Attack on the Mill and Other Stories

by Émile Zola

Book Overview

Most famous for his twenty-volume dissection of nineteenth-century French mores and society, the Rougon-Macquart novels, Zola was also an extremely accomplished short-story writer, as exemplified by the tales included in this volume.

Concerned with the manifold aspects of everyday life and varying in their settings - from aristocratic drawing rooms to poverty-stricken garrets, from the hustle and bustle of Paris to the Proven al countryside...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1847496970
• ISBN13: 9781847496973
• Release Date: September 2018
• Publisher: Alma Books
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.0" x 7.7"

Customer Reviews

There's some great movies hiding in this book.

Emile Zola is one of the greatest writers of all time. His novels "Germinal" and "L`Assommoir" easily place in my List of Top 10 Novels. "The Attack on the Mill and Other Stories" is an impressive collection of short stories spanning Zola's career. The thing I found most surprising is how funny Zola could be! All of the novels I've read have been dark and depressing, but the story "Rentafoil" was absolutely hilarious. Another thing that struck me was how some of these stories ("A Flash in the Pan", Coqueville on the Spree" and "Rentafoil") would make great movies. "The Girl Who Loves Me" 3.5/5 A guy finds "love" at a fairgrounds "Rentafoil" 5/5 Side splitting story about a business that rents out ugly girls to decent looking girls so they can go out in public together. "Death by Advertising" 4.5/5 Humorous story about a guy who believes everything he reads in ads. "Story of a Madman" 3/5 Wife drives husband nuts. "Big Michu" 3.5/5 Revolt at a boy's school. "The Attack on the Mill" 5/5 Classic Zola. Just read it. Best story in the collection. "Captain Burle" 3.5/5 Captain Burle is a lazy ol' sod. "The Way People Die" 5/5 Just what the title says. Sad. "Coqueville on the Spree" 5/5 Residents of a remote coastal village put their differences aside when something special washes up on shore. Very funny. "A Flash in the Pan" 5/5 Could easily be made into a very erotic movie. Hot. "Dead Men Tell No Tales" 5/5 Who knew Zola wrote horror? Very uncomfortable and disturbing story. I had a hard time reading it. "Shellfish for Monsieur Chabre" 4/5 Funny story about a twit who doesn't notice what his sexy young wife is doing. "Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder" 2.5/5 Long slow story about a guy who is thought to be dead, but isn't. Way too long. "Priest and Sinners" 4/5 Obviously Zola didn't care much for priests. "Fair Exchange" 2/5 Boring story about a talented but drunk painter who marries an ugly woman. Skip it. "The Haunted House" 2.5/5 Lame. A guy investigates a haunted house. Very weak. Skip it also.

Great stories from a master storyteller

Zola is my favorite author and this is a wonderful selection of his short stories. Recently translated by Douglas Parmee, these stories were originally published between 1864 and 1899, spanning most of Zola's writing career. Arranged chronologically. you can see the author's style develop as you move from one story to the next. A great introduction to Zola's writings! The stories: The Girl Who Loves Me - A great description of a carnival sideshow's effects on a lonely young man. Rentafoil - An amusing satire on society's attempts to package and sell beauty. Story of a Madman - A woman and her lover plot to put her husband in an asylum. Big Michu - Boarding school students organize a hunger strike and a simple peasant's son takes the blame. The Attack on the Mill - The German Army occupies a French village and a young woman is forced to decide between the lives of her father and her lover - a wonderful love story. Captain Burle - A French officer embezzles funds to support his mistresses. The Way People Die - A series of brief tales showing death in different social settings. Coqueville on a Spree - Two feuding families in a small town resolve their differences in a most unusual way. A Flash in the Pan - Love between the classes is thwarted when a peasant girl falls in love with the son of a well-to-do lawyer, but her jealous father gets in the way. Dead Men Tell No Tales - A dead man tells his tale. Shellfish for Monsieur Chabre - A young woman has an affair while her aging husband gobbles shellfish to increase his virility. Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder - An exiled revolutionary given up for dead returns to France searching for his wife and daughter. Priests and Sinners - Like The Way People Die, this is a series of short sketches; this time dealing with the relationship between priests and people who are thought of as sinners. Fair Exchange - An excellent portrayal of the evolving power relationships in the long-term intimate relationship between a husband and wife. The Haunted House - A haunting story about how rumor can color our perception of reality for the worse. Seven pages of Explanatory Notes by the Translator, are very helpful in bringing these tales to the modern English reader.