"
La Joie de Vivre.
Pauline Quenu (_Le Ventre de Paris_), having been left an orphan, was
sent to live with relatives in a village on the Normandy coast. It was
a bleak, inhospitable shore, and its inhabitants lived their drab,
hopeless lives under the morbid fear of inevitable death. The Chanteaus,
Pauline's guardians, took advantage of her in every way, and Lazare
Chanteau, her cousin, with whom she fell in love, got from her large
sums of money to carry out wild schemes which he devised. The character
of Pauline is a fine conception; basely wronged and treated with
heartless ingratitude, her hopes blighted and her heart broken, she
found consolation in the complete renunciation of herself for the sake
of those who had so greatly injured her.
"The title selected by M. Zola for this book," says Mr. E. A. Vizetelly
in his preface to the English translation (_The Joy of Life_. London:
Chatto & Windus), "is to be taken in an ironical or sarcastic sense.
There is no joy at all in the lives of the characters whom he portrays
in it. The story of the hero is one of mental weakness, poisoned by a
constantly recurring fear of death; whilst that of his father is one
of intense physical suffering, blended with an eager desire to continue
living, even at the cost of yet greater torture.
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