Pot-Bouille is the tenth novel in the Rougon-Macquart series by Émile Zola. It was serialized between January and April 1882 in the periodical before being published in book form by Charpentier in 1883.
The novel is an indictment of the mores of the bourgeoisie of the Second French Empire. It is set in a Parisian apartment building, a relatively new housing arrangement at the time and its title (roughly translating as stew pot) reflects the disparate and sometimes unpleasant elements lurking behind the building's new façade.
Explanation of the novel's title
Like Zola's earlier novel L'Assommoir (1877), the title is extremely difficult to render in English. The word pot-bouille is a 19th-century French slang term for a large cooking pot or cauldron used for preparing stews and casseroles and also the foods prepared in it. The title is intended to convey a sense of disparate ingredients, the various inhabitants of the building mixed together, to create a potent and heady mix like a strong stew. The impression is to hint at the greed, ambition and depravity which lies behind the pretentious façade of the outwardly well behaved bourgeois apartment block. There is no equivalent word in English to convey this. The closest English term would probably be an expression such as melting pot.
In the 1937 film The Life of Emile Zola, the novel's title is rendered as Piping Hot.
Plot summary
Pot-Bouille recounts the activities of the residents of a block of flats in the Rue de Choiseul over the course of two years (1861–1863). The characters include:
The Campardons. Madame Campardon has a mysterious medical condition that keeps them from having sex (probably a prolapse since the maids describe her as "blocked"). The husband is having an affair with her distant cousin, who eventually moves in and manages the household while continuing the affair. Despite their best efforts, they cannot conceal this arrangement from their daughter Angèle, who learns all the secrets in the building from the family servant. The Duveyriers. Monsieur Duveyrier detests the bourgeois respectability of his wife's household, particularly her piano playing and takes refuge with a bohemian mistress Clarisse, an arrangement that suits his frigid wife perfectly. When Clarisse aspires to domesticity and respectability, Monsieur Duveyrier attempts suicide and later begins an affair with one of the maids. The Josserands. Madame Josserand is relentless in her hunt to find husbands for her daughters. Zola compares the business of husband-hunting to prostitution and indeed Madame Josserand trots her daughters out in society to snare any man who will have them, under the cover of respectability and decorum. Madame Josserand instills her contempt for men (including her husband) in her younger daughter Berthe, who is able to compromise Auguste Vabre and force a marriage. The Vabres (Théophile and Valérie). The wife, described as neurotic and somewhat hysterical, is involved in multiple, loveless affairs (it is common knowledge that her son is not her husband’s). The husband is a possibly impotent hypochondriac living in perpetual suspicion of his wife's behaviour. The Pichons. Going through the motions of marriage, they have subjugated all passion in every aspect of their lives, including rearing their daughter, subduing any romance (Madame Pichon has an affinity for the novels of George Sand) beneath cold, hollow propriety.
Condoning the behaviour of these characters are the local priest and doctor, who use their positions to cover up everyone's moral and physical failings. The characters' habits and secrets are also guarded by the concierge, who turns a blind eye to everything going on. The sham respectability of the residents is contrasted with the candour of their servants, who secretly abuse their employers over the open sewer of the building's inner courtyard.