Emile Zola's reputation as a landmark European novelist is undisputed. Is there any more to be said? Susan Harrow answers boldly in the affirmative, challenging the commonplace view that Zola's writing is predictable, prolix and transparent (what Barthes called 'readerly', for which read 'tedious').

Part i: unfolding modernity, Old Consensus and New Currency part ii: the embodiment of style, part iii: the social body

Susan Harrow is Professor of French at the University of Bristol.