Hi Parsifal. I suppose there is no such thing as a closed conversation on HC.... and anyway, I have a deep respect for your views and very much appreciate your comment.
I'm presently reading (again) La Bête Humaine and yes it is bleak. grimy coal dust and smoke covering the lives of grimy people. Very much like Dickens' Hard Times. Your point on Zola's personality though is as much on van Gogh's view of the Potato Eaters - cold, deprived and depraved.
Yet it was said of Dostoyevski that he had his depressive side as well and yet he wrote so eloquently of life in Eastern Europe at a time before mass industrialisation and without the compressed effects of coal smoke on a much tightly packed population. The broad landscapes of Russia with the more sparse population may be the difference?
