Therese Raquin: 5

I paid 4.19 plus tax for a book that has a 2.99 price tag on it....with most all of the pages written on in pen. The corner of the front page is ripped off and there was some kind of debris that came out of the book when I flipped through the pages. Don't get me wrong, I love buying books here, but they need someone to check quality control.

From the opening page, we are aware that this will be a dark work. 'Above the glazed roof the wall rises towards the sky,' writes Zola, 'black and coarsely rendered, as if covered with leprous sores and zigzagged with scars.' A small household is described. We have Camille, a sickly, mothered, placid boy. As he becomes older, his mother's protective nature remains as strong as it was when he was a child. He is plied with medicines and 'adoring devotion', such that 'His growth had been stunted, so that he remained small and sickly looking; the movement of his skinny limbs were slow and tired.' Camille is presented as a wholly unattractive young man, with his ignorance 'just one more weakness in him.' And then we have Therese Raquin. She was given to Camille's mother by his uncle when she was two, and has remained in Madame Raquin's household ever since. Therese has suffered the medicinal ministrations of Camille's mother, and because of this, has developed a quiet, introspective, intense demeanour. 'she developed a habit of speaking in an undertone, walking about the house without making any noise, and sitting silent and motionless on a chair with a vacant look in her eyes.' This is an unhappy household. Or, perhaps, because everyone is so concerned with repressing any spark of feeling or emotion, it is a dead house that just happens to still be living. Camille is too ignorant and sick to have a personality beyond the studied egotism of a man who has grown up with a dominating, too-concerned mother, while Therese is a blank piece of paper, purposely unwritten upon. When her twenty-first birthday arrives, Madame Raquin informs Therese that she is to marry Camille. Therese accepts the decision, with all that changes of her life being she sleeps in Camille's bed and not her own. All else remains the same. But soon an idea enters into Camille's head. He has always wanted to work in an office, the idea makes him 'pink with pleasure'. Against his mother's wishes, they move to Paris, where he finds a job working for the railway. Very quickly, life settles for everyone and time, as it does, plods along. Thursday evenings become a social occasion for the family. Camille invites a colleague from work and his mother, a retired policeman she knew in Vernon, for a weekly game of dominoes. A few others arrive, and another routine is added to that of the Raquin's. Here, Zola is quite clear in his disdain for the evenings, 'After each game the players would argue for two or three minutes, then the dismal silence would descend again, interrupted only by more clicking.' We are still near the very beginning of the novel. What Zola is doing now is to put all of the pieces into place - much like a game of dominoes - before adding the final character. A well-developed sense of drudgery, boredom and inevitability lies heavily across the text. We can quite comfortably imagine these characters continuing their lives in much the same manner until they are dead, and h

