His Excellency Eugène Rougon

Download or read book His Excellency Eugène Rougon written by Émile Zola and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'He loved power for power's sake . . . He was without question the greatest of the Rougons.' His Excellency Eugène Rougon (1876) is the sixth novel in Zola's twenty-volume Rougon-Macquart cycle. A political novel set in the corridors of power and in the upper echelons of French Second Empire society, including the Imperial court, it focuses on the fluctuating fortunes of the authoritarian Eugène Rougon, the vice-Emperor. But it is more than just a chronicle. It plunges the reader into the essential dynamics of the political: the rivalries, the scheming, the jockeying for position, the ups and downs, the play of interests, the lobbying and gossip, the patronage and string-pulling, the bribery and blackmail, and, especially, the manipulation of language for political purposes. The novel's themes--especially its treatment of political discourse--have remarkable contemporary resonance. His Excellency Eugène Rougon is about politics everywhere.