Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1882-05-24
ZOLA'S "POT-BOUILLE."
The Nastiest of Nasty Books-To0 Real
Even for the Most Zeal of the
Realistic School of Paris-Not q stngI,
Physiological Fact Omitted.
New York Critic.


NJ. Emile lola latest novel, Pot BouiLe
has been translated and put on the Ameri
can market To the literary qualities o
this work we have already called attention
Its moral qualities need to be no less plainly
indicated. We give notice to decent mer
and woman that no book so foul and vile b.
ever been issued by reputable French pub
fishers
There has been gradual advance in the
immoralities OF French novels. At the be
ginning of the century Pigault-Lebrur
wrote his registering romances for Ma
poleon's dragons, full of broad mess-room
stories, but otherwise innocuous. With the
monarchy of July came the romances Of
Paul de Kock, not over-nice in tone or sub.
ject, but never wilfully nasty. The Second
Empire lent an elegance to vice; it was the
epoch of Feuillet, the literary glorification
of the seventh commandment. The Third
Republic has brought us lola, course but
true in RAsSommoir, coarse and untrue in
Mana, filthy beyond the expression of words
in Pot BouiHe. Mr.. Albert Wolff, in the
Fisro, pleasantly calls him the Balsac des
cabinets.
Pot Bouille, it will be rendered, is the
history of Partisan apartment-house. Its
inmates are all stricken with moral leprosy.
Contrary to the French custom { NJ. lola,
being recluse, knows nothing of the scenes
he pretends to describe), they are all ac-
qusinted with one another. They share
each others rooms, furniture, wives, and
other household wares, and proceed 10 prac-
tees that would have Mortified the Oneida
Community. IN. Octave" the lady-killer
of the establishment, pursues his smorous
conquests from room 10 room, and his
triumphs are described in the same detail
and in much the same words which the
amiable Marquis de SADIE employs to relate
Of ~ nd T1fS att
Nothing is left to the imagination. Not a
physiological fact is omitted. The editor of
the GauLois, which published the story as
feuiileton, ventured here and there to insert n
line OF asterisks; but Nj. lola struck them
out of the book and inserted new incidents
30 repulsive, so abominable, as to place him
beyond the pale of criticism. If the Amer
lean translator having the fear of Mr.. Com
stock before his eyes, has omitted or miti-
gated these episodes, he Is selling the book
under false pretenses, and his readers are in
the pos ton of those who, caught by a sug-
gestiye title, purchase JdcetiOe, and find them
facts.
NJ. lola pleads as his excuse that, though
his books are gross, they are not salacious.
That is perfectly true. Nobody would think
of confounding P0t-BouiHe with the erotic
works of Crebillon Jfs, Diderot, Restif la
Bretonne, or even the La Popelinieres and
court-chamberlains who wrote tabLedu1 des
naoears for private circulation in the Pare aux
Ceris. These books have their admirers and,
though not recommended virginibus puerisque,
they are as curious as the specimens of Pri-
apic art preserved in the museum at Naples.
NJ. Z1la's novel, on the contrary, belongs
merely to the class of literature of which
Mr.. Comstock is making daily seizures. If
its personages talk, they talk filth. If they
act, their actions cannot be related in decent
prose. Sleeping or waking, they are the
vilest herd of criminals ever gathered out
side OF prison, and they are supposed to
occupy respectable house in one of the
richest streets in Paris.
This is naturalism, as lola understands it.
This ia truth, as lola depicts it. This is the
candid style, as lola has invented it. Other
novelists being content, in describing pretty
of P~-ia, to nasntion- her faee,- her
hat, her dress, lola must suggest meme des
dessous doueu1. Other novelists having
spoken of the mole on a beauty's neck, lola
must tell OF one qui montraa sur son rcntre IN
coup de sabre. Other novelists having mar
rated the vrsnglings of waiting women,
done, rider les pals de chanbre monsieur Le due
Other novelists, in telling of clandestine
childbirth, having stopped at the midwife's
door, lola pushes boldly in, and fills three
sickening pages with such horrors as must
make every hoiest man white with anger
that the law of France has allowed this gar
bage to be placet within reach of his chill
dren. There is nothing in IAssommoir,
nothing in Mana, nothing in any novel ever
published before, that can be compared with
these three pages. Their author is, hence
forth, not only literary outlaw, he is on his
way to the madhoue.
We have not see, the American transla-
ton; but if it follow the original with even
pretense to fidelity he Society for the Pre-
vention of Vice must interfere