booksafterten's review
adventurous
dark
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
ladyeremite's review against another edition
5.0
The disappearance of the obscenely ambitious, gloriously grandiose attempt to encapsulate all of society in a series of novels is one of literature’s great tragedies. In France, this peculiarly nineteenth century project was carried out successively by Balzac, Flaubert and Zola. Between them, these men spanned almost the entirety of France’s tempestuous nineteenth century. Whereas Flaubert concentrated on the nuanced intricacies of individual psyches and Balzac the complex choreography of social relations, Zola was above all interested in the nature of what we would call “modernity”-- the throbbing dynamic of his age as it emerged in everything from department stories to prostitution to coal mines. This obsession sometimes gives his novels a somewhat sensational feel, but always makes them fun and memorable reads.
L'Argent 's contribution to the study of modernity lies in its examination of the force of money and speculation. The main narrative focuses on the rise and fall of Aristide Saccard and the Banque Universelle, a story roughly based on the challenge of the Péreire Brothers' Crédit Mobilier to the Rothschild-dominated haute banque in the 1860s (the Rothschild character, the Jewish banker Gundermann, is not central but particularly well-drawn with his forbidden grapes and his constant milk-drinking). More broadly, however, the story weaves together multiple smaller stories about money: the proud but penniless aristocrats who secretly wash their own clothes in order to maintain a public façade of nobility, the devout princess ruining herself through works of charity in penitence for her deceased husband's ill-gotten gains, the sinister debt collector who tracks down old bills and unveils dirty secrets and his beloved sickly brother who preaches the downfall of capitalist society, a kind of Madame Defarge of the stock market who buys up the remnants of bankrupt companies, the aspiring novelist, his disinherited wife and their beloved four pieces of furniture that they refuse to yield the bailiffs. All of these characters’ fates become tied up in the breathtaking rise and fall of Saccard's megalomaniacal project.
As in La Bête Humaine , the book which immediately precedes it in the Rougon-Macquart series, there is a sense of some grand, inevitable, unstoppable force sweeping along the characters in its path. Yet whereas the unforgettable last pages of La Bête Humaine present us with the ferocious engine crowded with doomed soldiers speeding over the French countryside without a driver, the drunken rollercoaster ride of speculative activity that has ruined so many ends with attempts at rebuilding some of the visions that had inspired the Banque Universelle. Speculation is perhaps the wild and dark side of this unbridled faith in the future, potentially realizing nightmares as well as dreams, but at heart Zola seems to embrace the visions of a better future that wealth (prudently managed) could provide.
Zola is often (and rightly) faulted for his occasionally clumsy handling of his characters' psychological lives. L'Argent largely plays to Zola's strengths in this regard. Concentrating on the giddy superficiality of money, the lack of psychological depth and stability seems completely in line with a Simmelian reading of the topsy-turvey but empty emotional world of speculation creates. The treatment of the female characters is quite compelling, with almost all coming off far more sympathetically and heroically than their male counterparts. Modern readers might be shocked to see the extent of female participation in the stock markets: Zola’s story takes place from 1864 to 1867, years immediately preceding the active suppression of women’s role in financial life (a theme well covered by Victoria Thompson’s book The Virtuous Marketplace). Of all the female character, Madame Caroline in particular comes across as a remarkably modern woman, and the novel’s true heroine.
Zola's story of Second Empire speculation, spot-on accurate in its own day, sparkles with a lurid and disturbing contemporaneity in our own age of speculation. It is written in a clear, lucid and compelling French even when discussing the fine points of stock market transactions. Like Saccard, Zola’s vision may have verged on the grandiose, but, like Saccard, his passion and vision somehow make up for his weaknesses. A masterful feat.
