cathedral, it reads like a fairytale with miracles and religious passions alongside Zola’s familiar detailed style of describing architecture and......more