ENGLISH 125D Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Terroir
Document Summary
We"ve discussed the train itself as milieu, and place that speaks to mobility. Mandate of realism: unflinching observation of the world. Not an amoral author; zola definitely produces moral proclamations, but realism suspends those proclamations in its actual depictions of the world. P40-41 - aunt phasie"s contemplation of the train. Focus on perception - what kind of world does phasie see? how (new way of seeing?) Ideal example of what panoramic vision requires? a solitary figure with a trained eye . In wine, there"s the concept of terroir - you can taste the location, a sense of rootedness to place. In the context of the modern fr novel, place is a residual effect of uprootedness. Peasants were understood as working the land - but now a whole social class is uprooted from place. Note phasie"s rootedness/fixedness in the midst of this - observing motion. Her solitude speaks to the larger condition of the modern: the anonymity of mobility.
