Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-02-25
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL.

Next to self-preservation comes the
instinct to get ahead.
| The whole fabric of the modern world
IS underlafd with it as pattern of a
rug might be with some uniform back
| ground.
Every one may watch its workings for
| himself in real life, but often there
comes desire to see it condensed and
summed up in book.
In that event there is but one novel
extant which was written :or this ex-
press purpose. and which will give the
reader what he seeks.
It is Emile zola's "The Fortune oil
the Rougons," the first of the 20 novels
comprising the Rougon- Macquart series
and even less known in this country
| than most of his other works.
From the death of lola in the first
years of this century to the present
there has been decline in the popular
interest In his novels. especially in the
| United States, where translations are
difficult to get.
! And yet in most bookstores of rea.
sonable stocks the inquisitiys may find
tranSlations Of "L'Assommoir, Mana
and "Germinal," perhaps his most
| popular.
! Seldom, however, will he run across
IlC rOl buklCS Va JIlC ItOukOllS, vel
| 1t is rightly held to be the key work OF
the entire great series, and Is said to
sell two or three thousand copies every
year in France on that oasis alone.
He who wants to understand and
| therefore fully appreciate the remaining
10 novels, including the three Eamed
ought to read the first In order to "get
at" exactly what the French realist was
trying to do.
So the translator of one edition de-
clares. and no doubt is right. Zola's
| own introduction to the novel states
that in it he purposed to narrate the
natural history, as he called it, of a
family. a French family. with all its
members in the large. their many vices
their fewer virtues.
He plainly states in his introduction
that he believed that in France, at any
rate, during the Second Empire, that OF
Louis Napoleon, certain rage to "get
ahead" took possession of the people.
Perhaps he was right, maybe it came
to head. as it were, at that period in
France, but there can be little doubt
that the instinct, If one may call it
that, is as old as the hills.
What will interest the modern reader
Is that the thing Is so well summed up
In THE Fortunes of the Rougons," es-
pecially by one Of those exaggerations
which writer's use to make point.
Sometimes readers complain that e
character or situation is exaggerated "
just as sometimes some one viewing a
painting at an art exhibit will declare
that mo sky was ever that color"
The truth Is that skies are often OF
exaggerated colors, or unusual tints
which only the artist has the power to
appreciate at the time, and only the
genius to recollect later.
When the sky is put on canvas, how
ever. the time and the mood have
vanished, and those who see the pic
ture then incline to believe that no such
glory ever existed.
It is much the same In a novel.
There can be little doubt that "dif-
ferent" people make the best subjects
for stories, and it is almost equally so
that mean people, verging on the GRIM
ina,l, are the most interesting to read
and write about 1t takes an excep-
tional artist to do 800 pages about a
good and virtuous woman and make
them interesting, but almost every one