A review by helgamharb
La Faute de l'abbé Mouret by Émile Zola

3.0

Émile! Émile! Mon vieux! What was this? You did not write this triviality, did you? Or, perhaps you were ill and indisposed? Or, you wanted to write a nice little Novella but your almost non-existent romantic side took over? Or, this was just a joke played on the poor reader, describing literally every flower, tree and animal en détail for virtually 500 pages over and over again?
What was this boring drivel?

No ordinance of man shall override
The settled laws of Nature and of God;
Not written these in pages of a book,
Nor were they framed to-day, nor yesterday;
We know not whence they are; but this we know,
That they from all eternity have been,
And shall to all eternity endure.


I know this was meant to portray the battle between the Law of Divinity and the Law of Nature; a Catechism of Religion as opposed to Nature, but this, even for you was too much surrealism and not enough realism.
Oh, Émile! Mon ami! But for my enduring love for you, I would have given up on the book altogether!