Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-01-07
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL.

The Fortune Of the Rougons,' should
scientifically be entitled The Origin"
| 4 X 4 r
What will strike the reader about this
60-year-old preface is the modernity of
it. The great outburst of our age
which rushes upon enjoyment THAI
might be description of Americans in
modern America. The march of the
lower classes through the social system
is even more typical of the United States
now than 1t was in the France of the
last century.
lola had to choose a common family
In order to show its progress. The great
charge made against him, both In his
own day and now, is that his books deal
unnecessarily with the evil in human
| beings. One carefully studying his
preface to the first of them will realize
| that his subjects arose almost by ne
cessity out of his family. Evil had to
| predominant.
The question of environment was a
| moot one with Zola He realized it's force
in day and age when civilization was
| just beginning to grasp it. Today many
social worker who never read a book
by Emile lola, or, indeed, even heard
his name, is yet indebted to him.
We may discount much Of what lola
tried to do, for, after all, he was a child
| of his age, an age bursting with self-im-
| portance. Heredity has not turned out
to be the Science" which he thought II
was, or which he hoped it would be. But
human beings are still human beings
and his delving into them, at their worst
and best, is still very vital.
Some lola enthusiasts declare that
THE Fortune Of the Rougons'' is one Of
the best stories the French master ever
wrote. We cannot agree. It is rather
slow In action and does not show the
sure hand of the master story-teller
which he later became. In it he has a
50-page depression in the plot which he
would not have introduced 10, Is or 20
years later
The book wiz be of intense interest,
however, to all who find matter OF
speculation and amusement in the in
cessant struggle for riches which goes on
around us every day. The story shows
us the members of this peculiar family
poor, grasping, come almost to the end
of their lives, but never having given
up for second the hope Of getting rich.
The children grow up, become mid
die aged, and still there are no riches
and still the elderly couple pine for
money, for position, for a respect
which they do not have. And in that
If mirrored in a distorted looking glass,
something Of his own aspirations and
dreams.
Few succeed In life as they would like
to succeed, but 1t is perhaps true that
few, II any, ever give up their dreams.
They may give over a portion of them,
being beaten to the wall by unacceptable
happenings, but they clutch firmly to
their hearts the hopes which have es-
capped, and these become all the dearer
to them because Of the loss Of the
remainder.
1.-THE Fortune of the Rougons" might
have been entitled, 1.-THE Natural History
Of How Heroes Are Made" for here the
reader finds delicious account of the
making Of an ordinary hero in everyday
life. The way in which Pierre Rougon,
merchant, becomes the savior OF his
home town, and thus becomes deco
rated and secures an important post
under the government, may be greatly
exaggerated, but the reader will not be
able to escape the conviction that this
is the way many Of them are made, If
the truth were known.
To such as contemplate reading
those three master works, "L'Assom-
moir," Mana" and "Germinal," we
recommend the prior reading Of this
book. lola, as Is every master writer,
is a world in himself. To understand
that world is something. To read 1.-The
Fortune of the Rougons" is to under
stand 1t better, and to make ones self
familiar with Gervaise and the other
heroes and heroines of the later stories.
1t should be stated that each novel
stands perfectly by itself; there is no
bothersome connection, except in re-
gard to ancestry.