Frederick Brown (1) (1934–)

An exhaustive and exhausting biography, this is an incredible source of information on Zola and his works. This book came out just before Oxford University Press started issuing its (now almost-complete) masterful series of modern translations, so the plot summaries are immensely helpful, although the one area I wish Brown had gone into was English translation of the work. (That subject is covered very strongly in Graham King's older, more plebeian "The Garden of Zola".)

Of course, there's a fine line between erudition and pretention, and I'm not sure Brown always comes down on the right side of it. I could use a few less instances of the word 'ultramontane', and perhaps a bit more translation. When Brown notes Zola's early series of columns, "Mes Haines", he remarks on how the title is inherently aggressive, but he neglects to translate it into "My Hates", so anyone who doesn't have French will be at a loss in that moment.

Nevertheless, a powerful biography written from an admirably objective point-of-view. Situating Zola firmly in his time, Brown finds a strong balance between the author's life and career emanating from his own persona, and from the cultural elements that formed him.… (mehr)

An insightful look into the french political landscape after the Franco-Prussian war. The epic struggle between Republicanism and Conservative Clericalism. Monarchism, Bonepartism, Secularism, all play their role, with varying degrees of success. From Boulanger's delusions of grandeur, to the Eiffel tower and the Dreyfus affair, the conflicts in the struggle for "the soul of France' in Fin-de-siecle France play out in a seesaw battle that, despite knowing the eventual outcome, leaves the reader guessing. I devoured this book.… (mehr)

This is a richly detailed, satisfying biography of naturalist novelist Emile Zola. Brown surrounds the life with a tapestry of French and Parisian history and culture. I'm learning a lot from this book, and having a wonderful time doing so.

Note you WILL get spoilers for all the Rougon-Macquart novels (and other works) you haven't yet read -- if that's important for you. My 60 year old memory is sufficiently dull now that I won't mind -- by the time I get around to the volumes I haven't read, I'm sure I will have forgotten Brown's descriptions.

One tiny knock -- Brown seems fond of spinning at times quite Freudian interpretations of some of the actions of his big cast of characters. These interpretations are sometimes convincing, and sometimes not. Still, a great book/biography. If you love or even just like Zola, read this.… (mehr)

French political history is, to me, much more interesting than American or British politics, because the gap between the players is so much larger. However much Americans or the British may disagree on policy, there's general constitutional agreement — acceptance that republican democracy on the one hand, or parliamentary monarchy on the other, is the way to organize society. Not so in France, as Frederick Brown demonstrates in this intellectual history of the French right in the decades leading up to Vichy. Brown's primary tool is a series of multi-chapter biographies of prominent French intellectuals of the Third Republic, thinkers who came to reject liberalism, democracy and Jews as cancers on the nation. The biographical sketches can get over-long and distract from the book's broader themes, but they help illustrate through examples the ideology that helped tear the French Republic apart. (Brown is also critical, though much more briefly, of the Far Left during this same time, who similarly embraced totalitarianism as an improvement on a parliamentary Republic. To the degree he has sympathies, it's with the comparatively moderate Socialists of Léon Blum, who are shown to reject totalitarianism and anti-Semitism without reaching the fecklessness of the largely contemptuous latter-day Radicals, "who were radical in name only.") I personally preferred Brown's previous work, "For the Soul of France," as a more engaging work less caught up in the private lives of writers, but "The Embrace of Unreason" is still enlightening.… (mehr)