Paris
1898
Paris, the final novel in Zola's Three Cities trilogy, follows Abbé Pierre Froment, a young priest whose faith crumbles beneath the weight of Parisian misery. Arriving at the Sacré-Cœur under winter frost, Pierre encounters a city of staggering contrasts: opulence beside starvation, religious pomp alongside human desperation. His assignment to deliver charity to a starving painter becomes the catalyst for a profound spiritual and social reckoning. As Pierre navigates the labyrinthine poverty of the slums, witnessing the chasm between the church's promises and the people's suffering, his certainty dissolves into doubt. Zola's unflinching portrait captures a Paris roiling with revolutionary sentiment, where the question of whether God exists becomes inseparable from the question of whether justice can. The novel builds toward a dramatic climax of faith reclaimed or surrendered, set against the backdrop of a city preparing to tear itself apart. For readers who cherish literary ambition and moral complexity, Paris offers Zola at his most philosophical and his most visceral.
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“Respectable people... What bastards!””
— Emile Zola
“A silence fell at the mention of Gavard. They all looked at each other cautiously. As they were all rather short of breath by this time, it was the camembert they could smell. This cheese, with its gamy odour, had overpowered the milder smells of the marolles and the limbourg; its power was remarkable. Every now and then, however, a slight whiff, a flute-like note, came from the parmesan, while the bries came into play with their soft, musty smell, the gentle sound, so to speak, of a damp tambourine. The livarot launched into an overwhelming reprise, and the géromé kept up the symphony with a sustained high note.””
— Emile Zola
“Good gracious!" she exclaimed, "she's been more than an hour in there! When the priests set about cleansing her of her sins, the choir-boys have to form in line to pass the buckets of filth and empty them in the street!””
— Emile Zola
“Cependant Quenu se rappelait une phrase de Charvet, cette fois, qui déclarait que "ces bourgeois empâtés, ces boutiquiers engraissés, prêtant leur soutien à un gouvernement d' indigestion générale, devaient êtres jetés les premiers au cloaque." C' était grâce à eux, grâce à leur égoïsme du ventre, que le despotisme s' imposait et rongeait une nation.””
— Emile Zola
“Paris, pareil à un pan de ciel étoilé tombé sur un coin de la terre noire, lui apparut sévère et comme fâché de son retour.””
— Emile Zola
“Hanya orang-orang tak berumah, yang memang sudah tidak punya apa-apa dan karenanya tidak mungkin kehilangan apa-apa, yang ingin melihat tembak-menembak dimulai””
— Emile Zola
“Was für Schurken, diese ehrbarenLeute!””
— Emile Zola
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Zola, Emile. Paris. Lex, lex-books.com/book/paris-2f4b4310-06a7-4fd6-80dc-a866f1689ed1.Zola, E. (1898). Paris. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/paris-2f4b4310-06a7-4fd6-80dc-a866f1689ed1Zola, Emile. Paris. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/paris-2f4b4310-06a7-4fd6-80dc-a866f1689ed1.









