Review of Thérèse Raquin (1867)

Émile Zola (writer).

I admire the attempt at naturalism, but this is a simple mechanical study of a pseudo-scientific view of humanity: Galen’s four temperaments. Even as such it is a failure, building to a suicide reminiscent of Greek tragedy.

References here: “Markheim” (1884), “Mann und Frau gehn durch die Krebsbaracke” (1912).

text fiction