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Émile Zola Addresses His Critics

By Robert Wilder Blue

How did the masses know which cave paintings were masterpieces and which were paint-by-numbers? Critics, of course. From the time there was art, there was criticism. Through the ensuing millennia, some criticism has been valuable, of course, especially when the general populace was unable for lack of transportation or technology to experience the art first-hand and wanted to hear about it second-hand as the next-best alternative. But, once art could be experienced, most criticism ceased to be necessary.

For the record, USOperaWeb doesn't happen to think criticism as it is currently practiced serves much purpose except to bring its Godzilla foot down on the creative process. The nature of criticism, i.e., judgment, is that it stands between the art and the audience. The artist wants the observer to participate on an emotional level. Judgment brings the brain into play, impeding emotional reaction. Most opera fans know that Verdi's La Traviata, Bizet's Carmen and Puccini's Madame Butterfly were all trashed the morning after by the critics. Today, however, we are not very concerned with the imperfections of those operas, even less so with what the critics thought. In our own time, critics savaged Samuel Barber's Antony and Cleopatra after its premiere at the Metropolitan Opera in 1966, an attack that changed the course of Mr. Barber's creative life and nearly killed off American opera altogether. Today, we find Barber's opera to be not so bad after all.

On the other hand, we don't want to get into too much critic-bashing here (although one day we'd love to publish the outtakes from some of our interviews). For reasons too complicated to analyze, we seem to believe critics, even if we disagree with them. One supposes it's natural for artists to dislike critics. The nature of the process - creation begetting criticism - doesn't allow for a rebuttal on the part of the creator. The thing is - it's all opinion. There is no such thing as factual criticism. Michael John LaChiusa said it perfectly in his interview with USOperaWeb, "Art doesn't change. Critical opinion and reaction to it will. So which should you trust more, the art that is presented to you or the critical opinion about it?"

Our thoughts have been lately on Thérèse Raquin, Émile Zola's novel, and Tobias Picker's new opera thereon, which will be given its world premiere on November 30 in Dallas. Monsieur Zola's book met with critical disdain when it was first published in 1867, so much so that he wrote a preface to the second edition defending the work. We thought you might find it interesting to read that this particular artist didn't have any higher regard for his critics than do artists today. We were unable to unearth any criticism of his preface, though, so we will let it stand as the final word!

ÉMILE ZOLA
Thérèse Raquin

PREFACE
To The Second Edition
(1868)
As translated by Leonard Tancock
Reprinted by kind permission of Penguin Books

I was simple enough to suppose that this novel could do without a preface. Being accustomed to express my thoughts quite clearly and to stress even the minutest details of what I write, I hoped to be understood and judged without preliminary explanations. It seems I was mistaken.

The critics greeted this book with a churlish and horrified outcry. Certain virtuous people, in newspapers no less virtuous, made a grimace of disgust as they picked it up with the tongs to throw it into the fire. Even the minor literary reviews, the ones that retail nightly the tittle-tattle from alcoves and private rooms, held their noses and talked of filth and stench. I am not complaining about this reception; on the contrary I am delighted to observe that my colleagues have such maidenly susceptibilities. Obviously my work is the property of my judges and they can find it nauseating without my having any right to object, but what I do complain of is that not one of the modest journalists who blushed when they read Thérèse Raquin seems to have understood the novel. If they had, they might perhaps have blushed still more, but at any rate I should at the present moment be enjoying the deep satisfaction of having disgusted them for the right reason. Nothing is more annoying than hearing worthy people shouting about depravity when you know within yourself that they are doing so without any idea what they are shouting about.

So I am obliged to introduce my own work to my judges. I will do so in a few lines, simply to forestall any future misunderstanding.

