The Masterpiece Audiobook By Émile Zola cover art

The Masterpiece

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The Masterpiece

By: Émile Zola
Narrated by: Leighton Pugh
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Perhaps the most autobiographical of Zola's Rougon-Macquart cycle of novels, The Masterpiece is a hard, bleak, and raw portrait of unrecognized artistic genius. Claude Lantier, brother to Nana and son of Gervaise, is a struggling painter who dreams of conquering the Paris art scene with his revolutionary "open air" style of painting. Discouraged and mocked, Claude retreats to the countryside with a young woman from Clermont, with whom he has fallen in love, before returning to Paris, where he continues to experience rejection at every turn. Zola's depiction of a frustrated artist is said to have drawn heavily on the real-life experiences of Edouard Manet and Paul Cezanne, the latter of whom broke off his friendship with the author upon reading the novel.

Download the accompanying reference guide.Public Domain (P)2020 Naxos Audiobooks Literary Fiction Classics Genre Fiction
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The narrator is great.
Strangely, certain passages of the book are not included in a few places.

Great, but...

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famous tale by Zola that is said to have lead to the rupture with Cezanne

classic fictional history of the artworld

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you should know that this is the book that ruined zola and Cezanne's friendship!

also, fun and descriptive but damn it zola get words that are not "indignant", "obstinate' or "ardent". I guess it's not his fault. he's french. (kind of). good read. uhr, listen.

classic book, great if you know your art history.

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Zola is always an interesting and entertaining read but I feel like this one dragged and was a little weird in its focus on Romanticism and how it was treated unfairly when this book is Realist. Like Courbet, whom these "Romantics" love. it's a bit muddled. That said...this is an interesting book because it is a semi-autobiographical story of the author's relationship with Cézanne. Cézanne never spoke with Zola again after this book was published. so it's interesting in a historical sense.

not his best

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Fantastic! An engaging story with lifelike images. And now to continue with another masterpiece in Zola's series.

Great novel , great narrator!

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