Doctor Pascal (The Rougon Macquart)

Doctor Pascal is the final volume in Zola's monumental Rougon-Macquart series of novels. It is, in Zola's own words, both a summary and a conclusion of all his work. Shortly after the fall of the Second Empire in the town of Plassans in torrid, stormy Provence, Dr Pascal Rougon is nearing retirement from his general practice, but is still deeply interested in ground-breaking research in the new science of heredity, in which he is a prominent authority. He wants to know what causes the creation of such widely varying types of people from the same parents and family lines. What better source of research material than his own extended family, the Rougons and Macquarts, whose tales are told in the previous volumes of the series? Yet, even though he is nearly sixty, he finds his passions awakening and, after a life spent alone with only his servant and young niece for company, he now yearns to know a woman's love. On both counts, he must deal with his mother, the formidable Felicité Rougon, who is determined that the family name will not be besmirched either by Pascal's revelations of its secrets in the cause of science, or his growing passion for life and all its joys. A tale of love, faith and betrayal, of passions as stormy as the mistral, plays itself out under the sweltering sun of the French Midi. Doctor Pascal is a fittingly dramatic denouement to the sprawling story of the Rougon-Macquart.