Kaljuga
Following the fall of the Second Empire, the Rougon-Macquart family continues its moral decline. The novel depicts the social mire, corruption, hypocrisy, and financial speculation of late 19th-century Paris.
Kaljuga (La Curée, also known in Croatian translations under the title Dismembered Booty) is the second novel from the monumental Rougon-Macquart cycle by the French naturalist writer Émile Zola. The story is set in Paris during the Second French Empire and the spectacular urban transformation of the city under the leadership of Baron Haussmann. Through the story of the rise and moral decline of Aristide Saccardo's family, Zola heartlessly exposes the dark side of that era - insatiable greed, reckless financial speculation and general moral corruption. Aristide Saccard, a reckless collector of wealth, uses the reconstruction of Paris and construction machinations to get rich, while his young and beautiful wife Renée succumbs to hedonism and enters into a forbidden, incestuous relationship with his son from his first marriage, Maxime. Their lavish home becomes a stage of false splendor, decadence and greed. Through the motif of the "pool" or "spoils division", Zola masterfully depicts a society in which money, carnal pleasures and personal interests have suppressed all human virtue. The novel is an extremely powerful and timeless critique of capitalist greed, social hypocrisy and moral decay in the rise of the modern city.
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