Therese Raquin pulled me right into the story. I couldn't put it down, I had to find out what was going to happen next. It was destined to be a classic. The story is about a young woman named Therese Raquin, who is unhappily married to her sickly, weak cousin Camille. As a child Therese was adopted by Madam Raquin. Camille was her sick son, who she kept close watch over and spoiled with home-made medicines and warm blankets. Camille was always fond of Therese and insisted that she take the medicne before he did (Even though she was never sick). Madam Raquin decided to arrange for the two to one day marry because she feared that there would be no one to take care of Camille once she was gone. Therese and Camille wed once they were 21. Madam Raquin owned a shop that Therese helped her run, and Camille insisted on taking a job as a clerk because he was bored with staying at home. One day Camille ran into his old friend from childhood, Laurent. Laurent is a strong, handsom man, unlike Camille who is small, puny, and and ugly. Therese is immediatley infatuated with Laurent and soon falls in love with him. Laurent is a lazy ladiesman who has landed a job as a clerk at the same company as Camille after failing as an artist. Laurent finds Therese to be ugly and boring because of her constant silence, but he yearns for the company of a woman and sees Therese as an easy woman for him to seduce. He decides to become her lover right under Camille's nose. Madam Raquin considers Laurent a son, Camille considers him a brother, and Therese is crazy about him, so he has no problems arranging meetings for he and Therese to spend a few hours together. Laurent becomes amazed by Therese's lively spirit and activity in the bedroom and quickly falls under her spell. Crazy in love with one another, Therese and Laurent murder Camille in order to be together. For more than two years after Camille's murder, They avoid any intimacy with one another in order to not look suspicious. For those two years They are haunted by the memories of that terrible night and seem to be haunted by Camille himself. Convinced that once they are together again the hauntings will stop, Therese makes herself ill. Madam Raquin, still heartbroken over her son's death, becomes concerned. She believes that Therese's illness is cause by her sadness over Camille. She becomes convinced that Therese needs a man and arranges for her to marry Laurent. Finally, Laurent and Therese are together, but the haunting of Camille only gets worse. For many nights the couple is unable to sleep and are unable to go near each other. Their frustration turns into hate and they begin to abuse one another and blame one other for Camille's death. All the while Madam Raquin falls ill and becomes an invaid, unable to speak or move. Therese and Laurent decide to take care of her because having her in the house means they do not have to be alone with one another. Madam Raquin becomes a witness to the horrible abuse that Laure

THERESE RACQUIN IS A STORY OF ILLICIT LOVE AND REVENGE. IT IS ALSO A GHOST STORY. IF YOU LIKE VERY DRAMATIC WRITING SUPER CHARGED WITH HIGH-EMOTION, READ THIS BOOK BY ZOLA.IT IS THE STORY OF A YOUNG MARRIED WOMAN, THERESE, ESSENTIALLY EMOTIONALLY DEAD WHO FALLS IN LOVE WITH A FRIEND OF HER HUSBAND NAMED LAURENT. SHE HAS NO FEELINGS AT ALL FOR HER HUSBAND, BUT THE SEXUAL LOVE AFFAIR BETWEEN HER AND HIS FRIEND BECOMES SO INTENSE AND OUT OF CONTROL THAT THE PAIR TALK OF MURDERING THE HUSBAND SO THEY CAN MARRY.LAURENT, THE LOVER, BECOMES ALMOST A FRIEND OF THE FAMILY - THERESA, HER MOTHER AND HUSBAND. THEY ALL LOVE HIM, EVEN AS THERESA IS CARRYING ON A WILD AFFAIR WITH HIM. THE LOVE-SEXUAL AFFAIR IS DESCRIBED BREATHTAKILGLY - AS ONLY ZOLA CAN DO.THEN, LAURENT MURDERS CAMILLE, THE HUSBAND. FROM THIS POINT ON, THE BOOK DEALS WITH THE CHANGING RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THERESA, LAURENT AND THE MOTHER. THIS IS ALSO DESCRIBED IN HIGHLY CHARGED WRITING, QUITE DRAMATIC, AND IS A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF THESE THREE PEOPLE WITH A MURDER BETWEEN THEM. I RATE THIS BOOK AS A MUST READ. CURRENTLY THIS BOOK IS THE BASIS FOR A BROADWAY MUSICAL "THOU SHALT NOT."

Zola is indeed one of the finest french ecritures. His in-depth descriptions of the motivations and emotional reactions of the characters in Therese Raquin are both stunning and evocative. (My dad told me to say this last word, evocative!). One can feel the indecision, torment and lust of the different personalities involved, almost as if they are separate parts of oneself. Learning to live with these conflictual dimensions is the question Zola presents to us. I love this book; I adore Zola. I did have difficulty with Germinal, another of his novels, since it was set in the mines of France and lacked the emotional portent of Therese Raquin. HOwever, it was still well-written.

Therese raquin was an enchanting, marvelous look at the relationship between two people who confuse lust for love. Not only will the book make you cry, but you will be frightened at the fear, and the shock Zola is able to instill in his readers...a great book.