In Thérèse Raquin my aim has been to study temperaments and not characters. That is the whole point of the book. I have chosen people completely dominated by their nerves and blood, without free will, drawn into each action of their lives by the inexorable laws of their physical nature. Thérèse and Laurent are human animals, nothing more. I have endeavoured to follow these animals through the devious working of their passions, the compulsion of their instincts, and the mental unbalance resulting from a nervous crisis. The sexual adventures of my hero and heroine are the satisfaction of a need, the murder they commit a consequence of their adultery, a consequence they accept just as wolves accept the slaughter of sheep. And finally, what I have had to call their remorse really amounts to a simple organic disorder, a revolt of the nervous system when strained to breaking-point. There is a complete absence of soul, I freely admit, since that is how I meant it to be.

I hope that by now it is becoming clear that my object has been first and foremost a scientific one. When my two characters, Thérèse and Laurent, were created, I set myself certain problems and solved them for the interest of the thing. I tried to explain the mysterious attraction that can spring up between two different temperaments, and I demonstrated the deep-seated disturbances of a sanguine nature brought into contact with a nervous one. If the novel is read with care, it will be seen that each chapter is a study of a curious physiological case. In a word, I had only one desire: given a highly-sexed man and an unsatisfied woman, to uncover the animal side of them and see that alone, then throw them together in a violent drama and note down with scrupulous care the sensations and actions of these creatures. I simply applied to two living bodies the analytical method that surgeons apply to corpses.

You must allow that it is hard, on emerging from such a toil, still wholly given over to the serious satisfactions of the search for truth, to hear people accuse one of having had no other object than the painting of obscene pictures. I found myself in the same position as those painters who copy the nude without themselves being touched by the slightest sexual feeling, and are quite astonished when a critic declares that he is scandalized by the lifelike bodies in their work. While I was busy writing Thérèse Raquin I forgot the world and devoted myself to copying life exactly and meticulously, giving myself up entirely to precise analysis of the mechanism of the human being, and I assure you that the ferocious sexual relationship of Thérèse and Laurent meant nothing immoral to me, nothing calculated to provoke indulgence in evil passions. The human side of the models ceased to exist, just as it ceases to exist for the eye of the artist who has a naked woman sprawled in front of him but who is solely concerned with getting on to his canvas a true representation of her shape and coloration. How great, therefore, was my surprise when I heard my work referred to as a quagmire of slime and blood, a sewer, garbage, and so forth. I know all about the fun and games of criticism, I have played at it myself, but I confess that the unanimity of the attack disconcerted me a little. What! not one of my colleagues prepared to explain my book, let alone defend it! Amid the concert of voices bawling: 'The author of Thérèse Raquin is a hysterical wretch who revels in displays of pornography,' I waited in vain for one voice to reply: 'No, the writer is simply an analyst who may have become engrossed in human corruption, but who has done so as a surgeon might in an operating theatre.'

Note that I am by no means asking for the sympathy of the gentlemen of the press towards a work which offends, we are told, their delicate sensibilities. I am not so ambitious. I am merely astonished that my colleagues have turned me into a kind of literary sewer man, for they are the very people whose expert eyes should recognize a novelist's intentions within ten pages, and I must content myself with humbly begging them to be so good as to see me in future as I am and consider me for what I am.

And yet it should have been easy to understand Thérèse Raquin, to take up a position in the realm of observation and analysis and show me my real weaknesses without picking up a handful of mud and flinging it in my face in the name of morality. It needed, of course, a little intelligence and a few general notions about real criticism. In the world of science an accusation of immorality proves nothing whatsoever. I do not know whether my novel is immoral, but I admit that I have never gone out of my way to make it more or less chaste. What I do know is that I never for one moment dreamed of putting in the indecencies that moral people are discovering therein, for I wrote every scene, even the most impassioned, with scientific curiosity alone. I defy my judges to find one really licentious page put in to cater for readers of those little rose-coloured books, those boudoir and backstage disclosures, which run to ten thousand copies and are warmly welcomed by the very papers that have been nauseated by the truths in Thérèse Raquin.

