I read my first ever Emile Zola: The Fortune of the Rougons which is the first in Zola's famous Rougon-Macquart series of 20 novels to which he dedicated his whole writing career. And what a masterpiece it is!

This first volume lays the genealogical foundation of the series which deals with two competing families, the Rougons and the Macquarts, both originally descending from one woman who has children by two men and therefore there are two brands of the family tree, a division in blood that will have its effect through the generations to come.

I was so surprised by Zola’s modern feel-writing! Very different from English Victorian novels of that same period. Big, sweeping and dark emotions are at play, like greed, jealousy, resentment and revenge. But also love, depicted in a love story between two young people that was both beautiful and heartbreaking to read. There were scenes in this novel that will stay forever with me.