Doctor Pascal (Pocket Classics (Stroud, Gloucestershire, England).)

Rating:
Summary: To Sum Things Up
Review: Doctor Pascal's story is told here. The novel is more about him and his niece than about his musing on the heredity theory. All his scientific talks show no more than just one side of his personality, because showing that a certain physiological or a psychological anomaly passes either directly or indirectly from ascendants to descendants is a purely scientific task. A novel can show no proofs, only examples of such passing. Thus, Angelique Rougon in "Le Reve/The Dream", Pauline Quenu in "La Joie de Vivre/Zest for Life" and, in particular Jeanne Grandjean in "Une Page d'Amour/A Love Episode" clearly inherited a neurotic illness from their great-grand-mother Adelaide Fouque. And three of the members of the generation below (sons of Maxime Rougon, Nana and Claude Lantier) died in their childhood of various diseases, which shows complete family degeneracy. A more direct passing would be Gervaise Macquart addiction to alcohol, which she inherited from her father Antoine, who died of a spontaneous ignition in a drunken stupor. However, there is no explanation either in any of the novels or in the genealogical tree how such phlegmatic and mercenary-minded people as Lisa Quenu and her husband ("Le Ventre de Paris/The Underbelly of Paris") produced such a joyous, generous and selfless daughter Pauline ("La Joie de Vivre/Zest for Life") or how Francois and Marthe Mouret, Adelaide Fouque's grandchildren, who die after losing their sanity ("La Conquete de Plassans/The Conquest of Plassans") and who produced a feeble-minded daughter and a neurotic son, whose disease developed into mysticism ("La faute de Abbe Mouret/The Sin of Father Mouret") could along with that produce such an vigorous and business-minded son Octave ("Pot-Bouille/Pot Luck" and "Au Bonheur des Dames/"the Ladies' Paradise"). What makes it particularly hard to explain the genetic influence is the fact that family members (especially in late Rougon-Macquart novels) interact with each other little if any. Thus three Lantier brothers seem totally alien to each other and their parents, Angelique Rougon "Le Reve/The Dream" is brought up under no influence of her mother Sidonie, Helene Grandjean ("Une Page d'Amour/A Love Episode") never has any contact with her brother Francois and Jean Macquart ("La Terre/The Earth" and "La Debacle/The Downfall") with his sisters Lisa and Gervaise. Furthermore, if to look at environment vs. heredity, things turn out to be in favor of the former, because there are characters who undergo personality changes. Thus, Octave Mouret in "Au Bonheur des Dames/The Ladies' Paradise" is a lot different from Octave in "Pot-Boille/Pot Luck", Arstide Saccard in "L'Argent/The Money" from Arstide in "La Curee/The Kill". Therefore the heredity theory in Zola's novels is portrayed to a much lesser degree than the history of the French society under Napoleon III.

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Summary: Science and reason defeated by pride and passion
Review: What a plot line! After 30 years of scientific and genealogical research, a doctor in his late 50s decides his life is meaningless without children and accepts his 25-year old niece's offer to have his child. He dies of a heart attack, and his mother manages to destroy all his papers except his family tree diagram. This, the last in the 20-book Rougon-Macquart cycle was described by Zola himself as the summary and the conclusion of his work. Intellectually, it is highly adventurous in parts, even by today's standards, but it seems to fall flat at the end with its implication that the whole point of life is simply to breed and pass on your genes. You could say this book is the ultimate hymn to occupational therapy. However lofty a view human beings may have of themselves and their activities, they are really no different from any other form of life.