Le rêve (French Edition)

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• 5.0 out of 5 stars from Gio -- A Unicorn of a Different Color : Most readers in France and other Catholic-majority nations in the 19th C would have been acquainted with the Legenda Aurea, the "Golden Legend", the compendium of the lives of saints that had been universally popular since the Middle Ages. The Legends are rich in fantasy, like all fairy tales replete with both the gruesome and the delightful. La Reve (The Dream) is intentionally such a tale of implausible enchantment, a 'fairy tale' novella inserted into the often didactic naturalism of Emile Zola's 20-volume Rougon-Macquart chronicle of society during the Second Empire. The central character, Angelique, springs straight from the pages of the Golden Legend, which in fact she reads avidly and upon which she models the fantasies that control her behavior. Much of the imagery in La Reve, and even some of the odd archaic syntax, comes from hagiography. Zola always excels at description, at scene setting, and in this book he gives his descriptive powers free rein to visualize the cathedral and the cathedral community of Beaumont: the Gothic sculpture, the picturesque old houses and gardens, the heirloom furniture, the embroidered liturgical garments and the workshop where the adopted waif Angelique practices the delicate artisanry of embroidering the chasubles and stolls of her religion of spiritual splendor. Zola is completely in control of his style here, completely restrained from any urge to interpret or extrapolate; this is indeed a 'golden' dream of romance. And yet, somewhere toward the middle of this tale of enchanting innocence, one's heart begins to palpitate, one starts to perceive a looming tragedy, a bittersweet denouement, as if too much happiness cannot be other than a dream even in the enchanted precincts of a cathedral garden. ( Reviewed in the United States on June 14, 2010 )
• 4.0 out of 5 stars from Angry Mofo -- Self-delusion. : Le Reve's theme, I think, is how addiction to fantasy and castles of air can sap one's life, to the extent that, if one is sufficiently far gone, one may be better off dying while believing in them than living while having the illusions destroyed. The protagonist of Le Reve has such an obsession with saints and religious imagery that every occurrence of every day, to her, is miraculous, willed by god specifically for her individual benefit. This makes her first love a life or death affair - since, she thinks, said love was heaven-sent and personally ordained by all her favourite saints, an end to the love would not only mean a human crisis, but it would also mean a fatal conflict of faith. To better examine it, Zola projects this mindset onto the prose itself, such that Angelique's revival is made to appear as a miracle. (Most curiously, though, she is only revived when the Bishop says "I wish it," and not during any of his supplications to the heavens.) When the book is so permeated with her single-minded fixation (seriously, she never expresses a single thought about _anything else in the world_ in the whole book), her death appears as a mercy killing, as if Zola just had too much pity for her to let her live on to ever see her castles of air come tumbling down. ( Reviewed in the United States on May 10, 2003 )
• 3.0 out of 5 stars from Jaimelire -- Bluette agréable, sans la force des Rougon-Macquart : C’est en réaction aux critiques négatives de « La Terre » que Zola décide de privilégier l’esprit à la chair dans ce court roman, en marge des autres « Rougon-Macquart ». ( Reviewed in France on January 1, 2018 )
• 5.0 out of 5 stars from moi -- Une histoire d'autre fois... : Lecture qu'on ne survole pas. A lire dans le calme. Passionnant. ( Reviewed in France on September 8, 2021 )
• 5.0 out of 5 stars from Thomas -- Excellent : Très bonne édition de la série « Les Rougon-Macquart » de Zola. ( Reviewed in France on September 1, 2019 )
• 1.0 out of 5 stars from Lafcadio -- zéro étoile : J'espérais que ce livre pourrait sauver à mes yeux l'oeuvre lamentable de zola. Erreur, c'est à l'image du reste, médiocre. ( Reviewed in France on November 18, 2018 )
• 5.0 out of 5 stars from Angel'S SignS -- Un anti Zola : Un anti-Zola écrit par Zola et volontairement. Un personnage qui doit échapper à la loi de l'hérédité... Vraiment court (200p) et vraiment intéressant. ( Reviewed in France on November 9, 2010 )

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