I adore this book. I am often saddened by the 21st century's approach to "how to" guide, so often a "for dummies" volume that treats texts as merely piles of information to be absorbed and then half-remembered at dinner parties. Graham King - an Australian who made a career building up Rupert Murdoch's trash newspapers, so there's that to consider - sees things very differently. In this book is a biography of Zola, ideas of his life and times, synopses and examinations of all of his novels - especially the beloved Rougon-Macquart cycle - and King's thoughts on all of the available English translations, when he wrote this book in the late 1970s.

As King says in his introduction, this is specifically aimed at those reading Zola in translation, more than a century after he wrote Nana and Germinal and his other great works. This is an absorbing read, a companion by the English reader's side.

King's personality comes through. If he likes or hates a book, or a concept, you'll know about it. For me that's a delight, because I'm happy to agree or disagree with another critic as need be. For some, they may find it annoying in a pseudo-biography. And, following on from that, this is not a strenuously researched biography. Those exist, and they can be great, but this is more of an overview, setting Zola very much in the context of his own works, rather than an in-depth exploration of 19th century Paris.

The final note is that it has been forty years since this book was published. Oxford have released sparkling translations of the entire Rougon-Macquart series so a lot of King's concern about how Zola is translated and marketed - a major concern for Zola studies in the 20th century - is now merely of historical interest. Still, my middle name is "historical interest", so no complaints from me. Indeed the final section of this volume, in which King compares and contrasts all the available English translations to date, is still a very useful piece of criticism. For those of us encountering Zola in this, a golden age, it's great fun to look back disdainfully at what has gone before. ( )