Émile Zola

'He loved power for power's sake . . . He was without question the greatest of the Rougons.' His Excellency Eugène Rougon (1876) is the sixth novel in Zola's twenty-volume Rougon-Macquart cycle. A political novel set in the corridors of power and in the upper echelons of French Second Empire society, including the Imperial court, it focuses on the fluctuating fortunes of the authoritarian Eugène Rougon, the "vice-Emperor." But it is more than just a chronicle. It plunges the reader into the essential dynamics of the political: the rivalries, the scheming, the jockeying for position, the ups and downs, the play of interests, the lobbying and gossip, the patronage and string-pulling, the bribery and blackmail, and, especially, the manipulation of language for political purposes. The novel's themes--especially its treatment of political discourse--have remarkable contemporary resonance. His Excellency Eugène Rougon is about politics everywhere.

His Exellency Eugène Rougon

Christine Liu

The second book in Émile Zola's recommended reading order of the Rougon-Macquart cycle zooms in on the insular politics of the newly established French Second Empire. Whereas The Fortune of the Rougons gave us a wide-angle view of the town of Plassans and introduced us the to Rougons, Macquarts, and Mourets, this book focuses solely on Eugène Rougon, the eldest of the Rougon children, who has risen in political power since the events of the coup described in the first book and has accumulated quite a menagerie of hangers-on seeking favors with the new establishment.

I found this one more difficult to get through than its predecessor — not through any fault of the translation by Brian Nelson, which is excellent — but because I just personally couldn't get into reading so much about the machinations of power and the nuances of politics in 19th century France.

Eugène Rougon is Machiavellian in his ambition and insatiable in his quest for power and authority, and is a pretty repulsive character all around. But as unlikable as he is, Rougon is a wonderfully complex and nuanced character. Zola writes these really great, compelling characters, and none are more compelling than Clorinde, an audacious young woman from a minor Italian noble family, who teaches Rougon a very salient lesson in not underestimating a woman just because she's hot.

I liked this book overall, but I was mostly relieved to be done reading it.

His Exellency Eugène Rougon

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