L'Argent 's contribution to the study of modernity lies in its examination of the force of money and speculation. The main narrative focuses on the rise and fall of Aristide Saccard and the Banque Universelle, a story roughly based on the challenge of the Péreire Brothers' Crédit Mobilier to the Rothschild-dominated haute banque in the 1860s (the Rothschild character, the Jewish banker Gundermann, is not central but particularly well-drawn with his forbidden grapes and his constant milk-drinking). More broadly, however, the story weaves together multiple smaller stories about money: the proud but penniless aristocrats who secretly wash their own clothes in order to maintain a public façade of nobility, the devout princess ruining herself through works of charity in penitence for her deceased husband's ill-gotten gains, the sinister debt collector who tracks down old bills and unveils dirty secrets and his beloved sickly brother who preaches the downfall of capitalist society, a kind of Madame Defarge of the stock market who buys up the remnants of bankrupt companies, the aspiring novelist, his disinherited wife and their beloved four pieces of furniture that they refuse to yield the bailiffs. All of these characters’ fates become tied up in the breathtaking rise and fall of Saccard's megalomaniacal project.
As in La Bête Humaine , the book which immediately precedes it in the Rougon-Macquart series, there is a sense of some grand, inevitable, unstoppable force sweeping along the characters in its path. Yet whereas the unforgettable last pages of La Bête Humaine present us with the ferocious engine crowded with doomed soldiers speeding over the French countryside without a driver, the drunken rollercoaster ride of speculative activity that has ruined so many ends with attempts at rebuilding some of the visions that had inspired the Banque Universelle. Speculation is perhaps the wild and dark side of this unbridled faith in the future, potentially realizing nightmares as well as dreams, but at heart Zola seems to embrace the visions of a better future that wealth (prudently managed) could provide.
Zola is often (and rightly) faulted for his occasionally clumsy handling of his characters' psychological lives. L'Argent largely plays to Zola's strengths in this regard. Concentrating on the giddy superficiality of money, the lack of psychological depth and stability seems completely in line with a Simmelian reading of the topsy-turvey but empty emotional world of speculation creates. The treatment of the female characters is quite compelling, with almost all coming off far more sympathetically and heroically than their male counterparts. Modern readers might be shocked to see the extent of female participation in the stock markets: Zola’s story takes place from 1864 to 1867, years immediately preceding the active suppression of women’s role in financial life (a theme well covered by Victoria Thompson’s book The Virtuous Marketplace). Of all the female character, Madame Caroline in particular comes across as a remarkably modern woman, and the novel’s true heroine.
Zola's story of Second Empire speculation, spot-on accurate in its own day, sparkles with a lurid and disturbing contemporaneity in our own age of speculation. It is written in a clear, lucid and compelling French even when discussing the fine points of stock market transactions. Like Saccard, Zola’s vision may have verged on the grandiose, but, like Saccard, his passion and vision somehow make up for his weaknesses. A masterful feat.
travelsalongmybookshelf's review
challenging
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Money is the fourth book in the Rougon Maquart cycle and we return to Paris to follow Aristide Rougon, known as Saccard.
He is a failed property speculator and in this book once more is scheming and manipulating, this time to create a bank. He wants power, money and to grind his rival Gundermann into the ground. As share prices rocket upwards, there can only be one outcome and that is a crash with disastrous consequences for most of the characters in the book. Madame Caroline, his mistress, is the moral compass of the novel and through her eyes we see how money corrupts and how love can be sordid but gives us strength.
This has been the least enjoyable of the books so far for me. Saccard is not a nice man, he is what the phrase ‘a jumped up little Napoleon’ is for; a small man he constantly strives to be bigger, better and above everyone else. His greed and all consuming desire for money and to win overrules everything else. Plus he is anti- Semitic and the language around this is awful, not disguised in any way, it does reflect opinions at the time. Reading the introduction, this is what Zola wanted to achieve with the awfulness of it showing his abject stupidity.
I do also feel that there wasn’t a huge depth to the characters, they seem to flit in and out of the narrative, like actors on a play with no real back story or grounding and again my understanding is that for Zola his overarching plan was an emphasis on science and Naturalism, tracing the influence of heredity on one family and that comes at a cost to plot and characterisation. It makes for a thinner book for me, I was less engaged and felt less attachment to the characters than I have previously.
‘She thought of the terrible filth with which love too has been soiled. Why then blame money for the dirt and crimes it causes? Is love any less sullied, love, the creator of life?’
