The Dream (Le Reve) |
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Emile Zola
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Pages: 218 (Paperback)
ISBN: 0720612535
Pub: Peter Owen Ltd
Pub date: 2005-03-28
Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 217463
Reader Reviews:
Enchanting Reading (1/1 people found this helpful)
The Dream is a demanding yet hugely rewarding novel. Zola tells the story of Angélique, a fledgling urchin who is rescued from erring in the street by the Huberts, a childless couple of embroiderers. In their tender home the beautiful Angélique (one of the book's motifs is her "especially slender neck that had the elegance of a lily") learns the family trade of supplying ecclesiastical embroidery for the needs of the cathedral of Beaumont, the provincial town where they live. She grows-up to experience life as a charming but sometimes over-passionate reverie inspired by the dream of finding pure and eternal love in the arms of a prince.
As the translator, Michael Glencross, points out in his deft introduction, this lesser-known Zola work differs from his famous social novels by forsaking the world of nascent industrialism for the symbolic realm of religious sentiment and the embroiderer's craft. This can be discomfiting for the modern reader given the intricate and sometimes archaic vocabulary necessary to express both. But Glencross' translation aptly renders the style of the original to give a wonderful and heady prose as Angélique's dream unfolds.
Enchanting Reading (4/4 people found this helpful)
The Dream is a demanding yet hugely rewarding novel. Zola tells the story of Angélique, a fledgling urchin who is rescued from erring in the street by the Huberts, a childless couple of embroiderers. In their tender home the beautiful Angélique (one of the book's motifs is her "especially slender neck that had the elegance of a lily") learns the family trade of supplying ecclesiastical embroidery for the needs of the cathedral of Beaumont, the provincial town where they live. She grows-up to experience life as a charming but sometimes over-passionate reverie inspired by the dream of finding pure and eternal love in the arms of a prince.
As the translator, Michael Glencross, points out in his deft introduction, this lesser-known Zola work differs from his famous social novels by forsaking the world of nascent industrialism for the symbolic realm of religious sentiment and the embroiderer's craft. This can be discomfiting for the modern reader given the intricate and sometimes archaic vocabulary necessary to express both. But Glencross' translation aptly renders the style of the original to give a wonderful and heady prose as Angélique's dream unfolds.
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Categories
Amazon.co.uk places this book into the following categories:
Books -> Subjects -> Fiction -> World -> French
Books -> Subjects -> Fiction -> General
Books -> Subjects -> Fiction -> Short Stories -> World -> French
Books -> Refinements -> Language (feature_browse-bin) -> English
Books -> Refinements -> Age (feature_two_browse-bin)
Books -> Refinements -> Format (binding_browse-bin) -> Paperback
Books -> Refinements -> Condition (condition-type)