Up to now all I have read about my work is a few insults and a lot of silliness. I say this here quite calmly, as I would to a friend asking me in private what I thought of the attitude of the critics towards me. A very distinguished writer to whom I grumbled about the lack of sympathy I am finding, gave me this profound answer: 'You have a tremendous drawback, which will close every door against you; you cannot talk to a fool for two minutes without making him realize he is a fool.' That must be the case; I see the harm I do myself in the eyes of the critics by accusing them of lack of intelligence, and yet I cannot help showing the scorn I feel for their narrow horizon and groping judgements totally devoid of method. I refer, of course, to current criticism, which judges with all the literary prejudices of fools, being incapable of taking up the broadly humane standpoint that a humane work demands if it is to be understood. I have never seen such ineptitude. The few punches aimed at me by petty critics in the matter of Thérèse Raquin have as usual missed and hit the air. This criticism is essentially wrong-headed; it applauds the caperings of some painted actress and then raises a cry of immorality about a physiological study, understands nothing, does not want to understand anything, but always hits out straight in front whenever its stupidity takes fright and suggests hitting out. It is exasperating to be chastised for a sin one has not committed. At times I am sorry I have not written obscenities, for I feel I should be happy to receive a well-merited whacking amid this hail of blows falling senselessly on my head like a lot of tiles, without my knowing why.

At the present time there are scarcely more than two or three men who can read, appreciate, and judge a book. From these I am willing to take lessons, because I am satisfied that they will not speak before they have grasped my intentions and appreciated the results of my efforts. They would take good care not to pronounce great big empty words like morality and literary decency, and they would acknowledge my right, in these days of artistic freedom, to choose my subjects where I see fit, and only require conscientious work on my part, knowing that only silliness endangers the dignity of letters. What is certain is that they would not he surprised by the kind of scientific analysis I have attempted in Thérèse Raquin, for in it they would recognize the modern method of universal inquiry which is the tool our age is using so enthusiastically to open up the future, Whatever their own conclusions, they would prove of my starting-point, the study of temperament and the profound modifications of an organism subjected to pressure of environments and circumstances. I should be standing before genuine judges, men seeking after truth in good faith, without puerility or false modesty, men who do not think they are obliged to look disgusted at the sight of naked living anatomical specimens. Sincere study, like fire, purifies all things. Of course, in the eyes of the tribunal I am choosing to envisage at the moment, my work would be a very humble affair, and I should invite the critics to exercise all their severity upon it, indeed I should like it to emerge black with corrections. But at any rate I should have had the deep satisfaction of seeing myself criticized for what I have tried to do, and not for what I have not done.

I think I can hear even now the sentence passed by real criticism, I mean the methodical and naturalist criticism that has revived the sciences, history, and literature: 'Thérèse Raquin is a study of too exceptional a case; the drama of modern life is more flexible and not so hemmed in by horror and madness. Such cases should be relegated to a subsidiary position in a book. The desire not to sacrifice any of his observations has led the author to stress every single detail, and that has given still more tension and harshness to the whole. Moreover the style lacks the simplicity that an analytical novel demands. In short, if the writer is now to write a good novel, he must see society with greater breadth of vision, depict it in its many and varied aspects, and above all use clear and natural language.'

I meant to devote a score of lines to answering attacks that are irritating by the very naïveté of their bad faith, and I see that I am embarking on a chat with myself, as always happens to me when I keep a pen in my hand too long. So I desist, knowing that readers do not like that sort of thing. If I had had the leisure and the will to write a manifesto I might have tried to defend what one journalist, referring to Thérèse Raquin, has called 'putrid literature.' But what is the point? The group of naturalist writers to which I have the honour of belonging has enough courage and energy to produce powerful works containing their own defense. It takes all the deliberate blindness of a certain kind of criticism to force a novelist to write a preface. Since I have committed the sin of writing one because I am a lover of light, I crave the forgiveness of men of intelligence who do not need me to light a lamp for them in broad daylight to help them see clearly.

Émile Zola