Content Warnings
Moderate: Antisemitism
northerly_heart_reads's review
challenging
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
bibliobethreads's review
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
twisted_helix's review against another edition
challenging
dark
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Colonisation, Sexual violence, Antisemitism, and Classism
Minor: Suicide
vetathebooksurfer's review against another edition
#книжныйотзыв | Эмиль Золя «Деньги», 1891 г.
vetathebooksurfer
или Как make France great again, не привлекая внимания полиции
«Так, может быть, воспитание, здоровье, ум — всё это только вопрос денег? И если гнусная человеческая природа повсюду одинакова, то не сводится ли и вся цивилизация к одному преимуществу — душиться дорогими духами и жить в роскоши?»
Осторожно: упоминание изнасилования, намек на связь с несовершеннолетними, эротика, антисемитская и колониальная риторика
Цикл «Ругон-Маккары» я читаю вразброс, и на этот раз выбор пал на «Деньги», неуклюжего толстячка на 500 страниц (хотя «Обрыв» на 700 стр визуально выглядит чуть ли не меньше).
Суть истории заключается в следующем: на фоне прекрасного городского пейзажа, где человек человеку – волк, капиталист-западник-католик загорелся вернуть былое величие себе западной цивилизации. Любому проекту необходимо финансирование, поэтому он торгует «опиумом для народа» – идеей объединения населения под знаменем католичеством. План прост: если у Римского Папы будет своей независимый католический банк на финансирование деятельности, то сразу и Иерусалим вернётся, и deus vult.
Поворотные точки сюжета напрямую приурочены к военным действиям Второй Французской империи, поэтому со знанием истории продвигаться по сюжету было бы проще. Благо сноски достаточно погружают в контекст, окончательно никто не запутается. А уж какие эпитеты Золя применяет к деньгам: «борьбу целых состояний, которые бросались в бой, как армии», «легкие, как звон хрусталя, звуки, исходившие из-под земли, похожие на голоса сказочных фей, и он узнал звон золота, постоянную музыку этого квартала торговли и спекуляции»
Далее - спойлеры
В общем, товарищ Саккар впаривает религиозным фанатикам акции банка, основанного ради великого дела, попутно рассказывая читателям подробности игры на бирже и почему финансовым пирамидам лучше не доверять. Цель у него далеко не самая благородная, учитывая, с каким пафосом противопоставляется «отставший», «грязный» Восток современному «прогрессивному», но заблудшему Западу. Неоднократно повторяется, что восток нужно очистить от «грязи», провести железную дорогу, разработать недра, в будку свет провести, так сказать.
Если копнуть чуть глубже обычного приключенческого романа в стиле «Волка с Уолл-стрит» или «Брата», мы сразу же замечаем следующие особенности повествования:
– постепенно Запад vs Восток отходит на второй план, уступая биржевому противостоянию обалдевшего от власти католика и семейного, флегматичного еврея. От лица главного героя мы слышим антисемитскую риторику, мол:
«при виде их вся его плоть возмущалась, словно это был физический рефлекс, а при мысли о малейшем соприкосновении его охватывало непреодолимое отвращение и совершенно безрассудное бешенство»
Причем ни разу не обоснованную, Саккар сам едва от судимости ушел, а уж что он на стороне творил - чья бы корова мычала.
– но как бы ни пыталсяотвлечь нас автор биржевой борьбой, мы помним, с чего все начиналось: с лекции одного второстепенного персонажа, философа-марксиста. Меня очень привлек его взгляд на сменяемость власти и общественных институтов:
«– Смотрите! Вот перед вами здание… Вы его видите?– Биржу? – спросил Саккар. – Да, разумеется!– Ну, так вот! Было бы глупо взрывать ее, так как ее все равно выстроили бы в другом месте… Но только предупреждаю вас – она взорвется сама собой, когда государство станет единственным всеобщим банком нации и экспроприирует ее»
Итого мы уже имеем противостояние трех идеологий. И пока товарищ-философ занимался трудами в тишине своей коморки, те двое друг друга просто сожрали.
– Под личиной какого-то благоволителя скрывается обычный неунывающий делец, чье сучность еще и сказывается на его детях - оба по милости отца насмотрелись на всю жизнь, один рано постарел, другой так и остался зверенышем.
Казалось бы, увидим мы в этом романе хоть что-то позитивное? За всей этой вакханалией, где люди буквально переспать готовы, лишь бы узнать более выгодный курс акций, наблюдает Каролины, сестра одного из ключевых персонажей для осуществления плана Всемирного банка. Она переживает удар за ударом: неудачная женитьба, спешная поездка на Восток, затем обратно во Францию, нескончаемые измены, подставы, предательства, чужой сумасшедший ребенок. И не смотря на все это, раз за разом она обретает надежду и находит в себе силы жить дальше.
