For Zola, as for Huysmans, nature itself is uncanny because it is the domain of the feminine, a domain that is constitutionally defective, lacking, even pathological.

Charles Bernheimer
About This Quote

In a word, the nature of nature is uncanny. In this quote from Zola’s Nana, Huysmans captures the terror of nature for Zola. In the story of Nana, nature is a place of death and ruin where natural forces ravage human lives. The natural world, as Huysmans describes it, is a maelstrom of destruction that can destroy a person’s life in a moment.

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  1. For Zola, as for Huysmans, nature itself is uncanny because it is the domain of the feminine, a domain that is constitutionally defective, lacking, even pathological.
  2. Huysmans takes the old trope of moon-as-woman and replaces its romantic connotations with decadent ones: the moon here is woman as clamorous lunatic, as convulsive epileptic.
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