num_pages: 432
description: Did possessing and killing amount to the same thing deep within the dark recesses of the human beast? La Bete humaine (1890), is one of Zola's most violent and explicit works. On one level a tale of murder, passion and possession, it is also a compassionate study of individuals derailed by atavistic forces beyond their control. Zola considered this his `most finely worked' novel, and in it he powerfully evokes life at the end of the Second Empire in France, where society seemed to be hurtling into the future like the new locomotives and railways it was building. While expressing the hope that human nature evolves through education and gradually frees itself of the burden of inherited evil, he is constantly reminding us that under the veneer of technological progress there remains, always, the beast within. This new translation captures Zola's fast-paced yet deliberately dispassionate style, while the introduction and detailed notes place the novel in its social, historical, and literary context.
language: English
title: La Bête Humaine
titlecomplete: La Bête Humaine (Les Rougon-Macquart, #17)
characters: M. Denizet, President Grandmorin, Séverine Roubaud, Jacques Lantier, Misard, Roubaud, M. Camy-Lamotte, Cabuche, Berthe de Lachesnaye, Mme. Bonnehon, Flore, Pecqueux, Phasie, M. de Lachesnaye
genres: Literature, Crime, Classics, Novels, 19th Century, France, Roman, Historical Fiction, French Literature, Fiction
ratings_count: 11086
places: Normandy, France, Le Havre, Rouen
series: Les Rougon-Macquart
awards: awardedAt: 1199174400000
name: French-American Foundation Translation Prize
category: Fiction
publisher: Oxford University Press