«Да, он [Саккар] был прав – деньги все еще служат тем удобрением, на котором произрастает человечество будущего; отравляющие и разрушающие деньги становятся ферментом всякого социального роста, перегноем, необходимым для успеха всех великих начинаний, облегчавших существование человека... Зачем же взваливать на деньги вину за те мерзости и преступления, которые они порождают? Разве менее осквернена любовь — любовь, созидающая жизнь?»
А мораль в чем? А мораль такова: ни один человек за протяжение одной своей жизни не сможет перевернуть общество. Как говорится: не лезь, оно тебя сожрет!
blueyorkie's review against another edition
5.0
Zola's money: further proof that the Rougon Macquart saga is a timeless marker of human societies' evolution!
We are back, after the Curée, in the world of money. Big money, that of the Stock Exchange, which made to flow for the sole pleasure of feeling it flow, even if it means devastating in its wake all that gave birth and growing it, viable and valuable economic projects such as the illusions of the little people.
This unalterable thirst thrills Saccard, a magnificent trickster and crooked financier, which pushes him to rely on the development projects in the East of Hamelin and his sister, Madame Caroline, to demonstrate the place of Paris its power through the creation of the Universal Bank. Disregarding the few embezzlements necessary for its development, he never ceases to push it high, consistently higher, leading with him in a growing movement of collective hysteria about money. That's the entrepreneurs, nobles and corrupt politicians, and most everything, a host of small carriers, first wise and then driven mad by the lure of money, until the final collapse.
Through the story of the birth to death of this bank based on a vision of healthy prosperity but vitiated from the start by excessive appetites, it is not only from the angle of speculation, greed, corruption, and exhilaration game that Zola presents us with money. The author compares these dark aspects as a fine analyst and skilful storyteller. Thanks to a fantastic gallery of characters from all backgrounds, what positive money brings to people and societies: economic and social progress, fuel for creative energies, and receding poverty. Utopias swept away in the end, in a paroxysmal scene of the stampede to the basket from which will come out rinsed, finished, except those who, like Madame Caroline, remain rich in their values.
I devoured this hectic and uplifting opus of Rougons, perfect from start to finish, for which I regret the unfinished development of the character of Victor, Saccard's hidden son who could have better shed light on his father's name, and that of the time.
We are back, after the Curée, in the world of money. Big money, that of the Stock Exchange, which made to flow for the sole pleasure of feeling it flow, even if it means devastating in its wake all that gave birth and growing it, viable and valuable economic projects such as the illusions of the little people.
This unalterable thirst thrills Saccard, a magnificent trickster and crooked financier, which pushes him to rely on the development projects in the East of Hamelin and his sister, Madame Caroline, to demonstrate the place of Paris its power through the creation of the Universal Bank. Disregarding the few embezzlements necessary for its development, he never ceases to push it high, consistently higher, leading with him in a growing movement of collective hysteria about money. That's the entrepreneurs, nobles and corrupt politicians, and most everything, a host of small carriers, first wise and then driven mad by the lure of money, until the final collapse.
Through the story of the birth to death of this bank based on a vision of healthy prosperity but vitiated from the start by excessive appetites, it is not only from the angle of speculation, greed, corruption, and exhilaration game that Zola presents us with money. The author compares these dark aspects as a fine analyst and skilful storyteller. Thanks to a fantastic gallery of characters from all backgrounds, what positive money brings to people and societies: economic and social progress, fuel for creative energies, and receding poverty. Utopias swept away in the end, in a paroxysmal scene of the stampede to the basket from which will come out rinsed, finished, except those who, like Madame Caroline, remain rich in their values.
I devoured this hectic and uplifting opus of Rougons, perfect from start to finish, for which I regret the unfinished development of the character of Victor, Saccard's hidden son who could have better shed light on his father's name, and that of the time.
tomcat12's review against another edition
4.0
Pour une nulle en économie, un livre qui arrive à rendre la bourse palpitante. Fort.
cloudytm's review against another edition
dark
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5