The Readers Review: Literature from 1714 to 1910 discussion
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L'Argent
Émile Zola Collection
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Money (L'Argent) - Chapters I and II
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The other thing is about the business of buying up debt and collecting, even if it's a small amount. Only a week ago the NY Times magazine had a cover story on businesses who do just that in the US today. There's a certain personality and competitiveness to the business that seems exactly the same in Zola.
It was a bit slow-going reading this chapter because so many characters were introduced and we don't know which if any are going to be important.
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I read this one two years ago this month and won't have time for a reread. But I remember parts of it fairly w..."
Fascinating that there was a movie and ironic that it came out in a time of crazy speculation the year before the crash!
Dagny wrote: " I had gotten so bogged down and bored with Balzac's financial plots and feared Zola's Money would be the same.I have read five chapters so far, and still have a problem emotionally relating to this business world. There is ostensibly drama there, but this drama is for a very detached mind. I actually handle Balzac better than Zola. I know he gets more personal with his other novels, but the world of speculations and sibling's rivalry without true action is way too dry to my taste.
Just finished the first two chapters. The introduction to the workings of the stock exchange (especially the penny stock business) and a few of its inhabitants is a bit dry indeed. But in the second chapter the story starts to flow. More players are introduced, we even meet a few positive characters, all women with a history of domestic abuse. Caroline may become one of the leading actors in the book.Together with her brother Hamelin, Saccard plans to build a new business imperium in the Levant, based on French capital. Hamelin even dreams of a restored Kingdom of Jerusalem, to offer as a residence to the pope. Typical for the optimism of the age of imperialism is the ambition to restore civilization in the Middle East - though the more recent conception of 'bringing democracy' to this same region may not be so different after all.
Quite a few seeds were planted in these two chapters. There is a plot to blackmail Saccard as soon as he will be solvent again, there are the sad ladies Beauvilliers, we have a full blown marxist and hovering in the background is the ever present Eugene Rougon. And of course there is the Exchange, almost alive and breathing, dominated by Saccard's new enemy, Gundermann.
This week we are reading and discussing the first two chapters, and possibly it is the longest part in our schedule.
1. Saccard is lonely and a bankrupt and now he is entertaining the idea of getting his money back. Those of you who have read the previous novel, do you find Saccard more likable in this novel than in the previous one?
2. Why do you think Eugene Rougon, his older brother, is not willing to support him in his speculative initiatives?
3. Is there any reason to believe that Saccard will change now when he learns the news about his potentially illegitimate son?
4 . Am I the one who believes that Saccard is Judeophobic?
5. Do you think Saccard is lonely?
I will post more as soon as I finish chapter II. I still have 15 -18 pages to go, but I still wanted to open the tread not to delay the discussion.
As for the favorite quotes, this one seems to be very modern and existential and even Kafkaesque.
"And in the middle of the Place, now crowded with pedestrians and crossed by cabs in all directions, Saccard, looking out of the window, saw that the shining steps of the Bourse were sprinkled with human insects — insects ever climbing — men correctly dressed in black, who gradually filled the colonnade, while behind the railings there vaguely appeared a few women, prowling about under the chestnut trees."
Vanity of life in its full swing. Zola is such a brilliant observer!